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European Union institutions have been notoriously criticized for their lack of day-to-day linkage with European citizenry. The European Parliament as the only directly elected EU institution is logically one of the 'closest' linkage institutions to the European electorate. However, little is known about how its representatives - Members' of the European Parliament (MEP) - connect, service and cultivate relations with their constituencies between two elections points. This thesis attempts to fill in this missing link. Using original data from the author's self-administered 2009 MEP survey (N=145), this thesis empirically traces MEP's constituency orientations in three steps. It first maps out MEP constituency orientations in terms of MEP's attitudes / how they think about a their constituencies, the importance they attach to constituency work and the types of activities they pursue in their constituency work. Given that MEP function in an ICT era, in addition to mapping MEP's constituency outreach offline, as part of the second step, the thesis also evaluates how MEP incorporate ICTs and Internet platforms in their constituency outreach. Could it be that the various interactive, transactional and asynchronous features that the Internet provides prompt MEP to use their websites, blogs or social networking sites as quasi virtual constituency offices? In view that a fair degree of variation was found in MEP's constituency outreach, the third last step looks at the determinant of this variation. Overall, the thesis' findings demonstrate that in spite the low institutional and electoral incentives for them to engage in constituency work, MEP conduct a wide range of constituency outreach activities both offline and online. Moreover, citizens contact MEP with diverse types of casework. At the same time data also showed that majority of MEP still prioritize and attach more importance to their legislative duties as oppose to their constituency work. With respect to MEP's Internet usage, the thesis findings further suggest that it is yet premature to conclude that the 'virtual constituency office' is replacing the conventional constituency (offline).
Abstract: The paper models the consequences of committee report allocation for political representation in the European Parliament (EP). The range of legislators involved in each policy area affects the values, interests and constituencies that the Parliament represents. Thus, representation is defined as an MEP's participation in salient policy areas. The allocation of salient reports follows inter-and intra-party group dynamics. First, party groups compete for salient reports in a context of open voting rules in committee and plenum. Second, group coordinators distribute these reports among their MEPs in an attempt to maximize the cohesion of the group. The model is tested on data from the fifth European Parliament (1999-2002). The results confirm the impact of selective participation on political representation. The EP has evolved into a 'normal' Parliament featuring coalitions and competition along a left-right cleavage across party groups and a hierarchical allocation of legislative spo
The recent empowerment of the European Parliament makes this a timely study of the impact of its internal organisation on legislative politics, interest representation and democracy within the Union. Using data on all legislators and legislative proposals in the sixth parliamentary term, the book confronts alternative theories of legislative organisation in rigorous statistical analyses supported by rich interview information. The findings indicate that the internal setup and legislative output of the parliamentary committees serve the policy goals of parties in the European Parliament, and in particular the working majority party, rather than special interests or purely informational needs, which the author explains with the formal and informal parliamentary rules. As the committees advance party politics instead of particularistic policies, she concludes that legislating within the committees is positive for democracy in the European Union and raises concerns about the loss in transparency, legitimacy and accountability that the increasingly common fast-track bicameral decision-making outside the committees entails.
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Elena Frech addresses the issue of candidate (re-)selection for the European elections. Studying German parties, the author investigates both, the rules and practice of candidate selection. The study is one of the first to shed light on the goals political parties pursue when selecting candidates in the European context. First, the author provides a detailed account of the formal and informal procedures German parties use to construct the electoral lists for the European elections. Then she turns towards the individual candidates, showing which factors determine the list placement of incumbent parliamentarians. The findings highlight the importance of individual candidate characteristics as well as party institutions and are of interest not only to scientists but also to parties, politicians, and citizens.
Lundberg critically examines the claim that party list-elected members of Britain's devolved assemblies, in Wales and Scotland, are somehow 'second-class' representatives. Although list-elected representatives in Britain have a different constituency role, these representatives add an important element of pluralism to Britain's politics.