Abstract
Roll call vote analyses used to infer ideal-points of legislators or the cohesiveness of parties all implicitly assume that the data-generating process leading to such votes is random and does not affect MPs’ behavior. If roll call votes, however, are requested by party leaders or MPs, this assumption is unlikely to hold. Strategic considerations by the actors requesting roll call votes are likely to influence the inferences we wish to make based on observed voting behavior by legislators. To address this issue we propose the use of a statistical strategic model for simultaneous moves. We present an evaluation of its small sample properties and apply it to data on roll call vote requests in the European parliament. We demonstrate that strategic considerations may play a considerable role in roll call vote requests in the European Parliament.
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