Why Do Parliamentarians Switch Committees? Evidence from Romania

Committee work lies at the core of parliamentary activities in representative democracies. So far, various strands of literature have investigated the activities of these committees, why some parliamentarians join committees and what happens as a result of the activities in these committees. In spite of this broad coverage, there is limited research on parliamentary committee switching. More precisely, only isolated studies sought to explain why parliamentarians leave the committee in which they started their activity to join another. This paper seeks to address this gap in the literature and aims to explain what drives Members of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies to switch parliamentary committees. The timeframe for analysis is 2012-2020, which coincides with almost two full terms in office. This timeframe also allows a comparison between the parliamentarians elected under the mixed-member proportional system used in 2012 and those elected under closed list proportional representation in 2016. To explain switching between parliamentary committees, our analysis includes all deputies in the two legislatures, thus comparing switchers and non-switchers. Our study focuses on individual level explanations such as parliamentary experience, activity as a legislator, position in the party, expertise, political rewards, committee size, visibility and partisan affiliation. To analyze the explanatory power of these determinants, our statistical analysis uses individual level data from approximately 550 parliamentarians. The results indicate that switching is a function of expertise and political experience, moderated by the visibility of the new committee.