The Mandate Divide in Policy Representation: The Substantive Representation of Agricultural Interests in the Hungarian Parliament

Abstract

Abstract Policy responsiveness is considered an effective tool for representing the aggregated interests of an electoral district. This article asks the question whether or not legislators in a mixed-member electoral system act on the profile of the constituency in their parliamentary work and, if yes, whether the magnitude of their actions is dependent upon mandate type and electoral security. I answer these questions by using data on Hungarian Members of Parliament (MPs)’ parliamentary questions, and the agricultural profile of the constituencies between 1998 and 2010. It is found that a larger share of the agricultural population correlates with a greater frequency of agriculture questions. Furthermore, as expected, single-member district MPs are more vigilant to the share of the agricultural population than list MPs. Interestingly, MPs remain indifferent to the fierceness of competition: they ask just as any many questions in the case of a safe seat as in the case of stiff competition.