The effect of multiple-office holding on the parliamentary activity of MPs in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT

This article deals with multiple-office holdings by legislators in the Czech Republic during the VI. Chamber of Deputies, 2010–2013. First, both positive and negative theoretical consequences of simultaneously holding multiple political offices are depicted. Then, a uniquely detailed database of member of parliament-periods is constructed for quantitative research. Multiple-office holding is demonstrated to be a frequent behaviour among Czech deputies. The analysis results suggest that some of the deputies’ parliamentary performances were influenced both positively and negatively. Multiple-office holders probably save time on certain activities, and focus more strongly on others. Different mandates held simultaneously by deputies affect their activity differently; local and non-executive mandates’ effects tend to be positive compared with regional and executive mandates’ effects.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiple-office holding
• member of parliament
• activity
• parliament
• Chamber of Deputies
• Czech Republic

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Derek Machalek, Michal Pink, Miloš Brunclík, and the two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Lukáš Hájek is a PhD student at the Institute of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University. His main research interests are parliamentarism, legislative behaviour, and Czech politics. Email: [email protected]

ORCID

Lukáš Hájek http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9142-6055

Notes

1 Altogether, the data consist of 132 MP-periods with the descriptive statistics of their durations as follows – minimum 187 days, maximum 1188, mean 1058.50, standard deviation 255.80.

2 The point of 186 days was chosen by two different approaches that confirm the very same result. The first method finds out the exact length of time spent in the office after which a deputy becomes active (addressing speeches, proposing bills, or delivering interpellations). The second method is a brief survey conducted among deputies asking ‘after how much time spent in the office is a deputy able to perform his or her mandate responsibly?’

3 A severe disease limited Petr Jalowiczor MP over a long period of time. Next, Roman Pekárek MP was in prison for most of his parliamentary term. Finally, David Rath MP was a prisoner on remand for a significant period of his deputy term.

4 VV split up in 2012 and a fraction called LIDEM continued to support the cabinet until the end of the term.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was supported by the Charles University Research Programme ‘Progres’ Q18 - Social Sciences: From Multidisciplinarity to Interdisciplinarity.