Domestic Parties and European Legislators

This project seeks to discover what conditions maximize policy congruence between MEP behavior and domestic party preferences. Current research examining the relationship between MEP behavior and domestic parties offers insight into the way MEPs view their role in the EP with respect to their parties; however, this literature provides mixed conclusions about the influence of parties on an individual’s behavior and incorporates a plethora of methodological techniques for estimating party control and/or policy congruence (Coman 2009; Hix, Noury, and Roland 2007; Mühlböck 2012). This paper explores the causal relationship between electoral systems, party organization, and personal ambition in creating policy congruence between MEP behavior and their domestic principal’s preferences. The project tests the effects of variation in country level differences in electoral and party systems, as well as variation in party structures and individual political goals as determinants of legislative behavior. It will do so by utilizing an exogenous measure of domestic party preferences, allowing for a comparison across parties and members states. This technique will contribute to the study of parties in Europe by providing a measure of the quality of party representation in the parliament. In order to explain variation across parties, the paper will focus on differences in electoral laws, candidate selection, personal ambition, and national delegation organization as the main determinants of the legislative discretion. Conclusions from this paper can answer questions about how different types of parties contribute to variation in the level of representation across member state in the EU. Understanding the way MEPs are controlled by their parties offers another avenue for understanding the quality of representation at the European level; thus conclusions from this project will further our understanding about how different types of parties represent public interests across member states in the EU.