Politics of Constituency Representation and Legislative Ambition under the Glare of Camera Lights

• Published date: 01 February 2020
• Author: T. Murat Yildirim
• Date: 01 February 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12256

101

LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 45, 1, February 2020

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12256

T. MURAT YILDIRIM

University of Stavanger in Norway

Politics of Constituency

Representation and Legislative

Ambition under the Glare of Camera

Lights

The introduction of legislative television as a transparency initiative has

been welcomed in an increasing number of democracies. The impact of televi-

sion cameras on parliamentary behavior, however, has received scant attention

in systems where personal vote-earning attributes are thought to be of little im-

portance (e.g., closed-list proportional representation). Additionally, studies ex-

amining this relationship relied exclusively on over-time variation in legislative

behavior (i.e., before and after the introduction of television into parliament),

which arguably has important deficiencies in demonstrating the true effect of

legislative television. Capitalizing on a unique quasi-experimental setting, the

present study aims to close these gaps in the literature by analyzing parliamen-

tary activities in Turkey, where the legislative television was restricted to 3 days

per week (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday) in 2011 after almost two decades

of continuous 7-day operation. Results based on original datasets of parlia-

mentary activities from the pre- and postreform periods (2009–11 and 2011–13)

indicate that the varying presence of television cameras exacerbated the effect

of electoral and reputation-building motivations on parliamentary behavior, en-

couraging electorally unsafe and junior MPs to shift their constituency focus to

the televised proceedings. The results offer important implications for the study

of legislative transparency and constituency representation in party-list propor-

tional representation systems.

The introduction of television cameras in legislatures has

sparked a big debate on potential implications of this experiment

in electoral democracies. While the proponents of legislative tel-

evision asserted that the presence of TV cameras in legislative

proceedings contributes to transparency and strengthens the link

between legislators and voters (Barnett and Gaber 1992; Soroka,

Redko, and Albaugh 2015), the opponents argued that legislative

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102 T. Murat Yildirim

television hinders the quality of legislative debates, as legislators

start to play to the cameras (Cook 1986). Put differently, on the

one hand, there is a strong normative ba sis for the introduction of

legislative television for it allows citizens to directly observe their

representatives. On the other, the fear is that the presenc e of TV

cameras in legislatures exacerbates the effect of electoral moti-

vations on legislative debates, where “show horses” outnumber

“work horses” under the glare of camera lights (Franklin 1992;

Matthews 1959). Still, a large number of ele ctoral democracies has

adopted some form of legislative broadca sting, a trend that shows

no sign of abating. However, although the potential consequenc es

of televised legislative sessions have been well formulated, sur-

prisingly little empirical investigation has been undertaken to

explore the impact of legislative television on constituency repre-

sentation among representatives.

One potential reason for littl e systematic attention is limited

data availability in legislative activities. Indeed, only a limited

number of studies went beyond simply theorizing potential con-

sequences of the i ntroduction of TV cameras in legislatures (e.g.,

Mixon, Gibson, and Upadhyaya 2003; Mixon and Upadhyaya

2002). Furthermore, previous scholarsh ip has focused almost

exclusively on the most likely cases, where personalized parlia-

mentary activities such as constituency-oriented speeches are

encouraged due to the importance of personal vote-earning at-

tributes (Carey and Shugart 1995). This study departs from pre-

vious scholarship in at least two ways. First, it focuses on a least

likely case, a closed-list proportional electoral system that pro-

vides little i ncentive for constituency service ( Heitshusen, Young,

and Wood 2005), to examine the impact of legislative television

on parliamentarians’ constituency-oriented behavior, as doing

so provides substantial theoretical leverage to test the effect of

legislative television on parliamentary behavior (see Levy 2008).

Second, the study capitalizes on the quasi-exper imental nature

of the legislative television in Turkey, where the legislative tel-

evision was restricted to 3 days per week in 2011 after almost

2 decades of continuous 7-day operation. Previous scholarship

has examined legislative behavior before and after the introduc-

tion of legislative television and attributed any attitudinal dif-

ferences between the pre- and postreform periods to legislative

television (e.g., Mixon, Gibson, and Upadhyaya 2003; Mixon

and Upadhyaya 2002; Soroka et al. 2015; but see Datta 2008).

Although an analysis of over-time variance in parliamentary