Cooperative or Competitive Co-Specialization? Evidence from the German Parliament

Division of labor and MP specialization are cornerstones of modern parliamentarism. The remarkable similarity of the committee systems in most European parliaments imply that committees are indeed the workhorse of modern democracy. Yet, scholars of such systems are unsure about the very nature of the relationships between lawmakers in those committees. The two opposing hypotheses theorize that legislators with a similar specialization are either in fierce competition or that specialization drives cooperation. The contribution at hand tests both hypotheses for the three opposition parties in the 17th German Bundestag. It does so by constructing a new measurement of (co-)specialization that adds to the former measurement based on committee membership by also including the multiple stand-in roles for committees of German MPs. This specialization profile is then matched with the cooperative behavior, as seen in the cosponsorship of parliamentary motions. Both variables are relational and hence the overall analysis employs an inferential network analysis. The analysis shows that indeed co-specialization is a significant predictor for cooperation. It finds broad support for a connection between being specialized and supporting motions at the same time. The main contributions are first, a new dataset of the cosponsorship behavior in the 17th German Bundestag, second, a new measurement for (co-)specialization and a first descriptive account of the network of expertise in the German parliament, as well as, third, a first relational longitudinal analysis of cosponsorship in this setting.