The Determinants of Selection to Agriculture Committees in Comparative Perspective: Institutional, Organisational, and Distributional Influences

Because the selection of legislators to committee tells us a lot about the organisation and operation of legislatures, a sizeable body of research has examined the determinants of selection. With only a handful of exceptions, however, most of the research examining committee selection in legislatures outside the United States has failed to operationalise one of the major theories of legislative organisation—the distributive theory—in a way that captures the electoral connection between legislators and their constituents. To remedy this situation, this paper explores the constituency connection between legislators and the assignment of seats on committees across several legislatures. In particular, this paper focuses on committees whose remit includes agricultural affairs: because such committees are thought to be particularly sensitive to distributional concerns (and thus likely to promote committee-seeking among high-need legislators), and thus the analysis provides a critical test of distributive theory. In addition to exploring the underlying impact of distributional potential on selection to agricultural committees, this paper explores how the constituency connection is conditioned by institutional properties (i.e. the electoral system and strength of the committee system) and organisational features (i.e. the degree to which parties control the committee selection process and the remit of the committees in question).