Patterns of Attendance in the European Parliament: Who Turns Up, Why

• In Event: New Research on EU (Legislative) Politics

Abstract

We explore the determinants of attendance of Members of the European Parliament as well as whether those who attend more are subsequently more likely to be re-elected or awarded with more senior roles. We test whether attendance is explained by legislative responsibilities such as voting in plenary or Committee and if so, we expect variation according to vote margins, votes’ importance, preference alignment with the party group leadership, as well as across party groups and policy areas. We then assess whether re-election and important positions within the EP are associated with attendance compared to mean attendance of the respective party group. We assembled a large dataset with information on daily attendance 2004-2022, including whether voting took place that day, votes’ outcomes as well as individual vote choices, representatives’ nationalities, national party affiliations, European Group affiliations, responsibilities in Parliament of each representative at any given day during the period of study, as well as a battery of controls such as policy areas, the weather that day in Brussels and the gender of the representatives.

Authors

• Philipp Christian Broniecki, University of Oslo

• Bjørn Høyland, University of Oslo