Roles and user characteristics as driving forces of information use in the Dutch parliament

Recent literature calls for more research on the context and drivers of information use, and how this affects the information-seeking behaviour of politicians. This article addresses this gap by exploring antecedents of politicians’ accounting and other types of information use. It looks at parliamentary debates in the Dutch central government linked to the budget cycle—how accounting information is balanced with other sources of information. Political roles (for example being member of a coalition or opposition party, or being a party’s financial spokesperson), as well as personal characteristics (age and experience), were found to have an impact on the extent of accounting and other types of information use.