Municipal Councillors in Parliament, a Handicap for Legislative Activism? Parliamentary Productivity of Dual Mandate-Holders in the Belgian Federal Assembly between 1995 and 2014

Traditionally, scholars have always assumed that exercising a local political mandate as a national legislator intrinsically interferes with the intra parliamentary output. Despite the intuitive presumption that dual mandate-holders lack sufficient time to fulfil both mandates adequately, empirical support remains scarce and contradictory. Existing research has almost exclusively focused on problematic small samples in the French national assembly, failed to disentangle the generic phenomenon based on the nature of the local function and the context it is being exercised in, and neglected to embed their work in the legislative literature. This contribution aims to cover these shortcomings and assesses whether representatives with a dual mandate are less productive in the Belgian federal parliament during five legislatures between 1995 and 2014. The evidence shows that only mayors from large municipalities are less preoccupied with formal parliamentary endeavours, which refines the traditional pessimistic premise that cumul des mandats unambiguously cripples parliamentary activism and instead opens up the possibility for a more optimistic perspective.