Explaining Interruption Behavior in Parliament: The Role of Topic Expertise, Career Status, and Government-Opposition Dynamics

Abstract Why do politicians interrupt each other? Previous research has studied how personal characteristics of politicians, especially their gender, influence interruption behavior. However, we lack knowledge regarding how strategic incentives arising from political competition influence whether two politicians will interrupt each other. I argue that interruptions are a tool to disrupt the communication of other politicians, attack their public image, and boost one’s own reputation. Based on strategic incentives, I expected three groups of factors to drive interruptions. First, politicians who are experts on the same topic should be more likely to interrupt each other. Second, career status could influence how likely new parliamentarians are to interrupt and how likely frontbenchers are to be interrupted. Third, opposition parties may use interruptions to attack members of government parties, whereas members of government parties should be least likely to interrupt their coalition partners. I used data on interruptions in the German Bundestag from 2017 to 2021, employing logistic and network regression models, and found support for shared topic expertise and government-opposition dynamics driving interruptions. New parliamentarians seem to be less likely to interrupt, but I found no robust evidence for an effect of frontbencher status. These findings enrich knowledge about the strategic role of interruptions in parliamentary communication and legislative behavior, demonstrating the roles of topic expertise and government-opposition dynamics in interruptions, which should not be disregarded in future studies.