Electoral Strategy,Committee Membership,and Rent Seeking in the Taiwanese Legislature, 1992–2001

While the electoral system undoubtedly influences legislative behavior, it does not necessarily have a uniform effect on all legislators. In this article, I argue that the different strategies that candidates choose in the quest for office result in differing incentives once the candidates have been elected. In the Taiwanese context, candidates who adopt a campaign strategy based on organization will tend to engage in more rent‐seeking activities once in the legislature, in order to offset the heavy financial burden of this strategy. From 1992 to 2001, Taiwanese legislators whose votes were highly concentrated in a small number of precincts tended to serve significantly more time on committees with the most rent‐seeking opportunities than did legislators with far less concentrated support. Legislators whose votes were spread more evenly across the entire electoral district and legislators elected from the party lists tended to serve more time on committees with little rent‐seeking potential.