The Impact of Electoral Reform on Parliamentary Behaviour

Large-scale reform of electoral systems is associated with changes in party system. Over the past decade more focus has been on what impact such reforms have on MP behaviour, especially in terms of speech-making. In this paper speech-making in the Danish Parliament 1901-1939 is examined. Elections to the lower chamber underwent a reform in 1918-20 from single-member plurality to proportional representation, while indirect elections to the upper chamber remained unchanged. The focus of the paper is what the reform meant for how often MPs spoke and on what topics. It is examined whether the reform had an impact on how parties divided the responsibilities for policy areas among its members. Given that the reform was implemented in 1918 in the Capital region of Copenhagen and in 1920 across the entire country it is also explored whether those members with earlier experience of proportional representation saw an earlier change in behaviour. The findings are compared with speech-making in the upper chamber where given its unchanged electoral system we should not expect to see any change in speech-making. The analysis is further supported by text-analysis of specific debates before and after the electoral system change. Overall, the findings in the paper is that there was a clear impact on speech-making in that MPs with smaller majorities after the reform spoke more often and on more topics. This shows that they reacted to intra-party competition which was less important prior to the reform.