The Access of CIO Legislators to Positions of Influence in the Parliamentary Arena

In this paper, we describe and analyse the assignment of legislative “mega-seats” (Carroll et al. 2006) to legislators. We build on the assumption that (1) legislators operate in rules-constrained environments, and (2) that they are primarily agents to whom parties delegate. Our main aim is to understand, whether CIOs have significantly different career patterns inside the legislature and if political parties offer the same opportunities for those MPs to take on leadership positions within parliament. Specifically, we will examine committee chairs and vice-chairs assignments, whip positions, and various positions signalling leadership roles within the chamber. Additionally, we will also include a time dimension to our analysis whereby we describe the number of days that MPs spent in leadership positions. Ultimately, we want to understand whether MPs with similar positions in the extra-parliamentary party structure and socioeconomic background (age, education, etc.) have different likelihoods of obtaining any such position depending on their CIO status.