The Impact of German MPs' Interest Affiliations on their Parliamentary Careers

Members of the German Bundestag are legally allowed to pursue sideline activities but cannot take money for enforcing an outside entities' interests in the Bundestag (Abgeordnetengesetz §44a). Since these ties might nonetheless constitute a relevant way for interest groups to lobby parliament from within, sideline activities have recently received a lot of negative attention in the press and in the German public. Voters fear their representatives no longer act in the electors' interest but rather stand up for either their own profits or those of powerful corporations. In addition to that, although there is evidence that members of parliament (MPs) represent their affiliated interests in parliament, studies of the formal ties of German MPs to organized interests are still scarce. Addressing this research gap, our proposed paper aims to analyze how interest affiliations of members of the German Bundestag impact on their political careers. On the one hand, we understand political careers as parliamentary leadership positions such as membership in parliamentary party groups' (PPG) executive committees, PPG's working groups and sections, party spokespersons in committees, and committee chairs. On the other hand, we survey the assignment to committees. Committee work can enable MPs to influence policies as the Bundestag's legislative capacities are grounded in its committee system that allows for the review of bills. We define interest affiliations as (vocational or honorary) functions in organizations and corporations, carried out by MPs, as well as sideline activities during the term of office. Since these are liable to publication on the Bundestag's website, we collected them for the 19th German Bundestag (2017–2021) which resulted in a database of 3763 interest affiliations for all MPs combined. We then estimate the impact of interest affiliations on leadership positions and committee assignments in the Bundestag by means of a regression analysis, while also considering MPs' individual biographic information, manner of election, and length of term as potential confounders. By combining literature on organized interests with studies on political representation and legislative organization, our analysis adds to the research on interest group studies as well as on parliaments and the understudied role of individual parliamentarians. Both the study of politicians' career paths and research on committee assignments lack an explicit focus on interest organizations and outside affiliations as explanatory variables. Our analysis provides this focus and highlights the implications of MPs carrying interest ties into legislative committees and using them to further their parliamentary careers.