The Effects of Election Proximity on Participatory Shirking: The Staggered-Term Chamber as a Laboratory

• Kentaro Fukumoto ^[1] ; Akitaka Matsuo ^[2]
  1. [1] Gakushuin University

     Gakushuin University

     Japón

     
  2. [2] University of Oxford

     University of Oxford

     Oxford District, Reino Unido

     
• Localización: Legislative studies quarterly, ISSN 0362-9805, Vol. 40, N. 4, 2015, págs. 599-625
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • This study discusses a downside of electoral pressure. As elections approach, legislators reduce their effort in legislative activities, albeit while increasing their efficiency. To show this, we propose a new, natural experimental design exploiting staggered legislative election calendars to identify the effect of approaching elections. Two-way natural blocking improves the balance of pretreatments and an instrumental variable approach addresses noncompliance by retirees. Our analysis of the Japanese House of Councillors demonstrates that legislators up for election show up in the chamber less often than those not facing election; however, when they do show up and speak, they tend to speak longer.