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Sponsoring Early Day Motions in the British House of Commons as a Response to Electoral Vulnerability*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2013

Michael Kellermann
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Abstract

While the importance of individual candidates in British elections has long been minimized, this article argues that early day motions (EDMs)—formal, non-binding expressions of opinion—allow backbench MPs to cultivate reputations with constituents. First, this article demonstrates that greater sponsorship of EDMs is associated with better electoral outcomes, which suggests that EDMs could help vulnerable MPs improve their electoral prospects. Secondly, a Bayesian hierarchical negative binomial hurdle model, which accounts for specific features of EDM sponsorship and is novel in political science, shows that members from electorally competitive constituencies are more likely to introduce EDMs, and introduce them more often, than members from less competitive constituencies. Moreover, this relationship has increased over the past 20 years.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , December 2013 , pp. 263 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association. This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States, 2013 

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Footnotes

*

Michael Kellermann is Assistant Professor, Political Science Department, United States Naval Academy, 589 McNair Road, Annapolis, Maryland 21402-5030 ([email protected]). An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2011 Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, 31 March–3 April 2011. Thanks to Steve Lem, Martin Hansen, Rebecca Nelson, Eleanor Powell, Kevin Quinn, G. Bingham Powell, Tiffany Davenport, James Alt, Nick Biziouras, the editors and three anonymous referees for helpful comments. This research was conducted with the support of a Naval Academy Research Council summer grant. Any views expressed are the author's and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Naval Academy, Department of Defense or the U.S. government. To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2013.19

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