Towards Consensus? by Peter Aimer

Author:Peter Aimer [Vowles, Jack; Aimer, Peter; Catt, Helena; Lamare, Jim and Miller, Raymond]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics and Law
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: 1995-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Role Reality in New Zealand

Feelings of disillusionment with politicians have been a constant theme in discussion of politics in New Zealand since the 1980s. One key aspect of this feeling may be that MPs are not fulfilling their role in the ways voters wish them to. To explore discrepancies between respondents’ representational role expectations and their sense of representational reality, the élite and the mass samples were asked how important they thought each of the factors actually was in determining the behaviour of MPs. The same forces discussed above, ranging from the majority view of the electorate to the MP’s personal evaluation of what is best for New Zealand, were listed. Respondents could again mark if they thought the factor was ‘extremely’, ‘very’, ‘fairly’, ‘not very’, or ‘not at all’ important in a legislator’s vote.

There is widespread agreement among the samples about the actual importance attributed to various actors in the law making process (Table 7.3). The trustee role dominates both at the partisan and individual level. A large majority of the public (71 per cent), MPs (63 per cent), and other élite (73 per cent) believes that the view of the government is a very or extremely important factor in influencing the way MPs vote on legislation. Fairly similar portions (from 42 to 53 per cent) of the public and élite think that the personal view of the MP is quite important, and around a third of both groups leaned towards the delegate role, saying that the majority view in the country is important.

Table 7.3: Voices MPs Actually Do Heed, Voters and Elite (%)

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