Incentives for non‑participation: absence in the United Kingdom House of Commons, 1997–2015

Abstract

The ability to hold MPs accountable for their actions is one of the cornerstones of modern representative democracy. While it is important for MPs to send signals to both their constituents and to their party, a large number of MPs remain absent from votes. Those absences are an important part of the MP’s toolbox, but absences carry limitations, rooted in electoral and political constraints. We investigate how—conditional on the electoral cycle—some well-established political constraints along the government and opposition lines vary in strength. We examine the absence probabilities of MPs in the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2015, and find that as the next elections are approaching, political constraints somewhat weaken and electoral ones take over, but marked differences emerge between parliamentary sessions.