POLICY INFLUENCE AND PARTICIPATION IN THE EUROPEAN-PARLIAMENT

How does a legislature's influence over policy outputs affect its memb ers' behavior? This paper examines this question, a question that has been neglected in the legislative literature. Using an unusual natural experiment in the European Parliament (EP), I investigate whether gre ater policy influence leads legislators to participate more in parliam entary votes. In addition to the impact of other variables-including t he timing of votes, leadership cues, and the requirement that an absol ute majority of members vote at certain stages-EP members are stimulat ed to participate more in votes on legislation where the EP's influenc e is greater. The implications of this result for legislative theory, and for our understanding of the EP, are discussed in the conclusion.