The Constituency as a Focus of Representation: Studying the Italian Case through the Analysis of Parliamentary Questions

Parliamentarians differ widely in the degree to which they devote attention to their geographical constituency. An analysis of parliamentary questions offers a precious opportunity to look at the role of individual parliamentarians even where, as in the European case, political parties enforce strict discipline in roll-call voting. This paper analyses the constituency focus of Italian deputies elected to the 15th legislature, through the analysis of their parliamentary questions. According to the mainstream literature, the closed list proportional system adopted in Italy since 2005 should provide little incentive to cultivate a personal vote. However, observing the territorial focus of many parliamentary questions, we learn that some parliamentarians do play the role of 'constituency servant' even in a context which is not expected to reward this choice. Why does this happen? To answer this, hypotheses related to the career profile of Italian parliamentarians are developed and tested empirically against alternative explanations. © 2011 Taylor & Francis.