Look Who's Talking: An Institutional Explanation of Parliamentary Debates in the European Union.

Legislative speeches are an important part of parliamentary activity in the European Parliament. This paper presents new data on the allocation of speaking time in the EP, including a new survey of European party groups and a statistical analysis of speeches during the 5th European Parliament (1999-2004). Contrary to common assumptions in the EP literature, our findings suggest that party groups do not punish dissenters by limiting their speaking time on the floor despite their formal power to do so. Instead, party mavericks take the floor significantly more often than party faithfuls. We argue that there is an institutional explanation of parliamentary debates. Speaking time actually serves as a communication outlet for dissenting MEPs to put the reasons for their defection on the public record, in particular when there is a conflict between the national party and the European political group. The electoral disconnection between European party groups and the European electorate does not motivate the groups to prevent those dissenters from taking the floor. It does not matter whether dissenters denigrate the party label as this has little effect on the party's prospects as a whole. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]