You Have Got Mail! How Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations Shape Constituency Service in the European Parliament. IHS Political Science Series No. 140, May 2016

de Vries, Catherine and Dinas, Elias and Solaz, Hector (2016) You Have Got Mail! How Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations Shape Constituency Service in the European Parliament. IHS Political Science Series No. 140, May 2016. [Policy Paper]

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Abstract

For representative democracy to work, legislators need to be responsive to the concerns of citizens. One way in which this can be achieved is through constituency service. Two factors drive constituency service: extrinsic and intrinsic motivations. Research to date suggests that extrinsic motivations are crucial for constituency service. Yet, this evidence stems primarily from the US context characterized by a personal ballot structure and campaign content which may bias findings in favor of extrinsic motivations. We present evidence from the first ever field experiment conducted in the European Parliament (EP) in which we vary both the extrinsic and intrinsic motivations of legislators. What is more, we are able to examine the way in which intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact, an aspect largely ignored in the literature. Our findings suggest that while intrinsic motivations matter most for constituency service in the EP, they are dampened by the presence of extrinsic motivations.

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