Abstract
Parliamentary debate is one major outlet for Members of Parliament (MPs), who spend lots of
time preparing for and participating in such discussions. In this paper, we investigate in how
far the focus MPs choose in their speeches varies as the economic, partisan and electoral
context changes. We choose to study the dynamics nature of speech content in the UK House
of Commons, as British MPs enjoy broad discretion regarding the content of their speeches.
This paper analyses the constituency, national or partisan focus of all speeches held in the
House of Commons between January 1996 and September 2004. We find that government
and opposition MPs react differently to contextual changes. Government MPs generally have
a higher district focus, which is increased further when the local economy declines and when
the governing party becomes more popular.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 29 Aug 2013 |
Event | 109th Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Political Science Association (APSA) 2013 - Chicago, United States Duration: 29 Aug 2013 → 1 Sep 2013 Conference number: 109 |
Conference
Conference | 109th Annual Meeting & Exhibition of the American Political Science Association (APSA) 2013 |
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Abbreviated title | APSA |
Country/Territory | United States |
City | Chicago |
Period | 29/08/13 → 1/09/13 |
Keywords
- METIS-301618
- IR-88918