Comparative Pork Barrel Politics

Abstract

A growing literature exists on constituency service and pork barrel politics in the United States. Comparative research on an electoral connection between representatives and their constituents has been limited, generally confined to the British case. The research reported here takes an initial step in broadening comparative research on pork barrel politics beyond the American and British cases. Although a case study of the Federal Republic of Germany, this article maintains a strong comparative perspective through its analysis of different types of electoral systems - single- and multimember districts. Our analysis tests the hypothesis that, ceteris paribus, single-member district systems possess stronger incentives than multimember districts for the distributive allocation of pork barrel projects. Through a close-ended mail questionnaire of representatives of the 1983-1986 German Bundestag, this research produces significant evidence to corroborate empirically this theoretical argument. We conclude that district type affects representatives' perceptions of pork barrel allocations as a special type of constituency service.