Members of Parliament in Western Europe

Traditional comparative studies of parliaments have focused on constitutional and organizational characteristics of parliaments or differences in the historical contexts in which legislative assemblies have developed. The motivations of individual Members of Parliament have been neglected.This volume provides empirical work on legislative role orientations and behaviour in six West European parliaments: Belgium Denmark Germany the Netherlands Norway and the United Kingdom. All contributions present a wealth of empirical findings on parliamentarians' role orientations in different institutional contexts.