Legislator Dissent Does Not Affect Electoral Outcomes

Cowley, Philip; Umit, Resul

doi:10.1017/s0007123422000618

Legislator Dissent Does Not Affect Electoral Outcomes

Cowley, Philip; Umit, Resul

Authors

Philip Cowley

Dr Resul Umit resul.umit@durham.ac.uk
Assistant Professor

Abstract

Are there electoral consequences or benefits for legislators who deviate from the party line? We answer this question with data from individual-level vote choice and constituency-level electoral results in the UK for the last two decades. Exploring the variations in voting patterns over time with a panel-regression approach, we find results that are most compatible with the null hypothesis, that is, that dissent by legislators is neither rewarded nor punished in elections. These results call into question the degree to which voters know and/or care about legislative dissent in parliament.

Citation

Cowley, P., & Umit, R. (2023). Legislator Dissent Does Not Affect Electoral Outcomes. British Journal of Political Science, 53(2), 789-795. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123422000618

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Nov 2, 2022
Online Publication Date	Dec 6, 2022
Publication Date	2023-04
Deposit Date	Dec 8, 2022
Publicly Available Date	Dec 8, 2022
Journal	British Journal of Political Science
Print ISSN	0007-1234
Electronic ISSN	1469-2112
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	53
Issue	2
Pages	789-795
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123422000618

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in British Journal of Political Science, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123422000618. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND licence. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © The Authors, 2022.

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