Stepping Stones to Power? Legislative Rapporteurs and Parliamentary Career Paths in the French National Assembly

Research on parliaments highlights the structuring role of specialised positions in the division of legislative labour and delegation mechanisms (Häge et Ringe 2019), yet their implications for individual MPs’ career trajectories remain less documented (Schobess et Vet 2022). This paper analyzes legislative rapporteurship in the French National Assembly as an organisational test : under what conditions is repeated rapporteurship associated with subsequent leadership positions within parliament and, separately, entry into government ? This argument builds on delegation and legislative organisation (Strøm 2000) and on research linking legislative activity to career returns (Miquel et Snyder Jr 2006). The study combines (1) an MP-level dataset for the 15th legislature (2017-2022), measuring rapporteur activity (number of appointments), workload (report length in total word count), and the share of reports leading to promulgation and (2) interviews and case studies, including committee and group leaders, ministers, ministerial and parliamentary advisers, assessing whether rapporteurship serves as an evaluation criterion in internal appointments, to clarify mechanisms behind the observed associations. Workload is also captured through a reproducible indicator of “major promulgated reports”, that is to say reports in the top 15% of the length distribution whose consideration resulted in the promulgation of a law. This provides an indirect measure of complexity and work intensity, without claiming to measure media salience. To limit selection bias, the analysis compares MPs with similar parliamentary group affiliation, committee arena and seniority. Subsequent trajectories are observed in the 16th legislature (2022-2024) for re-elected MPs, using dated positions: standing committee chairships and parliamentary group leadership. A separate extension examines entry into government (ministers, delegated ministers, and secretaries of state), treated as a distinct arena with different selection logics. Three hypotheses structure the analysis. First, among re-elected MPs, more intensive rapporteur activity in the 15th legislature is associated with a higher probability of accessing a committee chairship or group leadership in the 16th legislature. Second, at comparable levels of activity, a portfolio containing a larger share of major promulgated reports is associated with more frequent access to these posts, suggesting differentiated internal returns to legislative work. Third, in exploratory analyses, entry into government is more frequent among MPs with a dense and demanding rapporteur profile, without positing an automatic conversion. The paper contributes to research on parliamentary roles and MPs’ careers by showing how a role often viewed as technical can operate as a device for screening and reputation-building, and how its career associations differ across arenas (committees, parliamentary groups, government).