Who brings home the pork? Parties and the role of localness in committee assignments in mixed-member proportional systems

Abstract

The assignment of seats to specialized standing committees is a most consequential choice in legislative contexts. Distributive theories of legislative organization suggest that electoral incentives to cultivate personal votes result in the self-selection of legislators to committees best suited to please their constituents and, thus, to secure reelection. However, these theories discard the partisan basis of European parliaments and therefore fail to adequately assess the politics of committee assignments in these particular contexts. This article aims to explore the significance of distributive theories for the German case in differentiated ways and on the basis of a new and rich data set including statistical data for five legislative terms (1983, 1987, 1998, 2005, and 2009). It argues that in partisan assemblies, political parties might develop an interest in distributive politics themselves and might assign distinct types of legislators to distinct committees to seek personal votes contingent upon distinct electoral incentives. Particularly, we argue that Germany’s mixed proportional system provides incentives to parties to assign legislators with profound local roots to district committees best suited to please geographic constituents.

Are Voters Equal under Proportional Representation?

“…Though see Gschwend, Shugart, and Zittel () for results different from those of Heitshusen et al. ().…”

Is All Politics Indeed Local? A Comparative Study of Dual Mandate‐Holders’ Role Attitudes and Behaviours in Parliament

“…Scholars have assumed that dual‐mandate holding does not only serve as a direct pathway for localities to influence central policy‐making but also as a means to draw public funds to the local level (François ). Consequently, it touches upon the efforts of legislators to advertise successful attempts in securing national financial resources for their municipality and thus claim credit (Gschwend and Zittel ). We measure this on the basis of a question asked in the PARTIREP survey that allows respondents to estimate the frequency in which they claim credit for obtaining government grants benefitting their local area.…”

Committee Assignments: Theories, Causes and Consequences

“…Their results show that committees which allow for the allocation of benefits to their geographic re-election constituency are stacked with nominally elected legislators while committees which control funds that benefit their party's re-election constituencies are disproportionally filled with legislators which entered the Bundestag by a party list (Stratmann and Baur, 2002, p. 513). Looking further at the German case, Gschwend and Zittel (2016) find that legislators with local ties are more likely to be assigned to committees that deliver pork to please local constituents. But the mode of election (single member district versus party list) does not influence committee assignments.…”

“…Olsonand et al, 1998;Park, 1998;Rommetvedt, 1992), analyses similar to those of the European Parliament or even the US Congress were scarce. A number of empirical studies argued that committee assignments are affected by electoral rules or candidate selection procedures (Cain, Ferejohn and Fiorina, 1987;Stratmann and Baur, 2002;Pekkanen, Nyblade and Krauss, 2006;Crisp et al, 2009;Gschwend and Zittel, 2016). Stratmann and Baur (2002) analyse the effects of Germany's mixed member system on committee assignments.…”