Siim Trumm

Voting Procedures and Parliamentary Representation in the European Parliament

Parliamentary representation is a fluid concept. Yet, while the behaviour of elected representatives during roll call votes has been widely analyzed, we know little about how parliamentarians act when their individual voting choices are not made public. This paper explores the relationship between voting procedures and the likelihood that Members of the European Parliament prioritize the interests of their EP party group versus the interests of their national party. Using an original survey, I find that MEPs are more likely to prioritize the interests of their national party over those of their EP party group when voting by show of hands or electronically, as opposed to by roll call. Moreover, this voting procedure effect is particularly salient among MEPs elected from 2004/07 accession countries.

What does it take to make it to the polling station? The effects of campaign activities on electoral participation:

This study explores the extent to which campaign visibility facilitates electoral participation, using data from first- and second-order elections in Britain. Our contribution to the existing literature is threefold. First, we assess whether the effects of campaign effort are conditioned by marginality, finding that campaign mobilization gets out the vote regardless of the competitiveness of the race. Second, we look at the relative ability of different campaign activities to stimulate turnout, detecting significant differences. Third, we show that the effects of campaign effort on electoral participation are rather similar in first- and second-order elections. These findings suggest that a greater level of electoral information provided by campaign activities does reduce the cost of voting. Local campaigns play a key role in bringing voters to the polls in marginal and non-marginal races and at general elections as much as at second-order elections.

A Comparative Study of the Effects of Electoral Institutions on Campaigns

A long tradition of studies in political science has unveiled the effects of electoral institutions on party systems and parliamentary representation. Yet, their effects on campaign activities remain overlooked. Research in this tradition still lacks a strong comparative element able to explore the nuanced role that electoral institutions play in shaping individual-level campaigns during first-order parliamentary elections. We use data from a variety of national candidate studies to address this lacuna, showing that the electoral mobilisation efforts put in place by candidates are affected by the structure of the electoral institutions. Candidate-centred electoral systems propel higher mobilisation efforts, in terms of both campaign intensity and complexity. Moreover, we find that candidate-centred electoral systems shift the campaign focus towards individuals more than parties. By directly addressing the effects of electoral institutions on campaign behaviour, our study contributes to the wider debate on their role in promoting political engagement and mobilisation. The implications of our results concern the effects of electoral institutions on political competition, indicating that the extent to which electoral institutions impact upon it go well beyond what has been shown to date.

What Does It Take to Get Elected in a Post-Communist Democracy? Explaining the Success and Failure of Parliamentary Candidates in Estonia

The literature on post-communist democracies has traditionally suggested that organisational strength is considerably less important for electoral success than extensive media-based campaigns. Recent studies on party-level electoral dynamics, however, indicate that this might not be the case any longer. Building on these insights, this study goes beyond the party-level analyses of electoral success and failure by focusing on the electoral fortunes of individual candidates in a post-communist democracy. Using original data from the 2011 Estonian Candidate Survey, this article looks at the comparative impact of candidates’ campaign spending and the strength of their local party organisation, alongside other potentially relevant characteristics, on their likelihood of getting elected and vote share. The findings suggest that candidates’ electoral performance in Estonia is still first and foremost shaped by their own campaign spending. In addition, I find evidence that candidates fare better if they have prior local-level and national-level political experience, conduct more personalised campaigns, and are positioned higher up on their party’s district-level list.

From parliamentary pay to party funding: The acceptability of informal institutions in advanced democracies

While direct state funding of political parties has been a prominent theme in cross-national research over the last decade, we still know little about party strategies to access state resources that are not explicitly earmarked for partisan usage. This paper looks at one widespread but often overlooked informal party practice: the ‘taxing’ of MP salaries, i.e., the regular transfer of fixed salary shares to party coffers. Building on notions of informal institutions developed in work on new democracies, our theoretical approach specifies factors that shape the acceptability of this legally non-enforceable intra-organisational practice. It is tested through a selection model applied to a unique data set covering 124 parties across 19 advanced democracies. Controlling for a range of party- and institutional-level variables, we find that the presence of a taxing rule and the collection of demanding tax shares are more common in leftist parties (high internal acceptability) and in systems in which the penetration of state institutions by political parties is intense (high external acceptability).