Career lengths of members of parliament in mixed-member proportional electoral systems

Hilde Coffé; Josh Givens; Beate Ehrhardt

doi:10.1080/13572334.2022.2040215

Career lengths of members of parliament in mixed-member proportional electoral systems

Hilde Coffé, Josh Givens, Beate Ehrhardt

Institute for Mathematical Innovation and Centre for Mathematics and Algorithms for Data

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Mixed-member proportional electoral systems are characterised by having two types of members of parliament (MPs): district MPs elected directly in a district and list MPs elected via a party list. While it has been suggested that district MPs have a more prestigious and safe position than list MPs, little is known about possible differences between list and district MPs in terms of the length of their parliamentary careers. Using data on all New Zealand parliamentary elections between 1996 and 2017, the authors investigate to what extent the mode in which MPs are elected throughout their careers relates to the length of their careers. The authors’ descriptive and multivariate Cox Proportional-Hazards analyses show that those entering parliament as list MPs have shorter careers than those entering parliament as district MPs. However, when list MPs ‘move on’ to becoming district MPs during their parliamentary career, they have the longest careers of all MPs.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	44-58
Journal	Journal of Legislative Studies
Volume	30
Issue number	1
Early online date	23 Feb 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2022.2040215
Publication status	Published - 31 Jan 2024

Funding

The first author graciously acknowledges the financial support of Victoria University of Wellington and the Institute of Mathematical Innovation of the University of Bath. A draft version of the paper has been discussed at a research workshop organised by the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies (University of Bath) . The authors are very thankful for the useful feedback and suggestions. They would also like to thank Fiona Barker, Hamish Clark, Sam Crawley, Chloe Fitz Patrick, Simon Forbes, Kaitlin Martin-Feek and the New Zealand Parliamentary Information Service for their assistance with data collection.

Keywords

district MP
List MP
mixed-member proportional electoral system
New Zealand
parliamentary careers

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Political Science and International Relations
Law

Access to Document

10.1080/13572334.2022.2040215Licence: CC BY-NC-ND

Cite this

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Career lengths of members of parliament in mixed-member proportional electoral systems

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

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Careers of Members of Parliament in Mixed Member Proportional Electoral Systems

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Career lengths of members of parliament in mixed-member proportional electoral systems

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

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Careers of Members of Parliament in Mixed Member Proportional Electoral Systems

Cite this