Within‐party Allocation of Committee Seats: Evidence from Danish Local Elections

This article examines two traditional and four new explanations of committee composition. Using survey data on 541 Danish local politicians' pre‐election committee seat preferences and their actual post‐election committee seats, it is found that politicians are more likely to have their committee seat preferences fulfilled the less their preferences for the committees' policy domains differ from those of their fellow party members and the more specialised they are within the jurisdiction area of their preferred committee. Thus, the ex ante control of committee members sometimes observed in the American context is also relevant in the very different institutional setting of Danish local government. Moreover, a number of other explanations are found to be of equal relevance. In particular, individual‐level popular support is important to politicians' committee seat preference fulfilment and seats are distributed among party members in order to assure that everybody, at least to some extent, obtains a post that they find attractive. The findings thus suggest that ex ante control of committee members is but one of many concerns of parties. Accordingly, scholars should broaden their attention to other aspects of committee seat allocation, such as fair share norms and the popular support of politicians.     

Committee characteristics and re-election margins: An empirical investigation of the US House

Models of legislative organization frequently begin with the premise that the committee system serves the re-election interests of incumbent legislators. Attempts to substantiate this notion empirically have been unsuccessful. Nevertheless, the notion lives on, nourished by a stylized characterization of the committee system. In the standard model committees have jurisdictional monopolies over specialized policy areas and legislators gravitate toward those committees that deal most closely with the policy concerns of their constituents. Contrary to this simplifying characterization, the degree of monopoly control and policy specialization varies across standing committees in the us congress. Some committees have wide jurisdictions and attract members with diverse policy preferences. Jurisdictional overlap and resulting turf battles are common aspects of congressional sessions. We suggest here that these realities warrant a re-opening of the empirical investigation into the link between electoral success and committee characteristics. Our findings indicate that assignment to a committee with a relatively high degree of monopoly control increases a member's vote share, and that assignment to a narrowly focused (specialized) committee does not.     

Public critic or secretive monitor: party objectives and legislative oversight of the military in Canada

Abstract

This paper analyses how democratic legislatures oversee the military, using Canada as a case. The paper argues that the tendency to engage in intrusive oversight versus reactive oversight is shaped by institutional structures and party preferences. Canadian institutional structures discourage parliamentary defence committees from engaging in intrusive oversight of the armed forces to achieve policy influence, and encourage opposition parties to focus on reactive oversight efforts that complement their vote-seeking preferences. Vote-seeking, the paper argues, incentivises opposition parties to be public critics of the government’s handling of military affairs, rather than informed but secretive monitors of the armed forces. The paper then addresses a key case where the opposition was able to use an exceptional constitutional power of the House of Commons to force the executive to disclose classified information regarding the military: detainee transfers by the Canadian Armed Forces in Afghanistan. This case highlights the trade-offs that parliamentarians face when they demand information to perform more intrusive oversight of the armed forces. This suggests that party preferences are a significant, yet understudied, aspect of how legislatures vary in their oversight of the military.     

Participation and voting in committees: Evidence from the ILO

Although many international organisations are formally built on the principle of ‘one country–one vote’, the lack of representativeness in decision-making may give a subgroup of members disproportionate influence. Using data on participation and voting in 51 decision-making committees of the International Labour Organization (ILO), we do find a bias in voting outcomes due to committee composition. Recent theoretical research has argued that voters with extreme preferences may self-select into committees. A procedure is proposed to test for this prediction. There is no indication that governments with extreme preferences are drawn disproportionately into ILO committees.     

Committee structure and political preferences: The case of Norwegian local government

Abstract.  In Norway, as in the other Nordic countries, sector-based policy making in local government is considered a problem as it is alleged to take place at the expense of a more integrated approach. Inspired by American rational choice theories on committee power, this article first sets out to establish whether the distributive rationale of the present committee system actually does promote sector-orientation among local politicians. This approach is challenged by alternative theories on committee power, focusing on the informational rationale in specialisation and the relevance of partisanship . The findings suggest that all the three theories explain in part committee member' preferences, but partisanship is most important for explaining both spending preferences and preferences on organisational forms. The article goes on to explore whether recent local council reforms, intended to replace the sector-oriented system with strong committees by a new de-specialised system with weaker committees, are likely to curb the effect of sector on committee members' preferences. The conclusion here is not easy to draw, but it is clear that sector-orientation is not encouraged by the reforms; in fact, the opposite seems to be the case. What local councils may have overlooked, however, is the influence of the informational rationale on committees and their members. The analyses are based on data obtained from a random sample of 119 of Norway's 435 municipalities.     

Women on the Sidelines: Women's Representation on Committees in Latin American Legislatures

This article explores how new groups can be marginalized after they gain representation in the legislature. We use data from six Latin American legislatures to examine the effect of institutional and political factors on how traditionally dominant male political leaders distribute scarce political resources—committee assignments—to female newcomers. In general, we find that women tend to be isolated on women's issues and social issues committees and kept off of power and economics/foreign affairs committees as the percentage of legislators who are women increases, when party leaders or chamber presidents control committee assignments, and when the structure of the committee system provides a specific committee to deal with women's issues. Thus, to achieve full incorporation into the legislative arena, newcomers must do more than just win seats. They must change the institutions that allow the traditionally dominant group to hoard scarce political resources .     

Moderat bevorzugt, extrem gewählt. Zum Zusammenhang von Präferenz und Wahlentscheidung in räumlichen Modellen sachfragenorientierten Wählens

This article demonstrates, on the basis of survey data from the 2005 German national election, that voters often systematically choose more extreme parties than warranted by their own preferences. Estimation of Grofman’s (1985) spatial discounting model reveals that party preference and vote decision follow different utility functions. Preferences turn out to be purely proximity driven, i. e. voters prefer parties with positions close to their own. Moving from preference to the vote of the top-ranked alternative, a devaluation of party positions and a significant shift in voter utility towards more extreme parties is observed. These results show that voter behaviour may change, even though voter preferences remain unchanged. Results also suggest that the remarkable success of FDP and Linke in the 2005 election is more likely due to shifting behaviour by moderate voters rather than to sweeping changes in the German electorate’s preferences toward welfare policy.     

Parliamentary questions and oversight in the European Union

Delegation in the European Union (EU) involves a series of principal‐agent problems, and the various chains of delegation involve voters, parties, parliaments, governments, the European Commission and the European Parliament. While the literature has focused on how government parties attempt to monitor EU affairs through committees in national parliaments and through Council committees at the EU level, much less is known about the strategies opposition parties use to reduce informational deficits regarding European issues. This article argues that the European Parliament (EP) offers opposition parties an arena to pursue executive oversight through the use of written parliamentary questions. Using a novel dataset on parliamentary questions in the EP, this article examines why Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) ask questions of specific Commissioners. It transpires that MEPs from national opposition parties are more likely to ask questions of Commissioners. Questions provide these parties with inexpensive access to executive scrutiny. This finding has implications for the study of parliamentary delegation and party politics inside federal legislatures such as the EP.     

Beyond committees: parliamentary oversight of coalition government in Britain

Abstract

A legislature’s ability to engage in oversight of the executive is believed to derive largely from its committee system. For example, powerful parliamentary committees are considered a necessary condition for the legislature to help police policy compromises between parties in multiparty government. But can other parliamentary instruments perform this role? This article suggests parliamentary questions as an alternative parliamentary vehicle for coalition parties to monitor their partners. Questions force ministers to reveal information concerning their legislative and extra-legislative activities, providing coalition members unique insights into their partners’ behaviour. In order to test our argument, we build and analyse a new dataset of parliamentary questions in the British House of Commons covering the 2010?2015 coalition. As expected, government MPs ask more questions as the divisiveness of a policy area increases. Legislatures conventionally considered weak due to the lack of strong committees may nevertheless play an important oversight role through other parliamentary devices, including helping to police the implementation of coalition agreements.     

Congressional Attention and Opportunity Structures: The Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee

This article examines the role that overlapping committee jurisdictions play in fostering or hindering attention to environmental and energy issues in the U.S. Congress. The Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Committee, created by House Democrats in 2007 , and its chairman Rep. Ed Markey took advantage of opportunities within the existing jurisdictional arrangement to increase attention to these issues despite lacking any legislative authority. Data from the 110th and 111th Congresses show that the Select Committee held more hearings on climate change and alternative energy, and on environmental and energy policy generally, than any other committee. The committee also increased the range of sources informing debate on these issues by calling different witnesses than other committees. These findings have important implications for the relationship between institutional structure and agendas and for Congress' policy‐making role on energy and the environment.     

The Growing Power and Autonomy of House of Commons Select Committees: Causes and Effects

This article is an examination of the rising prominence of House of Commons select committees during the 2010–2015 Parliament, which takes into account the impact of the Wright reforms. The new system of electing committee chairs and members is explored as a central reform that has burnished the autonomy, independence and credibility of the committees. In addition, the characteristics of the coalition government and circumstances entailed by a two‐party executive are seen as factors that have made more robust the neutrality of the committees, which have been looked to ever more urgently as impartial scrutineers of government policy and personnel. As the system has been strengthened and received greater attention from the government, the public and the media, select committees have also come to present a platform upon which certain members and chairs have grown their profile. This phenomenon in turn has added to the desirability of roles on committees, which now present an alternative career route to the ministerial ladder.     

Political Parties and Representation of the Poor in the American States

Motivated by recent work suggesting that low‐income citizens are virtually ignored in the American policymaking process, this article asks whether a similar bias shapes the policy positions adopted by political parties much earlier in the policymaking process. While the normative hope is that parties serve as linkage institutions enhancing representation of those with fewer resources to organize, the resource‐dependent campaign environment in which parties operate provides incentives to appeal to citizens with the greatest resources. Using newly developed measures of state party positions, we examine whether low‐income preferences get incorporated in parties’ campaign appeals at this early stage in the policymaking process—finding little evidence that they do. This differential responsiveness was most pronounced for Democratic parties in states with greater income inequality; it was least evident for Republicans’ social policy platforms. We discuss the implications of these findings for representation in this era of growing economic inequality.     

Cardinals or Clerics? Congressional Committees and the Distribution of Pork

Journalistic and academic accounts of Congress suggest that important committee positions allow members to procure more federal funds for their constituents, but existing evidence on this topic is limited in scope and has failed to distinguish the effects of committee membership from selection onto committees. We bring together decades of data on federal outlays and congressional committee and subcommittee assignments to provide a comprehensive analysis of committee positions and distributive politics across all policy domains. Using a within‐member research design, we find that seats on key committees produce little additional spending. The chairs of the Appropriations subcommittees—the so called “cardinals” of Congress—are an exception to the rule. These leadership positions do generate more funding for constituents, but only from programs under the jurisdiction of their subcommittee. Our results paint a new picture of distributive politics and call for a reexamination of its canonical theories.     

Targeting Benefits for Electoral Gain: Constituency Marginality and the Distribution of Grants to English Local Authorities

We model the spatial allocation of resources over constituencies as an optimization problem in which governing parties face uncertainty about voter preferences, but seek to increase their chances of getting re-elected. We show that a rational government should allocate extra resources to marginal constituencies and especially favour opposition-held marginals. We test this hypothesis on data about central government grants to larger English local authorities. We consider whether Conservative controlled and 'flagship' local authorities also benefit. Our empirical results suggest that the government allocated around £500 million more to local authorities containing marginal constituencies and around £155 million more to 'flagship' local authorities than they could have been expected to get on the criteria of social need and population.     

Institutional features of congressional decisions: The fight to prohibit smoking on airlines

A pervasive theme of the congressional politics literature is that the committee system is fundamental in determining the policy status quo. Such an assertion hinges crucially upon committees controlling their jurisdictions; congressional delegation is undermined if a committee can assert authority over any issue domain at any time. Yet, representatives may possess an incentive to support a policy proposal that would change the status quo, even if it entails disregarding procedures. Indeed, standard conceptualizations of how members of Congress make their voting choices assume that only the benefits and costs associated with a policy matter, and they do not consider institutional factors such as whether a bill emerged from the correct committee.This analysis examines whether representatives will sacrifice policy interests to preserve institutional features of the legislature. The effort in 1987 to curb smoking on airplanes — which became embroiled in a difficult-to-resolve jurisdictional dispute — serves as a vehicle to analyze how sensitive members are to such features. The results demonstrate that a sizable number put aside their [generally moderate] policy preferences and voted against limits on smoking for institutional reasons. These findings have important implications both for specifying the determinants of policy change and for understanding institutional stability.     

Partisan dealignment and committee power in five Westminster parliaments

What explains the power of parliamentary committees? A large literature on the United States Congress sees strong legislative committees as a consequence of legislators’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote. These incentives are typically understood to be determined by formal electoral rules. How legislatures are elected thus shapes how they are organised. This article argues that explanations of legislative organisation should also consider a non-institutional source of personal vote-seeking incentives: voters’ partisanship. Where partisan dealignment is more extensive, legislators have stronger incentives to develop a personal vote. Where committee systems are more powerful, legislators have better opportunities to do so. Partisan dealignment should thus lead to stronger committee systems. This argument is supported by analysis of original data on the postwar evolution of committee systems in five ‘Westminster’ parliaments. Partisan dealignment is associated with larger committee systems, and with larger expansions of committee systems.     

Looking for a smoking gun: Committee jurisdictions and congressional voting decisions

The nature of jurisdictional boundaries of committees in the House of Representatives has received little scholarly attention. Recently, however, LaRue and Rothenberg (1992) focused specifically on this topic and concluded that for some legislators — namely, those involved in a jurisdictional dispute — jurisdictional issues were an important influence, above and beyond policy preferences, in determining votes. I expand on their analysis in an attempt to discover whether members who are not involved in such a dispute also seek to protect jurisdictional property rights. I find that these non-involved members werenot affected by the jurisdictional considerations.     

Finance industry PAC contributions to U.S. Senators, 1983–88

In this paper, I examine the relationship between campaign contributions from PACs representing the finance industry and membership on sixteen standing committees in the Senate. I hypothesize that finance industry PACs will contribute more to the Banking committee, the Senate committee with the greatest responsibility for developing public policy that affects the finance industry. My results indicate that committee assignment does influence the distribution of finance industry PAC money; the finance industry does give significantly more to members of the Senate Banking committee. This is the first study to find this relationship between PAC contributions and committee membership in the Senate.     

Assimilation and contrast effects in voter projections of party locations: Evidence from Norway, France, and the USA

In the standard Downsian model, voters are assumed to choose parties based on the extent of ideological proximity between the voter's own position and that of the party. Yet it is also well known that there are rationalization and projection effects such that voters tend to misestimate the policy platforms of candidates or parties to which they are sympathetic by overstating the correspondence between those positions and the voter's own preferences (see, e.g., Markus & Converse 1979; Granberg & Brent 1980; Granberg & Holmberg 1988; Merrill & Grofman 1999). Here we follow insights in the psychological literature on persuasion (Sherif & Hovland 1961; Parducci & Marshall 1962) by distinguishing between assimilation and contrast effects. Assimilation refers to shortening the perceived ideological distance between oneself and parties one favors; contrast refers to exaggerating the distance to parties for which one does not intend to vote. Using survey data on voter self–placements and party placements on ideological scales for the seven major Norwegian parties, five major French parties, and two major American parties we show that both assimilation and contrast effects are present in each country to a considerable degree.We also investigate the possible effects of randomness in party placement and scale interpretation – effects that can easily be confounded with assimilation but not so easily with contrast.     

Elite perceptions of mass preferences in The Netherlands; biases in cognitive responsiveness

Abstract. Several studies have shown dissimilarities between political leaders and voters in terms of political attitudes and policy preferences. Though many explanations have been offered for this phenomenon, the knowledge factor has been overlooked. The basic question of this paper is how knowledgeable politicians are of the political opinions of their voters as well as of the general public. Forty-six national Dutch politicians were asked to estimate the percentage of the public at large and of their own voters who agree with specific political statements. These estimates were then compared with the actual distribution of opinions. Though using a rather strict criterion it has been found that politicians tend to give inaccurate estimates of the public's support for various political issues. The inaccuracy does not differ between members of the government and members of parliament, but politicians of parties in office appear to perform worse than members of opposition parties. The data do not support the hypothesis about politicians' ability to correctly estimate majority and minority opinions, or to accurately localize their own voters relative to the public at large. Furthermore it is observed that politicians overestimate rather than underestimate differences in opinion between the electorate and their own voters. No difference is found in politicians'estimates of political issues which can or cannot be classified in terms of 'left' or 'right'. In addition, politicians do not judge their voters to be more right-wing than they actually are. Contrary to our hypothesis, Social-Democratic politicians are not more likely to show a 'conservative bias' in estimating their voters' preferences compared to politicians from the Christian-Democratic and Liberal parties. Finally, the relevance of our findings for political sciences as well as some normative consequences are briefly discussed.