Extra-coalitional policy bargaining: investigating the power of committee chairs

Abstract

Previous research found that coalition partners do not only control each other within the government, but also use instruments of the legislative arena. While the literature has mainly concentrated on parliamentary scrutiny, much less is known about the power of committee chairs in the policy-making process. Therefore, this paper examines if parties use committee chairs to control their coalition partner. We hypothesize that cross-partisan committee chairs will increase the probability that a legislative proposal is changed by the committee. Our theoretical expectations are tested with the help of a newly compiled, comprehensive data set of committee decisions on legislative proposals from 15 German Bundesländer. The case selection allows us to hold important institutional characteristics constant while increasing the variance of the variables on the government level. Our results confirm that committee chairs act as supervisory body and thus add empirical evidence to our understanding of oversight mechanisms in coalition governance.

Government dominance and the role of opposition in parliamentary democracies

“…In particular, committee chairs have privileges – be they formal or informal – to determine the agenda of the committee and to affect the overall committee deliberations. As a result, it has been argued that chairing committees can help coalition partners to monitor and scrutinize government bills when ministerial drift is more likely due to diverging policy preferences between coalition parties (Carroll & Cox, 2012; Kim & Loewenberg, 2005; Krauss et al., 2021). 7…”

Coalition Mood in European Parliamentary Democracies

“…Some studies on coalition governance focus on the instruments parties use to make coalition government work. For example, multiparty governments draft coalition agreements (see, for example, Klüver and Bäck 2019; Müller and Strøm 2008; Strøm and Müller 1999), use junior ministers as ‘watchdogs’ in departments headed by coalition parties (see, for example, Falcó-Gimeno 2014; Thies 2001) and use parliamentary instruments to scrutinize government bills from their coalition partners (Carroll and Cox 2012; Kim and Loewenberg 2005; Krauss, Praprotnik and Thürk 2021; Martin and Vanberg 2004). This literature relates back to the government formation process.…”

The Allocation of Committee Chairs and the Oversight of Coalition Cabinets in Belgium

“…Instead, higher levels of scrutiny are registered when the committee is chaired by an opposition MP. However, evidence that coalition parties do use committee chairs to control their partners and shape legislation emerged from an analysis of German state parliaments (Krauss et al 2021). Those findings suggest that it is more likely that a legislative proposal is changed at the committee stage if the committee chair belongs to the coalition partner.…”

“…Our article builds on an expanding literature that analyses the allocation of committee chairs between parties and provides evidence for the theory that chairs are used strategically for shadowing purposes (Carroll and Cox 2012; Clark and Jurgelevičiūtė 2008; Kim and Loewenberg 2005; Krauss et al 2021). One alternative explanation is that the chair allocation process is used as compensation mechanism for coalition parties receiving fewer ministerial portfolios than they would be entitled to proportionally (Pukelis 2016).…”