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What drives MPs' constituency focus in party‐centered systems? Party‐centered systems are expected to offer fewer incentives for constituency‐focused behavior as it is parties rather than candidates that primarily drive competition. However, MPs in these systems may find good reason to cater to constituents' interests as it allows them to attain multiple goals and satisfy competing principals. This study develops a theoretical model of constituency focus comprising individual, party, and district‐level factors and tests it in South Africa, a party‐centered system. Drawing on 22,724 questions submitted by MPs to the parliament between 2006 and 2023, as well as biographic data and interviews, it demonstrates that variation in MPs' constituency focus is explained by their level of electoral vulnerability, and to a lesser degree their seniority and local ties. Moreover, whether MPs belong to clientelistic parties and their constituency is a party stronghold are also relevant factors. The findings highlight the importance of incentives that go beyond electoral institutions and reaffirm the relevance of constituency links in party‐centered systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do macro-economic conditions affect legislators' representative focus? This article examines this novel predictor by analysing an original dataset of parliamentary questions from the Greek parliament. Greece is a very informative case since not only is it one of the countries most severely hit by the Eurozone Crisis but it also offers an institutional setting that provides plenty of incentives to re-election-seeking actors for constituency-focused representative work. The data utilised covers an extended period of six Greek legislatures and over 12,000 parliamentary current questions asked pre, during and post-crisis between 2006 and 2019. The stand-alone effect of macro-economic conditions as well as its interaction with known predictors like the legislators' vulnerability is tested. Findings provide evidence that better national economic performance conditions increase the likelihood that MPs with table current questions about their constituency, although other traditional factors like electoral vulnerability remain important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines, using automated text analyses, the EU politicisation in the media of six Eurozone countries (Belgium, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain), between 2002 and 2017. By contrasting creditor and debtor countries, the article analyses how the Eurozone crisis affected the politicisation of the EU and its institutions using a unique dataset of 165,341 articles from 12 newspapers. The results show that the Eurozone crisis increased the politicisation of the EU, particularly in the countries that were at the forefront of the Eurozone bailouts. Importantly, the crisis contributed as well to a more multifaceted news coverage of the European Union, namely with a greater emphasis given to supranational institutions vis-à-vis intergovernmental ones. Yet, this supranational coverage was associated with the increasingly negative tone of articles. To that extent, this study shows that greater mention of EU institutions may not necessarily contribute to a Europeanisation of public debates. Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382.2021.1910778. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]