Proportional representation systems affect the extent to which elected legislators exhibit various attributes that allow them to earn a personal vote. Personal vote-earning attributes (PVEA) are more important in preferential list systems. In addition, when lists are closed, legislators' PVEA are of decreasing usefulness to the maximization of votes by parties as district magnitude increases. When lists are open, legislators' PVEA are increasingly useful to maximize votes by parties (and candidates) as district magnitude increases. We will focus on two key processes of parliamentary activity –i.e., legislative speeches and parliamentary questions- and see how these vary across countries (i.e., across list types) and within them (across district magnitudes). For our empirical tests, we use data from the Comparative Agendas Project. The selected cases include two “closed-list” cases (Spain and UK) and four preferential-list cases (Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland). More importantly, district magnitude varies considerably within the selected cases.
