Committee Networks in Legislatures

Abstract

So far, only very few studies focus on the structure and impact of the networks of parliamentary committees. Prominent examples are committee networks in the US House of Representatives where latent communities have been shown to impact on roll call voting. This kind of approach can be extended to other parliaments in different political systems. Varying the context and, accordingly, the different formal competencies assigned to committees, a series of completely new questions arise. First, different network techniques may be applied in order to detect and describe latent communities, blocks, and informal authorities and hierarchies. Second, using the extensive theoretical literature on committee functions and rules, appropriate hypotheses for the explanation of network choices and network impact, tailor-made for the specific context, may be applied. General questions are: why do certain MPs choose to be a member in specific committees, or why are they selected into these networks? How do they contribute to the overall linkage of committees? Which effect do these network positions have on various dependent variables (getting formal positions, agenda setting, impact on communicative and choice, and on policy outcomes), e.g. on the allocation of reports in the European Parliament? Do network positions constitute an informal social capital beyond formally assigned individual decision-making rights. Papers may conceive legislative networks both as dependent variable (causes of network formation ) as well as an independent variable (impact assessment with regard to pre-specified network structures). Proposals may also have a pronounced statistical focus discussing new models as applied to legislative studies. In addition, proposals featuring experimental studies of networks in committee decisions are welcome.

Title	Details
Redistribution in Networks: An Experiment on Coalition Building	View Paper Details
Activists in Politics	View Paper Details
The Representation of Women in German Parliamentary Committees	View Paper Details
Career Concerns and Strategic Leadership in the European Parliament: Committee Networks and Report Accumulation	View Paper Details