Document Detail


Voting patterns and alliance formation in the European Parliament.
MedLine Citation:
PMID:  19073477     Owner:  NLM     Status:  MEDLINE    
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have voluntarily formed transnational political groups and invariably follow the voting instructions of these groups. This is intriguing as there are few obvious incentives for doing so. Unlike national parties, for example, the political groups in the European Parliament are not punished by the electorate if they are divided on key issues, as citizens know very little about what goes on inside the European Parliament. This paper pieces together an explanation of why the European political groups exist and why they have become so powerful by looking at the determinants of group cohesion and by undertaking a spatial analysis of voting in the European Parliament. MEPs who share preferences on a range of issues on the European Union policy agenda have an incentive to establish a division-of-labour contract and to share the costs of collecting information. Once internal party policy specialization and agenda setting has been established, MEPs have incentives to follow the voting instructions of their group owing to the advantages of cohesion in a context of repeated voting.
Authors:
Simon Hix; Abdul Noury; G?rard Roland
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Publication Detail:
Type:  Journal Article    
Journal Detail:
Title:  Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences     Volume:  364     ISSN:  1471-2970     ISO Abbreviation:  Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond., B, Biol. Sci.     Publication Date:  2009 Mar 
Date Detail:
Created Date:  2009-02-16     Completed Date:  2009-04-10     Revised Date:  2010-03-30    
Medline Journal Info:
Nlm Unique ID:  7503623     Medline TA:  Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci     Country:  England    
Other Details:
Languages:  eng     Pagination:  821-31     Citation Subset:  IM    
Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science, Houghton Street, London WC2A, UK. s.hix@lse.ac.uk
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MeSH Terms
Descriptor/Qualifier:
Cooperative Behavior*
European Union*
Government*
Humans
Interpersonal Relations
Politics*

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine


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