Hard Work Pays Off: Candidate Selection and Parliamentary Activity

Although power over candidate selection is often mentioned in the literature on parliamentary behavior, empirical research concerning parties’ actual use of candidate selection as a positive or negative sanction for MPs is scarce. We propose and test a theory of candidate selection which focuses on the level of MPs’ parliamentary activity, in terms of speeches, resolutions, amendments and questions. Our analysis focuses on the Dutch case, which features national party lists. It is therefore extremely well suited to test the effects of parliamentary activity on candidate selection, not only in terms of MPs being reselected but also in terms of the relative standing within their party: do they move up or down the candidate list from one election to another? We expect that more active MPs have a higher probability of being reselected and promotion, i.e. moving up the candidate list. The empirical analysis of the Dutch lower house of Parliament between 1998 and 2017 combines data from the Dutch Parliamentary Behaviour Dataset with an original data collection and analysis of MPs’ parliamentary speeches. Our main finding is that speaking in the plenary is the parliamentary activity most strongly related to reselection and promotion.