Paola Conconi

Abstract

It is often argued that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are unresponsive to the interests of their constituents and that European elections are driven by domestic politics in the Member States rather than EU policies. We assess the validity of these claims by studying MEPs’ votes on the approval of free trade agreements (FTAs), one of the few policy areas of exclusive EU competence. Against widespread Eurosceptic arguments, we find that EU legislators respond to the trade policy interests of their constituents: they are more likely to vote in favor of an FTA when a higher share of their electorate stands to gain from the entry into force of that agreement. Moreover, MEPs’ probability of re-election increases with the extent to which their votes on trade agreements are aligned with the interests of their constituents. By contrast, when considering votes on the approval of FTAs in the US Congress, we find that US legislators are not responsive to the interests of their electorate and their voting behaviour does not impact their chances of being re-elected. Our analysis suggests that whether legislators are accountable to their electorate on a policy issue may depend on the extent to which this issue is salient to voters relative to other policies in the legislators’ sphere of competence.