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This thesis investigates the linguistic practices of politicians in one of the oldest and most powerful of all British institutions: the House of Commons. After the general election of 1997 record numbers of women were elected to parliament. This rapid increase in women's representation led to much speculation in politics and the media about how new women MPs would adapt to and change British politics. At the same time it is clear that men and women MPs are not treated equally. Women are marginalised by sexist barracking within the chamber and portrayed negatively by the media. Theoretical and methodological insights gained from language and gender research are used to explore whether this inequality extends to the differential access to and use of linguistic resources by women and men in the debating chamber. The central questions of the thesis are: what factors contribute to a participant being more or less powerful in this context, and how salient is gender to the construction of that power? Viewing the debating chamber as a 'Community of Practice' (Eckert and McConnell-Ginet 1992), and drawing upon the insights of MPs from interview data, I describe the interactional norms of the House of Commons as part of the ethnographic approach to this research. Using data from a 60-hour video corpus of House of Commons speech events I then undertake an analysis of floor apportionment in debates. I identify adversarial linguistic features in parliamentary question time sessions and examine their use by women and men. I also undertake an analysis of the functions and use of humour and irony in the debating chamber. Finally, a comparative study is undertaken with the Scottish Parliament. I describe the parliamentary procedures and historical development of the Scottish Parliament before analysing floor apportionment, the use of adversarial language, and humour and irony in this forum.

Durant les deux dernières décennies, de nombreuses recherches insistent sur l'importance du rôle joué par l'homme politique dans la détermination du comportement de vote, y compris dans sa dimension de personnalité. Dans cette thèse, nous soulignons le rôle du leader politique dans les démocraties parlementaires au-delà de l'influence des déterminants classiques du vote, tel que : l'identification partisane de l'électeur et l'adhésion aux politiques préconisées par un parti. Plus récemment, la notion de marque fut introduite dans le domaine politique, et appliquée aux leaders politiques pour prendre en compte des déterminants non rationnels du vote, tels que ceux liés aux caractéristiques personnels du leader ou à l'affect pour celui-ci. Toutefois, les mesures de ce concept sont souvent limitées et ne reflètent pas tous les aspects souhaités. Une revue de littérature en sciences politiques portant sur les modèles explicatifs du vote et une autre en marketing portant sur le capital-marque et l'influence de l'image de marque sur le choix nous ont permis de mieux positionner le leader politique dans ces modèles au travers de l'exploration du contenu de l'image de ce dernier. L'objectif principal de cette thèse est de proposer un modèle où figurent les différents déterminants de vote, l'image du leader étant au centre de ce modèle. Pour y parvenir, un deuxième objectif est de développer une échelle de mesure de l'image du leader politique sur la base des mesures d'image de marque. C'est en s'appuyant sur la théorie des réseaux sémantiques développée en psychologie cognitive que nous explorons le contenu de l'image du leader politique et identifions quatre dimensions de cette image : la capacité du leader politique à résoudre les problématiques du pays, la capacité du leader politique à l'international, la capacité du leader à piloter son parti et la réputation du leader politique dans sa vie privée. Ces dimensions ont un effet à la fois sur l’attitude vis-à-vis du leader politique et sur l’intention de vote pour son parti. Cet effet est supposé être modéré par l’expertise de l’électeur. La relation entre ces dimensions et l’intention de vote de l’électeur, ainsi que les autres variables du modèle (identification partisane, préférence pour les politiques préconisées par le parti, attitude vis-à-vis du leader et expertise de l’électeur) se traduit par 20 hypothèses de recherche dont 10 sont corroborées par l'étude empirique. Cette recherche propose une meilleure compréhension du comportement de vote dans les démocraties parlementaires au travers du concept de l’image de marque appliqué au leader politique. Elle propose également des nouvelles perspectives sur une mesure plus complète de l’image de marque et de ses effets en politique / During the last two decades, many studies emphasize the importance of the role played by the politician, including the effect of his personality, in determining the voting behavior. In this thesis, we emphasize the role of the political leader in parliamentary democracies beyond the influence of the classical determinants of the vote, such as: party identification of voters and adherence to the policies advocated by the party. More recently, the brand concept was introduced to the political field and applied to political leaders to take into account non-rational determinants of voting, such as those related to personal characteristics of the leader or the feelings towards him. However, measures of this concept are often limited and do not reflect all desired aspects. A review of political science literature on explanatory models of the vote and another in marketing on brand equity and the influence of brand image on the choice allowed us to better position the political leader in these models through exploring the content of the latter's image. The main objective of this thesis is to propose a model displaying the various determinants of voting, having the leader's image at the center of this model. To achieve this, the second objective is to develop a scale for measuring the political leader's image based on the brand image measures. Based on the semantic network theory developed in cognitive psychology, we explore the content of the political leader's image and identify four dimensions of this image: the ability of the political leader to solve the problems of the country, the ability of the political leader internationally, the ability of the leader to steer his party and the reputation of the political leader in his private life. The dimensions above have an effect on both the attitude towards the political leader and the voting intention for his party. This effect is assumed to be moderated by the political expertise of the voter. The relationship between these dimensions, the voting intention and other variables in the model (party identification, preference for the policies advocated by the party, attitude towards the political leader and the political expertise of the voter) involves 20 research hypothesis which 10 are confirmed by the empirical study. This research provides a better understanding of voting behavior in parliamentary elections through the concept of branding applied to the political leader. Moreover, it also offers new perspectives on a more comprehensive measure of the brand image and its effects in politics

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This thesis is comprised of three papers, each making a distinctive theoretical and empirical contribution to our understanding of interest representation within the European Parliament (EP). The papers are unified by two assumptions: first, the strategic behaviour of organised interests is significantly determined by the distribution of legislative influence, and second, the opportunity to become influential is a function of the EP’s decision-making rules. Each paper addresses a different aspect of this opportunity structure, which together provides a coherent explanation of the link between lobbying and the EP’s decision-making process. In so doing, insights are provided into the distribution of legislative influence within the EP and the legitimacy of the European Union’s policy process. The first paper explains how organised interests’ strategic behaviour is considerably altered in response to changes in the political opportunity structure afforded by each phase of the committee process. The second paper presents and tests a theory of indirect lobbying of the rapporteur. Here the institutional context is shown to be such that rapporteurs come to rely upon officials from their committee’s secretariat for relatively independent policy advice. But the policy expertise required by officials to carry out this role turns out to be endogenously derived from amongst the same lobbyists whose informational submissions the rapporteur seeks to verify. The final paper draws on longitudinal survey data to assess the impact of institutional rules and European party group membership, in the context of uncertainty amongst lobbyists as to whether their most closely aligned large party group will form part of a given legislative majority. This uncertainty provides an incentive for organised interests to lobby MEPs from opposing party groups in addition to more natural allies. But crucially, in performing this action lobbyists defer to their hard-wired principle and lobby the most closely aligned members from the otherwise unfriendly party.

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T.L. Magnanti, G. Perakis. / "December 1997." / Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-46). / Supported in part by NSF Grant. 9634736-DMI