Spain
The Spanish political system limits individual MP participation in parliamentary debate favoring parties and parliamentary groups. Using data of the 7th to 10th legislative terms of Spain’s lower chamber (2000–2016) to explore the role of inter- and intra-party factors to MP floor participation, results show that parties and groups constrain MP behavior through three mechanisms. First, monitoring over MP activity ensures MP discipline and predicts very well how much MPs speak and for how long. Second, committee assignments help parliamentary groups regulate MP floor access reducing it to a few relevant MPs. Third, a strong executive minimizes dissent within the majority group in the chamber. Given these mechanisms and a set of rules that privilege party and group structure and restrain parliamentary fragmentation and individuation, legislative debate in Spain features just a few MPs within a model of representation that strongly favors central party-structure control over candidate-constituency bonding mechanisms.