COMPARING CONSTITUENCY ACTIVITY BY JUNIOR LEGISLATORS IN GREAT-BRITAIN AND IRELAND

To compare the relationship between constituency service and reelectio n concerns for British junior MPs and Irish junior deputies (TDs), we analyze interviews with 45 British MPs and 40 Irish TDs. Using a compa rison of frequencies and Poisson regression analysis, we find support for the familiar expectations that TDs are substantially more active i n their constituencies than are MPs, that they are more inclined than MPs to cite reelection as a motive for such:activity, and that there i s a stronger statistical relationship between reelection motivation an d constituency activity for TDs than for MPs. We also find a positive relationship for both countries between distance from the capital and number of days per week spent in the constituency doing constituency w ork.