ABSTRACT
This chapter uses original survey and elite interview data to assess the nature, causes, and consequences of MLAs’ constituency service. The chapter first establishes how much time MLAs invest in constituency service before exploring their constituency communication methods. This reveals that, whilst MLAs spend around the same amount of time on constituency service as their counterparts in devolved Scotland and Wales, they are set apart by a distinctive (some might say old-fashioned) communication style. The chapter then considers why some MLAs spend more time on constituency service than others. Contrary to other jurisdictions which use the Single Transferable Vote, the chapter shows that intra-party electoral vulnerability does not incentivise constituency service in Northern Ireland. Rather, a sense of role and the associated emotional and psychological incentives provides a more convincing answer as to why some MLAs are more constituency orientated than others. The chapter finishes by assessing the costs and benefits of MLAs’ constituency service. The benefits of constituency service are not untypical to those observed in other polities; however, there is a particular cost being borne in Northern Ireland because of the use of large multi-member constituencies. Constituents are shown to ‘work the system’ by taking their problems to multiple MLAs, which duplicates effort and multiplies costs.
