Cabinets, Committees and Careers in 19th Century France

Committees play an important role in the legislature of any established democracy, and an equally important role in the career prospects of ambitious politicians. But the function of the committee system in the professionalization of the political class in a new democracy, typically characterized by weak party organizations and fledgling institutions, is less understood. This paper takes advantage of a semi-natural experiment in the Chamber of Deputies of the French Third Republic (1870-1940), namely random assignment in the committee election process, to estimate the effect of committee membership on both the electoral and legislative fortunes of deputies. We demonstrate that obtaining a place on the budget committee greatly increases the chance a deputy will later obtain a ministerial position. Also, against conventional wisdom, we find no effect on either future party leadership or re-election; these results echo findings from similar studies using quasi-experimental designs to study endogenous legislative institutions. More broadly, we demonstrate the importance of committees as a stepping stone to higher office, even in the absence of disciplined parties.