Representative Government in The Books Store

Modern legislators are increasingly motivated to serve their constituents in personal ways. Representatives act like ultimate ombudsmen: they keep in close touch with their constituents and try to cultivate a relationship with them based on service and accessibility. The Personal Vote describes the behavior of representatives in the United States and Great Britain and the response of their constituents as well. It shows how congressmen and members of Parliament earn personalized support and how this attenuates their ties to national leaders and parties.

The larger significance of this empirical work arises from its implications for the structure of legislative institutions and the nature of legislative action. Personalized electoral support correlates with decentralized governing institutions and special-interest policy making. Such systems tend to inconsistency and stalemate. The United States illustrates a mature case of this development, and Britain is showing the first movements in this direction with the decline of an established two-party system, the rise of a centrist third party, greater volatility in the vote, growing backbench independence and increasing backbench pressure for committees and staff.

This book is essential for specialists in American national government, British politics, and comparative legislatures and comparative parties.

The book had its genesis at the Nordic Political Science Association Conference in Oslo in 1993, where several of the contributors met to discuss the possibility of coordinating parliamentary surveys already underway in some of the Nordic countries. The five-nation project Nordic Legislature and Legislators was started shortly thereafter, and members of the research group met on several occasions over the next few years to organize their research. The collaborative nature of this project makes it a particularly valuable contribution to our understanding of how parliaments work.