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There is growing interest in personal representation and policy responsiveness in the European literature. The current scholarship mainly focuses on strong legislatures. This article aims to contribute to the discussion about policy responsiveness by investigating the least likely case, France. It asks whether French MPs engage in policy responsiveness, and if they do, how responsiveness interacts with party agenda and electoral vulnerability. Drawing on written parliamentary questions asked by French MPs from 1997 to 2007 ( N = 1172), the article shows that MPs' behaviour is strongly affected by their district features. Moreover, the article shows that party agenda conditions the impact of district features. MPs are more likely to engage in policy responsiveness when the issue is also essential for the party. In other words, policy responsiveness is not independent of the party agenda. The article thus contributes to a better understanding of the personalisation of political representation and its relationship with political parties.

Considerable research argues that voters reward personal vote-seeking behaviors. The expected electoral gain would be the primary driver of MPs' action. Nevertheless, empirical evidence is scarce, and the findings do not always match the theoretical expectations. This article examines the electoral impact of personal vote-seeking behaviors, arguing in favor of integrating party electoral performance into the models. I also propose a new measure of electoral performance based on the evolution of MPs electoral results. Drawing on data from Finland, the findings globally support the theoretical arguments. MPs benefit from personal vote-seeking behaviors, primarily when their party improves its results. The findings have important implications for our knowledge of the personal vote and, more generally, the personalization of politics. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed

There is growing interest in personal representation and policy responsiveness in the European literature. The current scholarship mainly focuses on strong legislatures. This article aims to contribute to the discussion about policy responsiveness by investigating the least likely case, France. It asks whether French MPs engage in policy responsiveness, and if they do, how responsiveness interacts with party agenda and electoral vulnerability. Drawing on written parliamentary questions asked by French MPs from 1997 to 2007 (N = 1172), the article shows that MPs' behaviour is strongly affected by their district features. Moreover, the article shows that party agenda conditions the impact of district features. MPs are more likely to engage in policy responsiveness when the issue is also essential for the party. In other words, policy responsiveness is not independent of the party agenda. The article thus contributes to a better understanding of the personalisation of political representation and its relationship with political parties. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed

This research deals with French MPs responsiveness. This dissertation studies the dyadicrepresentation in the French Assemblée nationale which was largely neglected by scholars. It givesthus a new insight on the diversity of French MPs activities both in Paris and in their district.Following the arguments of the rational choice new institutionalism, our dissertation aims tohighlight the institutional determinants of MPs responsiveness toward their district and the logicsthat underlie their practices of representations. By overcoming the descriptiveness of many studiesand thanks to original and solid empirical data, we show that the characteristics of the districtstrongly affect both the kind and the content of MPs activities. The district and the various citizens'expectations systematically affect the way French MPs conceive their mandate. ; Cette recherche traite de la réactivité des parlementaires français vis-à-vis de leur circonscription.Ce faisant, notre thèse investit l'aspect dyadique de la représentation politique qui a été largementignoré par la littérature française et offre ainsi un nouveau regard sur la variété des activités desdéputés français tant à Paris qu'en circonscription. En s'inspirant des écrits du néoinstitutionnalismedes choix rationnels, notre thèse vise à mettre en lumière les déterminantsinstitutionnels de la réactivité vis-à-vis de la circonscription ainsi que les logiques qui sous-tendentles pratiques de représentation. En surmontant le descriptivisme de beaucoup d'études à ce sujetet à l'aide de solides matériaux empiriques, nous montrons que le territoire d'élection affectegrandement le comportement des députés tant dans le contenu que sur la forme des activités. Lacirconscription et les attentes différenciées des citoyens agissent de manière systématique sur lamanière dont les députés mènent leur mandat.

International audience ; In early 2000s, Simon Hix and his colleagues declared EP constitutes a good laboratory to test theories and hypotheses about legislative or party behavior. However, scholars mainly focused on roll-call votes analysis allowing them to investigate voting behavior, coalitions formation as well as activities in technical committees (Hix 2001; Hix, Noury and Roland 2007; Kreppel 2007; Mammoudh and Raunio 2003; McElroy 2006). In this paper, we propose to go further to analyze MEPs behavior with new methodological approach mobilizing new type of data. According to Fenno (1978), we argue that work in Parliament should not be investigated without considering constituency work. Surprisingly, despite the institutionalization of constituency work (the green weeks), only few studies focused on micro-level linkages between MEPs and citizens (Farrel and Scully 2007). Mobilizing ethnographic data collected in the IMPLOC project (managed by Olivier Costa and Jean-Benoit Pilet), the purpose of this paper is to investigate the concrete practice of political representation through the observation of MEPs' activities in their constituency. This paper will investigate the scope, the practice and the pitfalls of MEPs constituency work and reflect it based on the current theories of representation. In addition, by investigating day-to-day contacts between citizens and their MEPs, this paper will offer a new perspective in the debate about the democratic deficit of EP (Farrel and Scully 2007; Clark and Rohrschneider 2009) and EU institutions (Moravcsik 2002; Rittberger 2003)

This article seeks to contribute to the electoral and party politics debate in three main ways. The first is the claim that parachuting politicians into districts in which they have no prior connections is not a nomination practice that is the exclusive preserve of plurality electoral systems, nor does it necessarily engender the critical reaction of carpetbagging in the United States or 'captain's picks' in Australia. Second, the practice of parachutage is tied to the personalisation literature but, in contrast to this literature, the article views [parachute] personalisation and party as complementary and mutually reinforcing rather than contradictory. Parachute personalisation serves party-based representative democracy rather than attenuates it. Third, the article questions the undue focus in the personal vote literature on a candidate's personal-vote-seeking attributes. Rather, in concentrating on the transferability of the parachute vote as an electoral resource, the generic term 'personal vote' is viewed as comprising a mélange of party-vote-earning attributes – inter alia name-recognition and reputational status as a party office-holder – and personal-vote-earning attributes – name-recognition from outside party politics (sport, music, etc.). The central question addressed runs: When and why in an intraparty preference voting system – Finland is the focus – is parachute personalisation practised and with what result?

Introduction to a symposium: 'The electoral connection revisited: personal vote-seeking efforts'

Having achieved a major breakthrough in the 2011 elections, the Finns Party remained in opposition but joined the governing coalition from 2015 until 2017 when the party suffered a serious internal split. This article shows that the overall impact of the populists on parliamentary procedures and culture has been modest. The Finns Party has adjusted to the strongly institutionalised parliamentary norms and it has not contested the existing patterns of legislative–executive relations. The populists have brought more confrontational elements to the debates but seem content operating within the established institutional constraints. Content analysis of oral and written questions shows the internal diversity of the party.

Introduction to a symposium: 'The electoral connection revisited: personal vote-seeking efforts' ; publishedVersion ; Non peer reviewed

Recent literature highlights the incentives emanating from the electoral system and intraparty politics to explain unequal access to the plenary floor. This article contributes to the literature by investigating the effect of electoral vulnerability on the likelihood to deliver speeches in a preferential voting system. Drawing on data from Finland, it argues that intraparty vulnerability has a negative impact on the likelihood to deliver speeches, whereas the opposite effect is expected regarding interparty vulnerability. The findings show that intraparty vulnerability is negatively correlated with the number of speeches and that this effect is even larger when intraparty competition is tougher. The article underlines the importance of individual electoral goals when exploring legislative speechmaking. It also shows the need to distinguish the two forms of vulnerability and to consider factors that mediate the electoral connection. ; publishedVersion ; Peer reviewed