By focusing on parliamentary systems, this article presents an argument that legislators who have strong local ties and individual support bases are more likely to be individualistic and so break party unity in parliament. They are simply less dependent on parties for their careers, political and otherwise. The article draws on an original data set of legislators' votes and their biographies from five European democracies. The results show that local-level political experience is a strong predictor of being a maverick in parliament.
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