We assess the effect of constituents' preferences on legislators' decisions within a quasiexperimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, citizens and legislators reveal their preferences for legislative proposals. We match roll call votes of all Swiss legislators on 102 legislative...

We match individual senators' voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24 real referenda decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model's quality with revealed constituents' preferences. Results indicate a limited...

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, politicians' party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected by proportional representation. In contrast, majoritarian systems...

We match individual senators’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24 real referenda decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model’s quality with revealed constituents’ preferences. Results...

We assess the effect of constituents’ preferences on legislators’ decisions within a quasiexperimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, citizens and legislators reveal their preferences for legislative proposals. We match roll call votes of all Swiss legislators on 102...

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, politicians’ party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected by proportional representation. In contrast, majoritarian...

What determines political candidates' election prospects? We match roll call votes of candidates for the majority elected upper house of parliament who were previously in the lower house with the preferences of their constituency as revealed in referenda. Thereby, we obtain a unique and direct...

Electoral systems determine the role party affiliations play in political representation. According to conventional expectations, politicians' party affiliations should influence political representation when they are elected under a proportional system. In contrast, majoritarian systems force...

We analyze the effect of constituents’ preferences on legislators’ decisions within a quasi-experimental setting: In the Swiss referendum process, constituents and legislators vote on policy proposals and thus reveal their preferences. We match roll call votes of all legislators on 118...

We match individual senators’ voting behavior on legislative proposals with 24 real referendum decisions on exactly the same issues with identical wording. This setting allows us to evaluate the median voter model’s quality with revealed constituents’ preferences. Results indicate a...