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The Electoral Connection and Legislative Committees |
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| Authors: | Brian F Crisp PhD Maria C Escobar-Lemmon PhD Bradford S Jones PhD Mark P Jones PhD Michelle M Taylor-Robinson PhD |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Political Science , Washington University in St. Louis , St. Louis, MO, 63130-4899, USA crisp@wustl.edu;3. Department of Political Science , Texas A&4. M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4348, USA;5. University of California , Davis, CA, 95616, USA;6. Rice University in Houston , TX, 77251-1892, USA |
| Abstract: | This article examines whether the career needs of legislators – to be re-elected or to move on to another political post – allow us to explain the rules governing committee structures and the committee assignments individual legislators obtain. It uses the institutional variations provided by Argentina, Costa Rica, and Venezuela to test hypotheses about committee assignments and committee assignment mechanisms. It finds that incentives created by candidate selection procedures and electoral rules show some relationship to committee assignments, but with a good deal of variation across national cases and individual careers. |
| Keywords: | legislative committees electoral rules candidate selection procedures |