Legislator Attributes and Advocacy Focus: Non-electoral Sources of Parochialism in an Indirectly-Elected Legislature.

What explains the differences between legislators' orientation toward parochialism? While much literature exists on the effect of electoral rules on legislators' focus on parochial interests in democratic legislatures, less is known about party-nominated and indirectly elected legislators. Drawn on interviews and an original dataset of congressional opinions in China, this analysis identifies non-electoral sources of pork barrel politics. It finds evidence of some orientation toward parochialism among indirectly elected provincial legislators in China. In particular, provincial legislators who concurrently work in lower-level political positions are more inclined to favor constituency-centered interests over broader public interests than non-official legislators. After ruling out several important alternative mechanisms, I argue that extra-legislative incentives and resources to solve local policy problems are the likely mechanisms that connect legislators' occupation attributes with their advocacy focus. These findings have implications for the role of legislator attributes and the function of non-popularly elected legislatures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]