How Do They Do It? Members of the European Parliament' Practices of Democratic Representation

This paper is an analysis of a new survey among Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on their working practices concerning inter-parliamentary coordination and electoral linkage. Scholars accord MEPs a central role in ‘filling the gap’ between EU-level decision making and the European citizens. This may happen through two channels of democratic representation: A direct channel, as democratic representatives of the EU citizens, directly elected in European elections; and an indirect channel, through their central position in Europe’s emerging ‘multi-level parliamentary field’ (Crum and Fossum 2009).

However, we still lack systematic data and in-depth analysis on the MEPs’ working practices concerning these two channels of democratic representation. How, and to which extent, do MEPs really interact, in practice, with their national or sub national constituency? With their national parliament? With their national party?

The paper provides new original data on the frequency and nature of MEPs inter-parliamentary and inter-party interactions, access to media coverage, and electoral linkage with their constituency. Based on the survey’s results, accompanied with 20 semi-structured interviews with MEPs, the paper also gives possible explanations to the variations between different national delegations, party families, and individual parliamentarians.