Polarization in Parliament: Evidence from Speeches

• In Event: Text and speech analysis in European politics

Abstract

In list-based proportional representation systems the election of individual politi-
cians largely depends on their rank position on the ballot. Party organizations
therefore play a crucial role in determining which candidates will be elected, and
incumbents have incentives to remain popular among party elites. Does this mean
that candidate background characteristics are unimportant given party affiliation?
We study this question using legislative speech from the Norwegian Parliament and
recently developed machine-learning techniques. We document considerable within-
party polarization in speech across four dimensions: gender, urbanicity, age, and
class background. This suggests that even in a party-centered environment like
Norway, politicians' social ties and group identities matter.

Authors

• Jon H. Fiva, Norwegian Business School

• Oda Nedregård, BI Norwegian Business School