Do parliamentary party groups put brakes on their ideological outliers? Party discipline and ideological outliers in the Belgian Chamber from 2007 to 2010

This paper concentrates on the effect that 'party discipline' has on the parliamentary behavior of individual MPs. It is mainly interested in understanding whether and how ideological distance to one's party group influences the legislative activity of an individual MP. In other words, the main question is: Do parliamentary party groups put brakes on their ideological outliers? While the answer of this question tells something about the direct effect of ‘party discipline’ it will be also tested whether ‘party discipline’ has an indirect influence on MPs’ legislative work in the sense that MPs with a more critical attitude toward ‘party discipline’ will be more or less active than their colleagues