Legislating for Europe: The dynamics of MEP voting behavior

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisorStevenson, Randolph T.en_US
dc.creatorReichert, M. Shawnen_US
dc.date.accessioned2009-06-04T08:50:16Zen_US
dc.date.available2009-06-04T08:50:16Zen_US
dc.date.issued2005en_US
dc.description.abstractThe European Parliament is a unique legislative body. It is a supranational legislature with directly elected members. The policy authority of the EP has increased dramatically as the European level legislation has grown both in depth and scope. This thesis addresses the question of what political pressures most influence members of the EP when they are voting on legislation. The members are directly elected from national constituencies as members of national political parties. Once elected to the EP, members sit according to ideology in transnational party groups. Potentially then, the national constituency, the national political party, and transnational party groups all pressure MEN to vote a particular way on given pieces of legislation. I propose a principal-agent theory that assesses the relative strength of these competing pressures. While there is reason to expect each 'principal' to pressure MEPs, I argue that it is necessary to take the policy content into account. Specifically, I hypothesize that distributive policies are more likely to bring national pressures to bear, while voting on regulatory policies is more likely to be governed by ideological considerations. I test these hypotheses using a large sample of roll-call votes chosen specifically for their policy content during the period 1984--1994.en_US
dc.format.extent389 p.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.callnoTHESIS POL.SCI. 2005 REICHERTen_US
dc.identifier.citationReichert, M. Shawn. "Legislating for Europe: The dynamics of MEP voting behavior." (2005) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/18806">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/18806</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/18806en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectPolitical scienceen_US
dc.titleLegislating for Europe: The dynamics of MEP voting behavioren_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentPolitical Scienceen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineSocial Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
3168130.PDF
Size:
69.39 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Download
Collections
Rice University Theses and Dissertations