In this article, we analyse how the degree of parliamentary activity affects both
individual MPs’ performance in the candidate selection process within the party
and their popularity with voters at the electoral stage. We expect that parliamen-
tary work of MPs matters less for voters’ evaluations of MPs because of limited
monitoring capacities and lower salience attached to this type of representation.
The empirical analysis uses data from recent elections in the Czech Republic and
Sweden. During the analysed period, these countries further personalised their
flexible list electoral systems. Our results suggest that parties hold MPs account-
able mainly through the threat of non-re-selection rather than by assigning them
to a promising list position. While there is no evidence that voters consistently re-
ward MPs’ effort, the case of the Czech elections in 2010 shows that they may
do so if context draws attention to individual MPs’ work.
