Strategic Behaviour of
Opposition Legislators
A case study on the Dutch national parliament
Bachelor thesis Political Science
Name:
Chiel Christian Claassen (s1836803)
Study program:
BA Political Science
First Reader/Supervisor:
Dr. T.A. Mickler
Second reader:
Prof. Dr. R.A. Koole
Date:
17-06-2019
Contents
1. Introduction ... 1
2. Theoretical Framework... 3
3. Research design and case selection ... 8
4. Method and data ... 10
5. Results and analysis ... 13
6. Discussion ... 17
7. Conclusion ... 19
Page | 1
1. Introduction
Parliaments have an important position in many democratic systems. The importance of parliaments is translated into its different core functions, resulting in a variety of tasks its members have. Members of parliament (MPs) are not only there to represent the people that elected them, they also form the link between the countries’ citizens and its government (Kreppel, 2014, p. 5). Besides these representative functions, members of parliament have two more tasks to perform. First, they are engaged in the policy-making process. MPs may introduce amendments to policy proposals, which they can then pass or block in parliament. Second, MPs are there to oversee the government’s actions and inactions (Kreppel, 2014, p. 6). They control the work of government.
Members of parliament often belong to different political parties that are either in (coalition) government or part of the opposition. MPs of these different parties still carry out the same tasks in relation to the different functions of parliament as mentioned above. However, the position of government MPs and opposition MPs is different from one another and so are their roles. Governing parties want to stay in power, this does not mean that their MPs are not overseeing and checking the government. But it does make control and oversight a primary task of the opposition. MPs of opposition parties that have a clear goal to govern once themselves, are not only in parliament to oppose government. They also must present themselves and their parties as a credible alternative to government (Sartori, 1969). Therefore, the opposition needs to distinct itself from government by opposing government proposals, while at the same time presenting themselves as responsible (Sartori, 1969, p. 153). In some cases, the attempt from opposition parties to distinct themselves from government leads to strategic opposition voting. Opposition votes against government according to a so called ‘just say no’- strategy (Dewan and Spirling, 2011, p. 353). However, on the contrary, consensus between government and opposition parties appears not to be a scanty phenomenon. Previous studies reveal that high levels of consensus are observed across different European parliaments during decision making processes. In these instances, both government and opposition party MPs voted, relatively often, with one another (Mújica and Sánchez-Cuenca, 2006). In doing so, opposition parties seem not to distinct themselves very clearly from governing parties.
Page | 2 Voting in the policy-making process, however, is only one of things parliaments do. There are also other things opposition MPs do to set themselves apart from those members in the government benches. This can be seen for instance, when looking at the control and oversight function of parliament, where members of the parliamentary opposition fulfil a special role in overseeing the government. Since government is constituted out of members of political parties other than their own, opposition MPs must critically scrutinize the government. Parliamentary opposition does this by questioning the government policies and proposing policy alternatives to the proposals of the government (Norton, 2008, p. 244). Opposition members have several oversight tools at their disposal to do so. Parliamentary questions are an important oversight tool that parliaments have.
I want to further analyse parliamentary questions in order to contribute to our understanding of how opposition parties act strategically. I will test whether party-structural explanations can help explain the varying number of parliamentary questions asked by opposition party members. In doing so, this study tries to find an answer to the following research question:
How can we explain the varying number of parliamentary questions asked by members of the opposition? The Hypotheses on the possible predictors of the use of parliamentary questions
are tested by means of a case study on the Netherlands. I find that the ideological distance of opposition party MPs to government, explains the number of questions raised by opposition MPs better than their populism, party-size or search for electoral safety.
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2. Theoretical Framework
Opposition Behaviour and parliamentary questions
As mentioned in the introduction, it is argued that opposition parties are unable to distinct themselves clearly from governing parties. This seems especially true when one looks at the voting behaviour of opposition parties. Previous studies in the field of opposition behaviour suggest that opposition parties in many countries – including the Netherlands – often vote with the government (Mújica and Sánchez-Cuenca, 2006; Andeweg et al., 2008; Christiansen and Damgaard, 2008; De Giorgi and Marangoni, 2015; Tuttnauer, 2018). In this regard they are not a clear opposition. However, within parliament, members do not only present, amend or pass legislation. Besides their deliberative functions and tasks as representatives of the electorate, members also have control and oversight responsibilities.
Control and oversight are primarily tasks that fit the opposition. Of course, government MPs also control the government, however, members of the opposition are controlling and overseeing the actions of their political competitors in the government. An important oversight tool that parliaments have are parliamentary questions. Parliamentary questions are considered a means to hold the government accountable and to keep them responsive to parliament (Hazama et al., 2007, p. 540; Martin, 2011a, p. 262). Members of opposition parties tend to make more use of this tool, as they ask more parliamentary questions than their colleagues from governing parties do (Proksch and Slapin, 2010; Dandoy, 2011; Otjes and Louwerse, 2017). They use them to ask the government for information or to scrutinize government policies (Louwerse and Otjes, 2017, p. 7).
Research on parliamentary questions looks primarily at the way both government and opposition party MPs use them. It focuses then on the content of these questions, because they offer insights in the concerns and the behaviour of MPs (Martin, 2011a, p. 254). Hazama
et al. (2007) for instance, looked at the content of questions as well as their answers in the
Turkish parliament, to find out why questions were raised and what their political effects are. Similar studies looked at other aspects to find out more about the incentives that made MPs raise their questions. The findings of these studies pointed at a MPs’ personal (minority) background (Saalfeld, 2011), electoral reasons (Vliegenthart and Walgrave, 2011) and the MPs’ constituency focus (Martin, 2011b), as reasons for asking parliamentary questions.
Page | 4 These findings tell us to some extent why MPs ask certain parliamentary questions. However, they do not explain the varying number of questions raised by different members. Explanations can be given by agenda-setting theory. One of them is, that members of different political parties want to strengthen their (party) profile by emphasizing specific issues from their manifestos (Louwerse and Otjes, 2017, p. 15; Senninger, 2017, p. 298). Members who then function as the spokesperson for the issues that may bolster the party profile are likely to ask more questions (Vliegenthart and Walgrave, 2011, p. 1055). Another explanation is that certain MPs raise more parliamentary questions because their portfolios are given extra attention by the media (van Aelst and Vliegenthart, 2014, p. 404). Nonetheless, for both statements, the content of the questions asked is important in explaining the difference in the amount of questions each MP asked.
This study, however, looks at party structural explanations to explain the varying number of parliamentary questions raised by individual members of the opposition. It will be tested whether there are factors that may explain this, independent from the content of the issues raised. Previous studies in the field of opposition behaviour suggest that party related factors can explain the behaviour of individual MPs (Mújica and Sánchez-Cuenca, 2006; Christiansen and Damgaard, 2008; Dewan and Spirling, 2011; De Giorgi and Marangoni, 2015; Tuttnauer, 2018). Four of these factors were identified from the literature: ideology, populism, party size and electoral safety.
Ideology
A frequently linked explanatory factor of legislative behaviour is Ideology. Hix (2001) writes that legislative behaviour in the European Parliament takes place mainly along the ‘left-right’ divide. He suggests that coalition formation as well as voting behaviour can be best explained by this ideological divide (p. 664). But it is evident that MPs of different parties in parliament often have conflicting positions on issues. Nevertheless, MPs sometimes benefit from pointing ideological differences out.
Members of parliament may stress their different positions by using parliamentary oversight tools (Otjes and Louwerse, 2017). Louwerse and Otjes (2017) state that in general “parties ask more questions of ideologically distant government ministers than of ideologically close government ministers” (p. 14). Parliamentary questions are used by MPs to show their
Page | 5 dissatisfaction with government policy or government (in)action. MPs tend to stress extreme policy positionswhen such positions lead to more policy differentiation. This is often the case when parties differ on issues because of their ideologies (Wagner, 2012, p. 82).
When MPs of opposition parties decide to act against government, parliamentary questions are not only used to scrutinize government. MPs may use parliamentary questions in such occasions as a way of focusing negative attention on the ideological opponent (Otjes and Louwerse, 2017, p. 5). In her study on negative campaigning, Walter (2014) finds that political parties are more likely to target political parties that are positioned on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum (Walter, 2014, p. 12). This suggests that parties that are ideologically more distant from government parties, will target these government parties. Therefore, I expect opposition party MPs that are ideologically more distant form their opponents in government, to ask more parliamentary questions. This following hypothesis can be deduced:
Hypotheses 1: Legislators of opposition parties that are ideologically more distant from government parties ask more parliamentary questions than legislators of opposition parties that are ideologically close to governing parties.
Populism
A populist political stance has been shown to have an influence on the way parties use parliamentary control mechanisms. Populism is not always bound to a specific ideological side, you can have both right-wing populist parties as well as left-wing populist parties. These parties tend to be more critical of the governing ‘elite’. This because populist parties claim that government ought to reflect the will of the people (Abts and van Kessel, 2015; Abts and Rummens, 2007; Canovan, 1999; Mair, 2009; Mudde, 2004; Taggart, 2004). However, in the eyes of populist parties, the current governing elites fail to represent the people that elected them (Otjes and Louwerse, 2015, pp. 61-62). The ‘populist ideology’ contains the idea that the corrupt elite represents different interests than that of ‘the people’. Populists argue that politics is about the representation and the expression of the people’s will. Populist parties claim to do exactly that (Mudde, 2004, pp. 543-544). The literature on populism sometimes describes populist parties as the enemies of representative democracy, who strive for forms of direct democracy in their democratic extremism (Abts & Rummens, 2007, p. 422; Mudde,
Page | 6 2004). In their quest to bring government back to the people, populist parties thus ask for direct forms of democracy. So that decisions are taken by the people.
This anti elite stance of populist parties has its effect on how they use parliamentary control mechanisms. Populist opposition parties also aim to scrutinise government policy and more importantly point at mistakes governing parties make. In their work, Louwerse and Otjes (2018) find that populist parties make more use of so-called scrutiny tools than of policy-making tools in parliament (Louwerse and Otjes, 2018, p. 13). However, Louwerse and Otjes included parliamentary questions as well as voting against government policy, as parliamentary oversight tools. And the overall use of policy-making tools by populist parties was not very high anyway. Louwerse and Otjes (2018) conclude that populist parties are often as active, as other smaller critical parties. They point at smaller green or social-liberal parties that pay attention to government mistakes and the public opinion as well (Louwerse and Otjes, 2018, p. 14). The extent to which populist opposition parties might be more critical than other opposition parties, remains a bit unclear. However, Louwerse and Otjes (2018) indicate that members of populist opposition parties might ask more parliamentary questions than MPs of non-populist opposition parties. They do not answer this question themselves, which brings us to the following hypotheses:
Hypotheses 2: Legislators of populist opposition parties will ask more parliamentary questions than legislators of non-populist opposition parties.
Party-size
A third factor that is linked to the number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition party MPs, is the seat share of their parties (Dandoy, 2011, p. 323). There are two groups of literature here that make statements about the direction of this relation. First, there is the literature that argues that a larger party could more credibly pursue to be a replacement for any governing parties (Mújica and Sánchez-Cuenca, 2006). In the literature on voting behaviour, it is argued that larger opposition parties are likely to have office- or vote-seeking goals and are therefore competing with governing parties. In doing so, opposition parties tend to scrutinize government policies more often (De Giorgi and Ilonszki, 2018, pp. 4-5). Thus, MPs of larger opposition parties would ask more parliamentary questions. In support of this it is argued that larger parties simply have more MPs who raise questions than smaller parties.
Page | 7 Larger parties also have more resources at their disposal in terms of funding (when funding is arranged in proportion to party size). If a party receives more funding, it could hire more personnel assisting its MPs in their work (Tuttnauer, 2018, p. 281). MPs of larger parties would then be able to better organize themselves.
On the other hand, there is literature that argues that large (opposition) parties divide their portfolios in smaller ‘chunks’ among its MPs (Mickler, 2017, p. 140). The issues a MP can concern him/herself with in these cases are limited and not much room is left to come up with many questions. The very direction of the effect is then the opposite of what was suggested before. It is expected now that the more party-colleagues a MP has in parliament, the less topics the MP can cover in questions. Leaving the MP with a limited number of questions he can raise. This explanation is more structural and can be observed for all larger parties. On the contrary to the first argument, which is more about strategy. These differ for the different opposition parties, and the suggested effect seems to only cover those party’s that are office-seeking. I expect that portfolios for all large opposition parties are likely to be divided in chunks, which limits the space for a MP to come up with many questions. Therefore, the following hypothesis will be tested:
Hypotheses 3: Opposition party MPs from Larger opposition parties will ask less questions than opposition party MPs of smaller opposition parties.
electoral safety
A fourth factor that can be linked to the use of parliamentary questions is electoral safety. Parliamentary questions are mainly considered control and oversight tools. However, MPs also use parliamentary questions for non-legislative activities (Pedersen, 2010, p. 361). In the Danish case for instance, Vliegenthart and Walgrave (2011) find an increased activity around the use of parliamentary questions near elections (p. 1044). Their finding supports the idea that parliamentary questions are also used for a ‘permanent election campaign’ (Louwerse and Otjes, 2017, p. 2). Parliamentary questions are in this sense not only used to control government, but also to communicate with the electorate. Van Aelst and Vliegenthart (2014) explain this by pointing at the media attention that is generated around parliamentary questions, which makes the tool attractive in order to reach a broader public.
Page | 8 Strategic behaviour driven by electoral incentives can also be found in other parliamentary tasks. Similar electoral incentives were found to play a role in the decision of a MP to cosponsor a bill. Cosponsoring allows for strategic behaviour, in that constituency preferences were taken into consideration when deciding to cosponsor (Alemán et al., 2019, pp. 90-91). Politicians want to strengthen the electoral connections with their voters. And In doing so they use all kinds of channels to communicate with their electorate. Electoral safety seems an important incentive for MPs to take certain action. This can be seen in the social media use by MPs as well. Obholzer and Daniel (2016) argue that social media use by members of the European Parliament, can be understood in similar ways as the more traditional campaigning channels. Social media is used by MEPs, like traditional campaigning, to connect with their voters (pp. 20-21).
An important determinant for a MP to work on his/her (re-)election, Is the position the MP has on the party-List. However, often preference votes seem not to provide MPs with the guarantees necessary to be (re-)elected (Sudulich et al., 2013; Louwerse and Otjes, 2016). This does not necessarily mean that MPs don’t want to maintain in their positions. Even if they decided to not signal voters, they might still want to please their parties. It seems feasible that this is especially the case for MPs lower on the party-list for elections. I expect them to ask more questions than colleagues that are closer to the top of the party-list. Thus, the following hypothesis will be tested:
Hypotheses 4: Opposition party MPs that are lower on the party-list will ask more questions than opposition party MPs that are higher on these lists.
3. Research design and case selection
The research design that will be applied in this research, is a case study design. A case study allows the researcher to analyse a case intensively and in more detail. Its purpose is to create an understanding of a greater set of units that are like those in the studied case (Bryman, 2016, p. 60; Gerring, 2004, p. 342). Case studies can be performed in a qualitative or quantitative manner, but methods from both qualitative and quantitative research can be used as well (Bryman, 2016, p. 61). This depends largely on what type of case is selected. This case study will look at the Dutch national parliament to find out which factors could explain
Page | 9 the varying number of parliamentary questions by legislators of opposition parties. From which I try to extrapolate the findings to a broader population of cases.
The Dutch case is an interesting case for this research because the Dutch political opposition is quite a substantial subject to be analysed. Members of the Dutch national parliament are elected in a system of party-list proportional representation, taking place in single national district. The Dutch electorate cannot vote for a party, but they vote for individual MPs on party-lists. The results of the last national elections that took place in March 2017, show a highly fragmented political landscape (see table 1). Thirteen pollical parties share seats in the national parliament. The current government is constituted out of four political parties (VVD, CDA, D66 and CU), which form a centre-right, minimum winning coalition with 76 members in the 150-seat parliament. The parliamentary opposition currently exists out of nine political parties, from both sides of the political spectrum, sharing 74 seats in parliament. The smallest opposition party (FvD) has only two members in parliament and the largest opposition party (PVV) has twenty members.
This study investigates the varying number of questions by members of opposition parties in the Dutch national parliament (‘Tweede Kamer’). The selected period reaches from 01-01-2018 up to 30-06-01-01-2018. This period was deemed to reflect current political circumstances better than data from before this period. That is because the circumstance change over time. New political movements such as DENK and Forum for Democracy (FvD) entered parliament for the first time after the national elections of 2017.
Table 1. Seat share of political parties in the Netherlands after the 2017 elections.
Party Seats
People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) 33
Party for Freedom (PVV) 20
Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) 19
Democrats 66 (D66) 19
GreenLeft (GL) 14
Socialist Party (SP) 14
Labour Party (PvdA) 9
Christian Union (CU) 5
Party for the Animals (PvdD) 5
50Plus (50Plus) 4
Reformed political party (SGP) 3
Denk (Denk) 3
Forum for Democracy (FvD) 2
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4. Method and data
For this research, a dataset was created consisting out of all the opposition party MPs who were elected in the national elections of March 2017. Each of these MPs will be treated as a single case (N = 74). In this study I looked at the varying number of written questions that were raised by each member of the opposition during a six-month period, reaching from 01-01-2018 and 30-06-01-01-2018. All the questions raised in this period were counted. Oral questions are not considered in this study, because there are not as much oral questions as there are written questions. That is because limited time is allocated for oral questions. There is no limit to the number of written questions MPs may raise. However, parties may have internal rules about raising parliamentary questions (Louwerse & Otjes, 2016, p. 786). Questions that were asked by multiple MPs during this period, were counted for both the author and co-authors of the
questions. The questions that were submitted by members of the opposition can be found on the website of the Dutch national parliament - Tweede Kamer -
(www.tweedekamer.nl/kamerstukken/kamervragen).
In total, members of the opposition raised 9011 parliamentary questions between the 1st of January and the 30th of June 2018. On average this was about 122 questions per member of the opposition. However, variation among the opposition members exists: four opposition members asked only 10 or less questions each (minimum of 7 by Teun van Dijck (PVV)), while four others asked more than 400 questions each (maximum of 601 by Sandra Beckerman (SP)) within the given time frame (see Table 2). However, there are some members that replaced one of their colleagues during the second half of the measurement period. None of these members asked questions in the first three measured months. This concerns the following members: Emiel van Dijk (PVV) and Henk van Gerven (SP) who replaced their colleagues Gabriëlle Popken (PVV) and Nine Kooiman (SP) on the 3rd of April 2018. Chris Stoffer (SGP) replaced Elbert Dijkgraaf (SGP), who left parliament on the 11th of April 2018. John Kersten (PvdA) replaced Sharon Dijksma (PvdA) on the 5th of June 2018 and, finally, Wim-Jan Remkema (GL) replaced Liesbeth van Tongeren on the 13th of June 2018.
For this research four independent variables are used to explain the variation in parliamentary questions that were asked by MPs of different opposition parties. The first independent variable is the Ideological distance to government (H1). The ideological distance between
Page | 11 government and the opposition MP is the absolute difference between the ideological position of the MP’s party and the ideological score of the governing parties. This difference was calculated based on the ideological scores of parties in the Chapel Hill Expert Survey (CHES) (Bakker et al., 2017). However, in this study the ideological scores of the parties will be used for each of the opposition legislators. Although it is probably not entirely accurate to use the scores from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey this way, it is a long-standing issue in legislative research to obtain the preferences of individual legislators (Boucek, 2009). Therefore, the data from the CHES will be used. In the CHES, the ideological score is based on the overall ideological stance, reaching from 0 (= extreme left) to 10 (= extreme right). In the Dutch case, however, four parties are in a coalition government. For the governing parties (VVD, CDA, D66 and CU) the mean ideological point was calculated (= 6.33333). The absolute ideologic distance can then be calculated by subtracting the MPs ideological distance from the calculated ideological point of the government.
The second independent variable is populism (H2). According to the definition by Mudde (2004), populism has two main characteristics. First, it can be characterized as an anti-elite sentiment. Secondly, populism promotes rule by the people (Mudde, 2004, pp. 543-544). The Chapel Hill Expert Survey presents two separate variables that can be used for measuring populism. The anti-elite sentiment is measured by a variable that measures for the salience of anti-elite rhetoric of parties (0= not important and 10= extremely important). The second variable measures whether political parties believe that decisions should be made by either (0=) elected MPs or by (10=) the people (Bakker et al., 2017). However, the salience of
anti-establishment and anti-elite rhetoric correlates very strongly with a party’s position on direct vs. representative democracy (r = 0.95, p < 0.01). Therefore, the variable salience of anti-establishment and anti-elite rhetoric is removed from the analyses.
The third independent variable is party-size (H3). The idea is that parties divide their portfolios in smaller ‘chunks’ among its MPs (Mickler, 2017, p. 140). MP can therefore concern themselves with only limited issues and not much room is left to come up with many questions. In this study, party-size is measured by the number of seats the number of seats a MPs’ party has in parliament. For this research, the number of seats as reported in table 1 will be used.
Page | 12 The fourth independent variable is a MPs’ place on party-list during the last elections (H4). It is stated in the theoretical framework that parliamentary questions can be used for electoral reasons. The necessity to use them in this manner is deemed to be higher for MPs that are lower on the party-list and for that reason risk losing their position in parliament after the next elections. To determine the party-list position for each opposition party MP in the Dataset, data was used from the party-lists as published by the Kiesraad (2017).
two variables control variables are added into the model. The first one is Seniority. Seniority is measured in the number of years an opposition member has been in parliament until the end of the measurement period, the 30th of June 2018. The dataset shows that Kees van der Staaij (SGP) is the longest sitting member of parliament (about 20 years), and that Wim-Jan Remkema (GL) is the shortest sitting member of parliament (about 0.05 years). The second control variable that will be checked for is gender. That is because it is known that women conceive their political role differently from men (Thomas, 1994). Gender in this dataset is a dichotomous variable (0 = Female, 1= Male). Descriptive statistics of this dataset are presented in Table 2.
Table 2. Descriptive statistics.
Variable N Mean SD Min Max Sum
Number of questions asked
In Total 74 121.77 118.824 7 601 9011
Between 01-01-‘18 and 01-04-‘18 74 62.39 70.120 0 400 4617
Between 02-04-‘18 and 30-06-‘18 74 59.27 58.219 0 272 4386
Ideological distance to Government 74 3.28 1.100 1.10 5.07
Salience of anti-establishment
and anti-elite rhetoric 74 5.21 2.972 1.071 9.500
Position on direct vs.
representative democracy 74 6.77 2.333 1.467 9.800
Party Size (Seats in Parliament) 74 12.62 6.040 2 20
Place on party-list last elections (2017) 74 7.96 5.516 1 21
Seniority (Years in office before 30-06-2018) 74 4.87 4.920 0.047 20.132
Gender 74 0.66 0.476 0.000 1.000
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5. Results and analysis
To answer the research question - How can we explain the varying number of parliamentary
questions asked by members of the opposition? - the hypotheses as stated in the theoretical
framework need to be tested first. In doing so, SPSS will be used to perform an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis. A multiple linear regression model of the data tests whether the dependent variable can be predicted by several independent variables (Field, 2014, p. 298). For the data used in this study, this means that the analysis is used to test the coherence between the number of parliamentary questions asked by opposition party members and their absolute ideological distance to government, the extent to which they are populist or not, the size of their parties and their place on the party-list. The results of these analyses are reported in Table 3. Model 1 presents the hierarchical multiple regression analysis that was used to test whether four explanatory factors (including the absolute ideological distance to government, position on direct vs. representative democracy, the party-size and the place on the party list of opposition MPs) could predict the number of parliamentary questions asked by members of the opposition between the 01-01-2018 and 30-06-2018, while controlling for the variables seniority and gender. Models 2 and 3 present the predictive ability of the same four factors separately for the first and second half of the measurement period.
Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure that the assumptions of normality, linearity and multicollinearity and homoscedasticity, were not violated. However, when looking at the histogram and normal probability plot, non-linearity was observed. Given the issues that arise when using data for which the assumption of linearity is violated (see Field, 2014), a log transformation of the dependent variable was used to correct for non-linearity. When checking for multicollinearity, all tolerance values are found to be higher than 0.1 and VIF values to be lower than 10. Looking at the correlations table, we find no correlations above r
= 0.9. Therefore, the assumption of multicollinearity is not violated (Field, 2014, pp. 342-342).
However, the correlations table shows that the absolute ideological distance to government correlates the strongest with the (logged) total number of parliamentary questions asked (r = 0.434). The position on direct versus representative democracy, party-size and the place on the party list correlate less with the (logged) total number of questions asked (r = -0.299; r = -0.231 and r = -0.183 respectively).
Page | 14 The multiple regression analysis was then carried out to assess whether ideological distance, position on direct versus representative democracy, party-size and the MPs place on the party-list could predict the number of parliamentary questions asked by members of the opposition. The control variables seniority and gender were entered first, explaining 6% of the variance in the total number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition MPs. After the four explanatory factors (Ideological distance, Position on direct vs. representative democracy, Party size and Place on list) were entered at step 2, the model as a whole could explain a total of 44.2% of the variance (F (6, 67) = 8.850, p < 0.001). The four explanatory factors explained an additional 38.2% of the variance in parliamentary questions raised by opposition MPs, after controlling for seniority and gender (R squared change = 0.382, F change (4, 67) = 11.482, p < 0.001). As is shown in model 1 (see table 3), Ideological distance to government turned out to be the only significant factor contributing to the model (B = 0.241, p < 0.001). The factors position on direct versus representative democracy, party-size and the MPs place on the party-list did not (B = -0.031, p =0.188, B = -0.022, p = 0.054 and B = 0.-0.008, p = 0.438 respectively).
Table 3. Linear Regression model explaining the total number of questions asked by
opposition party MPs between 01-01-2018 and 30-06-2018
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
(constant) 1.742*** (0.182) 1.529*** (0.182) 1.386*** (0.202)
Absolute Ideological distance to government 0.241***
(0.041)
0.243*** (0.039)
0.217*** (0.045) Position on direct vs. representative democracy -0.031
(0.023) -0.046 (0.024) -0.035 (0.026) Party Size -0.022 (0.011) -0.026* (0.011) -0.023 (0.012)
Place on list (during the last elections) -0.008
(0.010)
0.001 0.010
0.004 0.011 Seniority (Years in office before 30-06-2018) 0.007
(0.009) 0.009 (0.009) 0.015 (0.010) Gender -0.191* (0.088) -0.161 (0.082) -0.093 (0.099) R2 0.442 0.512 0.344 Adj. R2 0.392 0.465 0.279 N 74 68 68
Note: OLS-regression coefficients with corresponding standard error in brackets
Page | 15 The results suggest a positive effect of the absolute ideological distance on the number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition party MPs. This means that an increase in ideological distance to government leads to an increase in the number of parliamentary questions asked. To illustrate this, the Socialist Party (SP) carries the highest average number of questions asked by its MPs (see Figure 1). Seven MPs of the fourteen SP-MPs are among the top ten MPs that asked most parliamentary questions during the measurement period. With Sandra Beckerman asking most questions (601 PQs), followed by Renske Leijten (510 PQs) and Jasper van Dijk (496 PQs), all three MPs for the socialist party. MPs of the SP are ideologically are also ideologically most distant from government, their ideology score being 1.267 on a scale from 0 (= Extreme Left) to 10 (= Extreme Right) against the mean ideology score 6.333 of the governing parties (VVD, CDA, D66 and CU). Compared to the 50Plus party MPs who are ideologically the closest to government (ideological score of 5.231), with only four MPs and an average of 42 questions per MP.
As for the factors measuring the effect of populism (Position on direct vs. representative democracy), party-size and the MPs place on the party-list, the results show negative effects. Suggesting that, the more populist an opposition MP is, the more seats his party has in parliament and the lower the opposition MP is placed on the party-list, the less parliamentary questions the MP raises for each of these factors. However, these three effects are not
Page | 16 significant. An explanation for the direction of the effect for the position on direct vs. representative democracy is that, MPs of parties that score high on this factor - such as Forum for Democracy (FvD) and the Party for Freedom (PVV) – ask less questions on average (85 PQs and 40 PQs respectively) compared to the MPs that scored lower, such as the MPs from PvdD (150 PQs), GL (99 PQs) and PvdA (192 PQs). SP-MPs are an exception in this case, they have a score in between the two camps, but ask more questions on average (255 PQs).
To explain the effects of party-size and place on party-list, as well as to check for the members that left parliament before the end of the measurement period, two more multiple regression analyses were conducted (see Table 3, Model 2 and Model 3). Again, taking the four factors into consideration as possible predictors and controlling for seniority and gender. Thus, looking at the parliamentary questions raised between 01-01-2018 and 01-04-2018 (First half, see model 2) and between 02-04-2018 and 30-06-2018 (Second half, see model 3). Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure that the assumptions of normality, linearity and multicollinearity and homoscedasticity, were not violated. However, non-linearity was observed again when looking at the histogram and normal probability plot. Given the issues that arise when using data for which the assumption of linearity is violated (see Field, 2014), a log transformation of the dependent variables for both models was used to correct for non-linearity.
The model for the first half of the measurement period (model 2) explained 51.2% of the variance in the number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition MPs between 01-01-2018 and 01-04-01-01-2018 (F (6, 61) = 10.687, p < 0.001). And the model for the second half of the measurement period (model 3) explained 34.4% of the variance in the number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition MPs between 02-04-2018 and 30-06-2018 (F (6, 61) = 5.320, p < 0.001). Both models support most of the findings in model one. However, it is important to note that the values for party-size and for place on party-list are different then in model 1. It was already mentioned that the direction of the effect for the variable party-size was expected. In contrast to models 1 and 3, model 2 shows a significant effect for this variable. Suggesting that MPs from larger opposition parties, asked less questions between 01-01-2018 and 01-04-2018 (B = -0.026, p < 0.05). When looking at figure 1, one could see that the largest opposition party (PVV) has a lower average number of questions raised per MP than most other opposition parties. In this light the Socialist party is interesting, since
Page | 17 their average number of questions raised per MP is the largest, while being the second largest party. Both models 2 and 3 also show that the direction of the effects for party-list position have changed into the expected direction. It now suggests that the lower an opposition MP is positioned on the party-list, the more questions the MP will ask
6.
Discussion
The analyses suggest that the varying number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition party MPs can best be explained by the opposition MPs ideological distance to government. Meaning that MPs of opposition parties are likely to raise more parliamentary questions when their ideological distance to the government increases. This result appears to support the ideology Hypothesis (H1). The analyses also show that the factors populism, party-size and position on party-list are not able to predict the number of parliamentary questions very well. Considering these results, the hypotheses for populism (H2), party-size (H3) and party-list (H4) are rejected.
The result seems to confirm what the works of Otjes and Louwerse (2017) and Walter (2014) suggested. That is that MPs target ideological distant opponents. This is most evident when looking at figure 1, where the average number of parliamentary questions raised tend to be higher for parties on the political left, while governing parties in the coalition are placed in the centre-right. This is in line with what Hix (2001) mentioned about the relevance of the left-right divide. The results suggest that MPs of ideological left-wing parties asked more questions on average than their colleagues on the political right. However, this research did not specifically measure for this. Further research could perhaps look further into this. The variable position on direct vs. representative democracy which was used to measure for populism, had a not -significant effect directed in the opposite direction as was expected. A possible explanation for this is that the MPs of the Socialist party (SP) asked many parliamentary questions, as was expected (H1 and H2). The Party for Freedom (PVV) and Forum for Democracy (FvD) both scored relatively high on ideological distance and topped the position on direct vs. representative democracy. Members of both parties asked far from the number of questions the other ‘populist party’ MPs asked (see figure 1). A problem with the measurement of populism in this research is that it was only measured with the position on direct vs. representative democracy. This variable correlated strongly with the other
Page | 18 variable anti-elite rhetoric, which was removed from the analyses. However, the position on direct vs. representative democracy does not stand one-on-one with whether someone is populist or not. Mudde (2004) points out that the position on direct vs. representative democracy and anti-elite rhetoric together form the core characteristics of what populism is (pp. 543-544).
The variable on party size measured the predictability of party-size on the number of questions asked by a MP of that opposition party. The direction of the effect found in the result was similar to the expected direction as stated in the theoretical framework, but not significant. When controlling the first and second half of the measurement period separately, a significant effect was found in model 2. Suggesting that MPs from larger parties ask less parliamentary questions in the first half of the measurement period. This result supports the hypothesis H3 and is in line with the argument made by Mickler (2017). However, why this effect was found for the first half of the period (model 2) and not for the second half (Model 3) remains somewhat unclear to me. The hypothesis H3 remains rejected as the effect is not significant for the overall model.
Electoral safety was tested by looking at the party-list position of opposition MPs. The effect found for this variable was not significant for all three models. However, the direction of the effect changed in models 2 and 3. In these models, the effect was in line with the stated expectations. Meaning that the number of questions an opposition MP raises, would rise when he or she is positioned lower on the party-list. A possible explanation for this change could be, that the members who replaced their colleagues were all positioned lower on the party list. Meaning that in model 3 more individuals with relatively lower party-list position asked questions than in Model 2. However, the effects were not significant. This means that party-list position is not a good predictor for the varying number of questions raised by opposition MPs. It is possible of course, and in light of this research also more feasible, that MPs that have a lower place on the party-list use different channels to reach their electorate. Considering the goal of these MPs is re-election, it would make more sense if they used social media or other channels that would more people.
Page | 19
7.
Conclusion
This study was aimed at finding an answer to the following question: How can we explain the varying number of parliamentary questions asked by members of the opposition? This was done by means of a case study on the Dutch national parliament. A dataset was created, existing out of 74 MPs that asked 9011 parliamentary questions over a period of six months (01-01-2018 until 30-06-2018). And multiple regression analyses were performed to assess the ability of Ideology, populism, party-size and electoral safety to predict the number of questions asked by opposition party MPs.
The analyses have shown that an opposition party MPs’ ideological distance to government, functions best as a predictor for the number of parliamentary questions that the MP will ask. The hypothesis H1 is accepted, legislators of opposition parties that are ideologically more distant from government parties are likely to ask more parliamentary questions. In the Dutch case this can best be seen by looking at the MPs of the Socialist Party (SP). However, the hypotheses H2, H3 and H4 were rejected. The results showed that the effect of the predictors: position on direct vs. representative democracy, size and the MPs place on the party-list, were not significant. MPs of opposition parties seemed not to have asked more parliamentary question than their non-populist colleagues (H2), the size of parties and a MPs list position could not predict the number of parliamentary questions asked very well (H3 and H4 respectively).
Therefore, I conclude that in explaining the varying number of parliamentary questions raised by opposition party MPs, it is important to consider the ideological distance between a opposition MP and the governing parties. The greater the distance, the more likely it is that this MP asks more questions. The other factors that were mentioned as possible predictors (populism, party-size and electoral safety) are not as good predictors as ideology. This study contributed to our understanding of opposition behaviour in relation to parliamentary questions. Ideology is an important factor to consider when looking at the use of parliamentary questions.
This research did not look at the content of parliamentary questions. Further research remains necessary and it might be interesting to look more closely at the relation between
Page | 20 the number of questions raised and the content of these questions. To what extent can the predictors used for this research, tell us more about the relation between quantity and content of parliamentary questions. Future research could also consider including and comparing different government and opposition compositions in the dataset.
Page | 21
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