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.