Legislator Dissent and Electoral Outcomes

Voters seem to prefer independent-minded legislative representatives. An increasing number of studies report that people express support for legislators who vote against their party line in parliament. This could have important implications for modern democracies, where political parties need discipline to play their central role in delegation and accountability, if such preferences are reflected in electoral behaviour. This paper provides evidence from the United Kingdom, with data from individual-level vote choice as well as constituency-level electoral results over the last two decades. Exploring the variations in voting patterns over time with a difference-in-differences approach, we find results that are most compatible with the null hypothesis — that legislative dissent is neither rewarded nor punished in elections. These results call into question the degree to which voters know and/or care about legislative dissent in parliament.