NASP International and Interdisciplinary Seminars

Marc Debus (University of Mannheim)
Does Age Make a Difference? MPs' Age and their Activity in Parliamentary Debates on Climate Change

Chair: Francesco Zucchini (NASP - University of Milan)

17th June 2022, h. 14.30
Room B - NASP Graduate School
Via Pace 10 Milan 
and on Zoom

Abstract
Exogenous shocks like the current Covid-19 pandemic or long-term developments like climate change have major implications for the society in general but might be even more consequential for specific social groups. We combine theories on vote-seeking strategies of political actors with theoretical accounts that highlight the impact of personal characteristics of politicians and argue that in particular younger Members of Parliament (MPs) should put more emphasis on issues related to climate change and its consequences than older MPs. We test our hypotheses on the basis of an original dataset covering parliamentary debates on climate change in the German Bundestag from 2013 until 2021, thus focusing on a time period when climate change became a highly salient issue among the German public. We find that the age of MPs matters: the younger MPs are, the more speeches they contribute in debates related to climate policy.

This seminar is part of the NASP International and Interdisciplinary Seminars Series 2022.