Policy Specialization, Gender and Issue Attention in New Democracies

The attention that individual legislators choose to allocate to distinct policy areas is essential for democratic representation and accountability processes. Members of Parliament (MPs) are expected to work to advance the policy pledges put forward in election campaigns by their parties, to respond to the issue priorities of citizens and of their constituents while also reacting to the policy proposals of their party competitors. Given that time is scarce, and attention is naturally limited, legislators must decide what issues to concentrate on and what to ignore, being aware that these decisions will directly impact their ability to reach their policy and office goals. Yet, we know very little about how individual legislators decide on their legislative priorities outside Western, consolidated democracies. This article analyses issue attention drawing on an original dataset that includes all private member bills sponsored or adopted in the Romanian Parliament across a period of 19 years (between 2004 and 2022). The findings illustrate that legislative priorities follow policy specialization in committees and that changes in the committee structures and their jurisdiction also matter. The analyses also indicate that issue attention is highly gendered.