Replication Data for: Dissertation TitleTalk Matters: Three Essays on the Strategic Use of Public Speech in Parliamentary Politics

Does political speech serve a purpose beyond merely articulating political positions? Until recently, scholars have treated the language politicians use in public – in parliamentary debates, in media appearances, or at campaign rallies – as simply a reflection of the existing power structures and interests in place at any given point in time. Rather than playing an independent role in shaping the political sphere, speeches simply hold a mirror to it. In this view, a powerful speech given in the course of a parliamentary debate acts only as the representation of a position held by supporters of the speaker, and all the speaker does in presenting the speech to the chamber is give voice to that constituency. In this sense, the words uttered have no meaning separate from the conveyance of policy. Questioning this view, recent scholars of party competition reconceptualized the use of speech as a strategic means of position taking to optimize electoral returns. In this line of study, politicians strategically time speeches to present or emphasize ideological positions deemed electorally advantageous. For example, prior to an election, speeches by party politicians tend to coalesce around a set of key issues or talking points in order for the party to appear united (Bäck et al., 2019). The ability to sufficiently analyze speeches at scale has historically held back further progress on the analysis of politicians’ strategic use of speech; however, advances in modern computing, aided by efforts by national governments to digitize parliamentary proceedings, have opened the field up to systematic study by researchers. In this dissertation, I leverage the advances in computing capabilities and historical document digitization to dive deeper into the idea of political speech as strategic and substantively meaningful in multiple arenas. In an extension of the current understanding, I argue that speech time – being limited either by parliamentary rules or popular attention spans – is a scarce resource that individual politicians and/or their parties use to promote their views. I demonstrate my argument and its implications across three papers. In the first, “Ideological Control in Parliamentary Debate: Evidence from the 18th German Bundestag,” I consider the ways in which party leadership uses the controls they have over the access to legislative debate to reign in rebel legislators (MPs). Here, I leverage parliamentary rules that allocate speaking time by parliamentary party; therefore, party leaders control who of their delegation is allowed to speak in the chamber as well as the topics they discuss. Contrary to existing scholarship, I find that rebel MPs are not restricted outright from speaking on the parliamentary floor; indeed, they do so at similar levels to their “loyal” co-partisans. Rebels, I show, are only restricted from discussing the most salient topics on the parliamentary floor. Using a dataset of over 200,000 speeches from the German Bundestag combined with MPs’ self-reported ideology from the German Longitudinal Election Survey, I show that indeed, rebels in the governing coalition are significantly less likely to speak on the salient topics of Macroeconomics and Immigration, while there is no difference in speech frequency on less-salient topics such as transportation. This paper shows that legislative debate can be used to control party messaging in legislatures with strong parties. In the second paper, “Political Responses to Rapid Socioeconomic Changes: Ireland during the Celtic Tiger Expansion,” I provide extensive evidence of the ways in which MPs use legislative debate to increase their chances of re-election. Here, I break down the dimensions on which politicians use speech to increase their chances at reelection. Rather than considering solely socioeconomic position-taking, I broaden the scope of political speech and position-taking to include district-specific appeals for targeted spending. Leveraging historical census data to map the tumultuous socioeconomic transformation of Ireland from a pastoral land of farmers to one of specialized industry and high-skilled service work, I show how MPs respond to the uncertainty brought about by the windfall of success. In this case, legislative debates become much trickier for MPs to navigate when the position of the median voter in their district is unknown. Rather than position-taking, as one might expect from speeches on the floor of the national legislature, MPs from districts that shifted most drastically from mainly agricultural work to mainly service work focused on deliver ing local goods to constituents. Instead of staking out a position on a well-established ideological axis of political competition, MPs used legislative debates to redirect national funds to their districts. In so doing, they were able to advertise their political work to their constituents, without the fear of alienating some by advocating for programmatic policies that would be rejected by their constituents. Finally, in \"Legislative Paths to Cabinet Appointment,\" I show how legislative debates can act as a means by which MPs train to become cabinet ministers. Drawing on 3.4 million speeches from over 60 years of records from the Irish lower house, I extend our understanding of who is appointed to cabinet, and propose several theories for why they are. Specifically, I argue that MPs who are able to embed themselves within the legislative apparatus and learn the ins and outs of parliamentary activity are better suited to the demands of being a cabinet minister, as their career progresses. Indeed, I show that MPs who enter parliament and enter debates alongside ministers are much more likely to be appointed to cabinet over the course of their careers. Moreover, MPs who speak in parliament more often also reach cabinet sooner than MPs who speak less often. This paper highlights the role that legislative debate plays in the process of socialization and learning undertaken by new, ambitious MPs.

政治演讲是否仅止于阐明政治立场之外，尚有其他目的？直至不久前，学者们仍将政治家在公共场合——议会辩论（parliamentary debate）、媒体露面或竞选集会中使用的语言，单纯视为特定时期既有权力结构与利益格局的反映。演讲并未在塑造政治场域中发挥独立作用，仅仅是对其映照。按照这一观点，议会辩论中发表的有力演讲仅代表演讲者支持者所持立场，演讲者向议会宣读演讲内容，不过是为该选民群体发声。从这个意义上说，所使用的言辞除了传达政策之外，别无其他意义。

对这一观点提出质疑的近期政党竞争研究学者，将演讲的用途重新概念化为一种用于表态以优化选举收益的战略手段。在此研究脉络中，政治家会战略性地选择演讲时机，以呈现或强调被认为在选举中具有优势的意识形态立场。例如，在选举前，政党政治家的演讲往往会围绕一系列关键议题或核心论点展开，以使政党看起来团结一致（Bäck et al., 2019）。长期以来，大规模充分分析演讲的能力一直阻碍了对政治家战略性使用演讲行为的进一步研究；然而，现代计算技术的进步，加上各国政府对议会议事记录（parliamentary proceedings）的数字化工作，为研究人员开展系统性研究打开了大门。

在本博士论文中，我借助计算能力的进步与历史文献数字化成果，更深入地探讨政治演讲作为战略性且具有实质意义的行为这一观点，其应用场景涵盖多个领域。作为对当前认知的延伸，我提出：演讲时间——无论是受议会规则限制还是受大众注意力时长限制——都是一种稀缺资源，个别政治家及其所属政党会利用这一资源来推广自身观点。我通过三篇论文来论证我的观点及其引申含义。

在第一篇《议会辩论中的意识形态管控：来自第18届德国联邦议院（German Bundestag）的证据》中，我探讨了政党领导层如何利用其对议会辩论准入的管控权，约束反叛议员（MPs）。在此，我借助按照议会政党分配演讲时间的议会规则；因此，政党领导人既可以控制本党代表团中哪些成员获准在议会发言，也可以管控他们讨论的议题。与现有学术研究相悖的是，我发现反叛议员并未被完全禁止在议会会场发言；事实上，他们的发言频率与其“忠诚”的同党议员不相上下。我通过分析表明，反叛议员仅被限制讨论议会会场中最受关注的议题。我利用德国联邦议院超过20万条演讲的数据集，结合德国纵向选举调查（German Longitudinal Election Survey）中议员自述的意识形态立场，证实了执政联盟中的反叛议员确实更不可能就宏观经济与移民这两大核心议题发言，而在交通这类关注度较低的议题上，两者的发言频率并无差异。该论文表明，在政党势力强大的立法机构中，议会辩论可被用于管控政党的对外宣传口径。

在第二篇《对社会经济快速变革的政治回应：凯尔特之虎（Celtic Tiger）扩张时期的爱尔兰》中，我提供了详实证据，证明议员如何利用议会辩论来提升连任几率。在此，我拆解了政治家借助演讲提升连任概率的多个维度。并非仅考虑社会经济层面的立场表态，我将政治演讲与立场表态的范畴拓展至包括针对选区的定向拨款诉求。借助历史人口普查数据，我还原了爱尔兰从以农牧为主的农业国家转型为专业化工业与高技能服务业国家的动荡社会经济变革历程，并展示了议员们如何应对这一成功意外带来的不确定性。在此场景下，当议员所在选区的中位选民立场难以捉摸时，议会辩论对他们而言变得更加棘手。正如人们可能预期的国家立法机构会场演讲那样，此时议员们并未采取明确立场表态，而是来自那些从农业为主急剧转型为服务业为主的选区的议员，将重点放在为选民争取本地资源上。他们并未在成熟的政治竞争意识形态轴线上明确表态，而是利用议会辩论将国家资金定向调拨至自己的选区。通过此举，他们得以向选民宣传自身的从政成果，同时无需担心因倡导可能被选民反对的纲领性政策而疏远部分群体。

最后，在《通往内阁任命的立法路径》一文中，我展示了议会辩论如何成为议员历练为内阁部长的途径。我依托爱尔兰下议院60余年以来超过340万条演讲的记录，拓展了我们对内阁任命对象的认知，并提出了若干相关理论解释。具体而言，我提出：随着职业生涯的发展，那些能够融入立法体系、精通议会活动细节的议员，更能胜任内阁部长的职务要求。事实上，我发现那些进入议会后便与部长们一同参与辩论的议员，在其职业生涯中获得内阁任命的概率要高得多。此外，发言频率更高的议员也比发言较少的议员更早获得内阁职位。该论文强调了议会辩论在初入政坛、抱负远大的议员的社会化与学习过程中所发挥的作用。