Shirking and Slacking in Parliament

The behavior of individual members of parliament (MPs) is not only driven by conscience, party discipline, and ideological positions. Their choice to speak, vote, or otherwise select a behavioral strategy from a wide arsenal of parliamentary tactics is influenced by, among countless other factors, constituency interests, parliamentary rules, and the party leadership. Term limits remove one of the most important motivations of MP behavior: re-election constraints. Following the literature on parliamentary behavior, we study whether term-limited MPs engage in shirking - not voting with the party line - and/or slacking - a reduction of parliamentary activities. Drawing on newly collected empirical material stemming from various Swiss parliamentary chambers we can assess these effects in different institutional settings (different term limits and different federal levels) and take advantage of behavioral data not available in other settings. More specifically, at the federal level we rely on information from both roll-call and other votes to assess shirking among term-limited MPs in greater detail, and examine how they show such behavior towards their party and their constituencies. Speeches by members from all chambers studied further allow us to determine how the proximity to the party leadership changes as legislators retire or are forced to step down because of term limits, offering additional insights into shirking behavior. These speeches, together with other activities (e.g. bill introduction, questions, etc.), also offer information on whether term-limited MPs engage in slacking.