Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Electoral reform has become a major issue in contemporary British politics. This project aimed to advance understanding of the relationship between electoral systems and parliamentary representation. Through an examination of the impact on parliamentarians of the introduction of a proportional list electoral system for European Parliament elections, and an assessment of their attitudes towards representative role and 'constituency service' behaviour, the research sought to achieve four main objectives:

• to make a substantial contribution to scholarly understanding of how electoral systems affect parliamentary representation, through examination of an aspect of the representative relationship largely neglected in previous research
• to produce findings with more specific and immediate implications for current debates over electoral reform within British politics
• to generate greater knowledge about the quality and form of representation enjoyed by British citizens from members of the increasingly important European Parliament
• to inform discussions over possible further change to the system used to elect British Members of the European Parliament (MEPs)

Main Topics:

This dataset comprises qualitative interviews with 60 (of a possible 84) British Members of the 1999-2004 European Parliament. The interviews focused on the representative role of the MEP and the impact upon this of the change in the electoral system (from single member district representation to multi-member regions) in Britain for the 1999 European elections.