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Standing Committee Assignments in the GermanBundestag – Who Gets What in Within-Party

Negotiations?

TIM ALEXANDER MICKLER

Standing committees play a vital role in the policy-making process of modern

parliaments. This study investigates the assignment criteria of standing commit-

tee members in the 17th Bundestag by applying congressional theories of legis-

lative organisation to the German case. The statistical analysis shows that MPs

often join the same committees that they have been members of in prior legisla-

tive periods. While prior occupation/education and affiliation to interest groups

only partially explain the distribution, interviews with whips and secretaries in

Berlin show that regional factions and the political reputation of the MP play a

major role in the assignment process. Parties monitor carefully whether commit-

tees are staffed with preference outliers during the assignment process while

partisan considerations are hardly evident. This is strong evidence for the

claim of informational theory of legislative organisation which highlights the

information-processing character of committees.

INTRODUCTION

Parliaments are highly complex institutions whose members, despite being elected

equally with the same right and privileges, organise themselves in their daily work

in terms of ‘hierarchy (functional differentiation) and specialisation (horizontal differ-

entiation)’.1 Although, fundamentally, ‘legislatures are collegial, rather than hierarch-

ical, organisations’,2 such differentiations occur universally after the constitution of

parliaments. This process, by which ‘resources and . . . parliamentary rights [are

assigned] to individual legislators or groups of legislators’,3 is known as legislative

organisation. The committee system is a prominent outcome of this process and

widely acknowledged as one of the most important elements in the decision-making

process.4 Although hardly mentioned in constitutions, parliamentary committees are

established in almost every parliament nowadays. They are considered to be vital

for an efficient decision-making process due to their involvement in the legislative pro-

cedure and the control of government. In the German Bundestag, as an example of a

working parliament, a large part of the work takes place in committees.5 When com-

mittees are decisive, it is important to know who controls their power, i.e. what the

driving forces are which accumulate committee preferences.6 As Rohde and Shepsle

note, understanding the ‘process by which members are assigned to committees is of

the greatest importance’.7 Within parliamentary democracies the central actors with

regard to committee assignments are parliamentary party groups (PPGs).8 But how

German Politics, Vol.22, No.4, December 2013, pp.421–440http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2013.832215 # 2013 Association for the Study of German Politics

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do PPGs organise themselves in committees? Although committees in the Bundestag

have received considerable scholarly attention,9 quantitative analyses of the assign-

ment process have so far focused on the difference between FPTP and PR legislators

or the degree of localness of individual MPs.10

The main focus of this study lies on the analysis of the rationale from which privi-

leged groups such as committee members in the Bundestag derive their power. To do

so, the predictions of neo-institutional congressional theories of legislative organis-

ation are applied to the party-centred context of the German parliament. Recently, a

number of studies have used these theories to study the rationale behind committee

assignments outside the US.11

The article is structured as follows. After discussing the different theories on leg-

islative organisation, information on the standing committees of the Bundestag will be

provided. The theoretical framework and statistical analysis of the committee assign-

ments of the 17th Bundestag will be followed by evidence from interviews in Berlin.

The statistical analysis indicates that across parties, a strict seniority principle is

applied. Although prior education, occupation and affiliation to interest groups

outside parliament can explain assignments across parties, these concepts cannot

fully capture the assignment process when looking at individual committees. Inter-

views in Berlin in March 2012 confirm these findings but indicated that regional fac-

tions and the expertise and reputation of individual MPs determine the assignment

process to a great extent.

THEORIES OF LEGISLATIVE ORGANISATION

In the United States, research on legislative organisation and committees has a long

tradition and goes back over a century.12 Through extensive research on the US Con-

gress and US state legislatures, three different perspectives were developed, usually

referred to as distributive, informational specialisation and partisan theory. Although

having different theoretical and empirical implications, all are ‘positive institutional

theories assuming rational behavior of actors and endogenous institutional structures

determining the distribution of legislative powers’.13

In the distributive theory,14 legislatures are seen as highly decentralised insti-

tutions, consisting of legislators pursuing the preferences of their constituencies to

secure their own re-election. To ensure benefits for their constituencies, legislators

trade favours and engage in logrolling. This, however, creates prospective fear of unex-

pected behaviour from members in policy areas in which legislators have little interest.

To overcome this collective action problem, parliaments establish a ‘host of insti-

tutions underpinning a set of property rights loosely referred to as the committee

system’.15 Because through committees policy areas are subdivided, interested

members can join their respective field and the collective choice instability is

solved. The composition of committees is predicted to be ‘highly unrepresentative

of their parent body, or outlying, since they are composed disproportionately of high

demand members’,16 e.g. the agriculture committee will pool members from rural

areas.

The informational theory17 highlights the uncertainty in legislative choices and the

collective benefits from legislative specialisation.18 Here, the parent body (i.e. the

422 GERMAN POLITICS

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plenum) relies on committees to gather and process information to enhance the legis-

lative process, thus improving the efficiency of the chamber as a whole. Arguing from a

principal agent perspective, unwanted behaviour of authorised members is one of the

biggest concerns, which is why the plenum will try to ‘ensure that the preferences of

committee members correspond as closely as possible to those of the chamber as a

whole’ to reduce costs of monitoring.19 Authority will only be given to those MPs

who are especially interested in this work, can specialise at low cost20 and have no

incentives to manipulate information in their own interest. Outlying committees

should therefore be eliminated and committees are predicted to represent the prefer-

ences of the plenum.

According to the partisan theory,21 parties are the main actors in parliament and

committees merely the principals of the majority party. A central role is put on

PPGs, which MPs join at the beginning of a new legislative period. To prevent unde-

sired behaviour of other members, PPGs empower party leaders to enforce discipline

on the members. These party leaders control the appointments and shape committees

according to their preferences to reduce costs of monitoring. Committees become part

of the reward system for the majority party and a resource ‘that the leadership can use

to reward followers and can promise to potential followers in exchange for compliance

with leadership directives’,22 thus making loyalty to the PPG the decisive factor.

There is still an ongoing debate with no theory prevailing across legislatures and

time. While researchers found evidence that US state legislatures’ committees tend

to be representative of their chambers,23 committees in the US House of Representa-

tives show a clear, but not universal tendency ‘to be stacked with Representatives

holding high taxing or spending preferences on issues in the committee’s jurisdic-

tion’,24 or members from districts with a strong stake in the output of the committee.25

The different results were mostly possible due to the ‘development of multiple tactics

for estimating relevant preferences’.26

Committee assignments outside the US Congress have not been the subject of a

similar long-standing research tradition. While the European Parliament is compara-

tively well-researched,27 a number of studies on national legislatures have been

issued by drawing heavily on prior studies. While a study on the Turkish Grand Assem-

bly provides partial support for all three theories,28 another study of the Danish Folk-

eting finds different patterns across parties and time.29 A later study of the assignments

in the Irish Dail finds no stable patterns, letting the author conclude that the assignment

process seems to ‘to happen rather randomly’.30

In one of the few quantitative studies of the assignment process in the Bundestag,

Stratmann and Baur focus on differences of assignments of MPs who entered the par-

liament via a direct ballot (FPTP legislators) or a party list (PR legislators). Their

results show that

FPTP legislators are members of committees which allow them to have influence

over the allocation of benefits to their geographic reelection constituency; PR

legislators are members of committees which allow them to have control over

funds that benefit their party’s reelection constituencies.31

Gschwend et al. put forward a similar argument but state that localness of an MP

matters to a greater extent.32 By doing so both studies assign a distributional logic

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 423

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to the allocation of committee seats, namely that committees ‘are dominated by repre-

sentatives of the group with the highest relative demand for the service’.33 Other the-

ories of legislative organisation provide ground for additional analyses. Before these

theories are applied to the German case and hypotheses are derived, the institutional

background of the committee system of the Bundestag will be introduced.

STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE BUNDESTAG: FROM INSTITUTIONALISATION TO

STAFFING

The German Bundestag handles much of its business in committees, of which there are

two different kinds: (1) standing (permanent) committees (Standige Ausschusse) and

(2) special (inquiry) committees (Sonderausschusse). Whereas inquiry committees

are set up for the preparation of decisions on wide-ranging and significant issues,

the purpose of standing committees, as stated in the Standing Orders of the German

Bundestag (Geschaftsordnung des Deutschen Bundestages) is to prepare the delibera-

tions in the plenum.34 Within the decision-making process, all bills and motions

(Antrage) are submitted to a leading committee ( federfuhrender Ausschuss) and in

certain circumstances to one or more consultative committees (mitberatende

Ausschusse) which have to deliver a recommendation for a resolution (Beschlussemp-

fehlung) in a timely manner.35 If, after ten weeks, no decision has been submitted, a

PPG or 5 per cent of all MPs can demand an update on the state of the discussions.

Standing committees in the Bundestag have been characterised as strong with

regard to their impact on the policy-making process;36 about 60 per cent of the bills

undergo modification in the committee stage.37 Within the decision-making process

of the Bundestag, committees are central institutions which deal with an increasing

workload.38 Standing committees ‘play a major part in giving . . . legislative output

its final shape’,39 and provide ‘infrastructure for communications and information

between members of parliament, government ministers, bureaucrats and interest

groups’.40 Getting on the ‘right’ committee is of major importance for the prospective

parliamentary career of freshmen.41

Standing committees have to be established after every election to a new Bundes-

tag. The establishment of a few committees is stipulated by the German Basic Law

(Grundgesetz),42 and traditionally every ministry on federal level receives a standing

committee as parliamentary counterpart (14 ministries in 2009). Additional commit-

tees are established if the field of responsibility of an existing committee is too

broad for a single committee or as a political signal to underline the societal relevance

of an issue, e.g. the Sports Committee (established since 1969, technically this policy

area is within the jurisdiction of internal affairs) and the Human Rights and Humani-

tarian Aid Committee (established in 1998, technically jurisdiction of Foreign Affairs

and Economic Cooperation and Development).

Which committees are established is decided in the Council of Elders (Altestenrat),

the central coordination body of the Bundestag, consisting of the presiding officer of

the German parliament and his deputies and 23 other experienced MPs. Here, the chair-

manship of the different committees and the sizes are also negotiated. Committees

must reflect the composition of the plenum proportionally (rule of ratio – Grundsatz

der Verhaltnistreue), so that the majority situation in the plenum is reflected in the

424 GERMAN POLITICS

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committee (Forderung der Mehrheitstreue). Every PPG is granted a minimum rep-

resentation (Forderung der Mindestvertretung).

The sizes of the committees are a recurring point of issue and by no means chosen

randomly. They rather support Eulau’s claim that political outcomes such as sizes ‘are

not “immanent” tendencies but . . . determined by the behavior of those who are in a

position to manipulate a unit’s size’.43 As an example, in the 15th legislative period

(government coalition of SPD and Greens), all committees’ sizes were set to let the

government coalition benefit from the last additional seat. To calculate the seat distri-

bution among the PPGs in the committees, three specific redistribution procedures

prevail in parliamentary practice, the methods of (1) Hare/Niemeyer, (2) d’Hondt

and (3) Sainte Lague/Schepers. While larger PPGs benefit from an application of

d’Hondt, the methods of Hare/Niemeyer and Sainte Lague/Schepers are beneficial

for smaller PPGs. In recent legislative periods, Sainte-Lague/Schepers has been

chosen as the primary redistribution procedure.

After the negotiations in the Council of Elders, the proposed committees are for-

mally institutionalised by a vote in the plenum. In the current legislative period, 22

standing committees were established (see Table 1).

Already before the formal institutionalisation, PPGs devote their attention to the

assignment of committee seats among their members, usually organised by the chief

whips (parlamentarische Geschaftsfuhrer) and their staff. The front-benchers of

PPGs have widely withdrawn from memberships of standing committees and are not

TABLE 1

NAME AND SIZE OF STANDING COMMITTEES, 17TH GERMAN BUNDESTAG

Committee Members(Total)

Labour and Social Affairs 37Foreign Affairs 36Education, Research and Technology Assessment 34Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection 34Affairs of the European Union 35Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth 34Finance 37Health 37Budget 41Internal Affairs 37Cultural and Media Affairs 24Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid 19Petitions 26Legal Affairs 37Sports 18Tourism 18Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 34Transport, Building and Urban Development 37Defence 34Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and the Rules of Procedure 13Economic Cooperation and Development 37Economics and Technology 25

Source: German Bundestag, ‘Antrag der Fraktionen CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP, Die Linke. und Bundnis 90/DieGrunen: Einsetzung von Ausschussen’, 10 Nov. 2009, available from http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/000/1700017.pdf.

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 425

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available due to their other obligations.44 The preferences of the other MPs are eval-

uated directly after the election, either via direct talks (Green Party) or by using a

survey in which MPs declare their preferences for full membership (FDP) or full

and deputy membership (SPD). The task for the whips is complicated since these

evaluations already take place before the size of the committees are decided upon

and within governing parties MPs can be appointed to the cabinet or as secretaries

of state (parlamentarische Staatssekretare). At the end of the within-party screening

process the initial list, indicating surpluses and shortcomings, functions as a baseline

for further negotiations. Whips then have to approach the individual, ambiguous

cases to reach an agreement. Within the CDU/CSU parliamentary party group,

these negotiations take place in the ‘meeting of the chairmen of sociological groups

and regional factions’ (Runde der Vorsitzenden der CDU/CSU Landesgruppen und

soziologischen Gruppen),45 labelled within the PPG as ‘carpet dealer convention’.

This specially institutionalised influence is due to the setup of the PPG – consisting

of two separate parties – which grants the smaller party, the CSU, certain entitlements

contractually. For all committees or offices the CDU has the first pick and the CSU

always gets to staff the second seat with its members, only forfeited if it explicitly

renounces this right. The second seat of the CSU is determined according to the

number of mandates it has within the whole PPG.46 The final distribution needs to

withstand a vote in the caucus (Fraktionssitzung) of the PPG in which every MP is

given a chance to initiate a crucial vote.

During the legislative period, standing committee members of every PPG gather in

working groups to negotiate the decisions outside of the standing committees.47 While

the larger PPGs establish an equivalent for every committee (Arbeitsgruppe), smaller

parties pool certain policy areas into 4–6 working groups (Arbeitskreise) which the

corresponding members of the committees then join (see Appendix 1).

While this section has shown how individual members are allocated into their slots,

the subject of the further analysis is to determine the decisive factors in this process.

For the analysis, several hypotheses will be deducted from the different perspectives

of legislative organisation.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: DERIVING CONCEPTS FROM THEORIES

As Hansen rightly mentions, the research in the US is based on a very different insti-

tutional setting regarding the role and standing of committees and parties.48 The com-

mittee system of the both houses in the US Congress is highly complex and has the

ability to kill a bill by either not considering it at all or by giving it an unfavourable

report.49

In the US, parties are loose organisations granting substantial autonomy to their

members,50 while within parliamentary democracies PPGs are central actors. This is

especially true in the German case, where PPGs have been characterised as ‘the

rulers of the parliamentary process in almost every respect’.51 While this would hint

at the supremacy of the partisan perspective, it is unclear whether a partisan (proactive)

rationale prevails in committee assignments or an informational or distributional logic.

By premising that PPGs are the major gatekeeper in the assignment of committee

members in the Bundestag the assumptions of the theories can be applied to the new

426 GERMAN POLITICS

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institutional setting to analyse the within-party negotiations. It should be duly noted,

however, that the different perspectives are not as mutually exclusive as they are pre-

sented here. As Rohde has argued, ‘the interaction of the partisan, distributive, and

informational considerations produces a complex legislative environment’.52 To

fully understand the assignment process, all perspectives have merit under different

conditions. For the sake of the analysis, distributional, partisan and informational con-

cerns and predictions are, however, clearly separated as they highlight different

rationales.

The informational theory highlights the importance of specialised, efficiency-

improving committees in which those members are appointed who are especially

interested in an area and can specialise at low cost. In this context, the occupational

background and existing knowledge are valuable resources of MPs. Research in the

US found evidence that occupational or educational background is related to the deter-

mination of committee assignments of state legislatures.53 This proven influence of

prior education or occupation leads to the first hypotheses:

H1A: Members with prior education in an area relevant to a particular commit-

tee are more likely to be assigned to this committee.

H1B: Likewise, prior occupation in a relevant area increases the likelihood of

being assigned to that committee.

The specialisation of members can also be expressed in the continuity of member-

ship across terms. It was argued that consecutively assigning members to the same

committee is an incentive ‘toward greater legislative specialisation: members settle

into the committee slots, cultivate expertise in a distinct policy field, and spend their

time managing legislation and conducting oversight in that field’.54 If MPs consecu-

tively join the same committee it will support the claim of the informational theory

that the committee system enables legislative specialisation among members.55

The second hypothesis therefore is:

H2: Members who have served on a committee in a prior legislative period are

more likely to be assigned to the same committee.

According to the distributive theory members pursue the preferences of their con-

stituencies in order to ensure their re-election. An analysis of constituency character-

istics, as has been done in the US,56 would be possible as even those MPs that

obtained their mandate via a party list usually have a clear constituency link.

However, constituency characteristics have been excluded from the analysis due to

the small size of constituencies (about 250,000 citizens) and, consequently, the

inability of finding meaningful characteristics of constituencies which can be con-

nected to committees. Instead of looking at constituencies, a proposed alternative is

using ties to interest groups as drives to be assigned to a certain committee.57 This

is used as a proxy of whether a MP is a possible ‘high-demander’ that can shift legis-

lation into an area undesired by the PPG. Taking this into account, the formulation of

the third hypothesis is:

H3: Members are more likely to join committees that correspond to their interest

group ties outside parliament.

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 427

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Earlier studies found evidence with regard to the mode of election.58 In the German

mixed-member proportional system 299 of the 598 seats are allocated to candidates

obtaining the highest number of votes in a single-member constituency (Wahlkreis)

while the other 299 are allocated through party lists via proportional representation.

At the election, each voter casts two votes, a first vote (Erststimme) for a candidate

in a constituency, and a second vote (Zweitstimme) for a closed party list of the

federal state (Bundesland), set up by the regional faction. Here, a peculiarity of the

German system has to be taken into consideration, namely the practice of dual candi-

dacies which does not give FPTP legislators a monopoly on constituency represen-

tation.59 Since the 1950s/1960s, the number of dual MPs has been increasing from

about 50 per cent to more than 80 per cent in the 16th legislative period.60 Gschwend

et al. argue that incentives to be assigned to district committees are ‘driven by the hope

to win in future elections’ and the decisive factor is running in a winnable district.61 It

will be tested whether this argument can be applied here and those MPs are assigned to

more important committees to give them a chance to ‘shine’ and secure their re-elec-

tion at the following ballot:

H4: Members who won a constituency or lost it narrowly are more likely to be

assigned to more important committees.

The partisan theory highlights the proactive role of parties in the assignment

process and predicts party loyalty to be the most important determinant of committee

assignments. Research on the US Congress showed that voting in line with the party

leaders had a significant impact on the assignment of MPs to prestigious committees.62

Committees are, as authors have claimed, loyalty-generating institutions in which lea-

dership has a significant role.63 That is, more important committees are assigned to

those MPs who take on voting positions preferred by the leadership, e.g. by using

roll call votes as a proxy of loyalty. By doing so, one could either analyse the

voting behaviour of senior MPs in the 16th Bundestag, thus excluding all freshmen

(192 out of 622 MPs), or use an ‘ex post measure of observed loyalty after the commit-

tee assignments as a proxy of expected loyalty, under the assumption that party group

leaders had reasons to form such expectations’.64 Neither strategy is worth pursuing in

this study. While it is hard to defend that party leaders will be able to take anticipated

future behaviour into consideration, German MPs do not frequently defect within roll

call votes to allow for a meaningful interpretation of the data. Research has shown that

in the 10th to 12th Bundestag over 70 per cent of the MPs never defected (91 per cent

none or once).65 Analysing the placement on the party lists (and hypothesising that

higher places receive more important committees) is also not reasonable due to the

dual candidacy bias.

Instead, a partisan rationale is analysed by the effect of parliamentary seniority.

Seniority systems exist in a number of institutions and organisations as either formal

rules or norms and conventions.66 Until the mid-1970s the US House of Representa-

tives had a strict seniority arrangement in which ‘access to committee resources . . .

and authority over the committee’s agenda . . . were a function of queue position’.67

It will therefore be checked whether the seniority principle is applied in the Bundestag

and party leaders award bonuses for long service by preferring MPs with the longest

continuous period of service over less experienced members for the most important

428 GERMAN POLITICS

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committees. Parliamentary seniority is used as a criterion for a partisan rationale

because, if present, it will hint at privileges and restrictive rules which can only be

enforced through the PPG, formulated as hypothesis 5:

H5A: More senior MPs are assigned to more important committees.

Similarly, an active influence of the party leaders will be reflected if freshmen are

systematically put into low-ranking committees and then have to ‘climb up the ladder’.

H5B: Freshmen are likely to be appointed to less important committees.

DATA SET: OPERATIONALISATION OF CONCEPTS

The theories mentioned above introduce several concepts that might play a role in the

assignment phase for committees. Ideally, the analysis would be based on the prefer-

ence lists by the PPGs to follow up which MP requested certain committees and

received that position in a conflict situation, as is possible in the US.68 Since these

lists of MPs are held confidentially by the PPGs and are thus not obtainable, by

looking at the actual allocation of seats it is possible to gain insight into the factors

that matter in the negotiation process. For the analysis, an original data set of the com-

mittee assignments of the 17th Bundestag was set up containing all members who were

assigned to a standing committee (n ¼ 534) at the beginning of the legislative period.69

The first assemblies from December 2009 were obtained from the archive of the Bun-

destag. Analysing the distribution in the middle of the legislative term does not reflect

the outcome in which all members had equal ‘starting positions’ and might be biased

by other factors, like intermediate change of parliamentary seats or inner-party

switches.

The prior occupation and education of MPs was based on the information given in

the biographies of MPs on the website of the Bundestag and Kurschners Volkshand-

buch Deutscher Bundestag 17. Wahlperiode.70 For each committee, a dummy variable

was created reflecting whether the prior university education or vocational training of

the MP is connected to the field of responsibility. Study of economics was coded as

being connected to the committees of finance, budget, and economics and technology,

and teacher training for the committee of education, research and technology assess-

ment, etc. For prior occupation, the biographies were analysed and coded accordingly

– e.g. nurses (health committee), lawyers (legal affairs committee).

For committee seniority, the membership of standing committees in the 15th and

16th legislative period was coded for all non-freshmen based on the online archive

of the Bundestag.71

Affiliation to interest groups makes MPs high demanders in a field. All members of

the Bundestag are obliged to indicate their responsibilities in enterprises and organis-

ations (veroffentlichungspflichtige Angaben). If a connection to an organisation specia-

lising in the field of a committee (labour union/welfare organisations for the Labour

and Social Affairs Committee, farmers’ associations for the Agriculture and Consumer

Protection Committee, etc.) was present on the profile of the MP an affiliation was

indicated.

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 429

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For the candidates who run in a winnable district, the election results on the website

of the Federal Returning Officer (Bundeswahlleiter) were used to determine those can-

didates that won a constituency in the past election or lost it narrowly, with less than 10

per cent difference.72

Whether PPGs actively influence the membership and assign more experienced

members to more important committees is measured by parliamentary seniority. The

number of legislative periods was based on the information in the Volkshandbuch

Deutscher Bundestag 17. Wahlperiode and a dummy variable reflecting freshman

status was created.

Hypotheses 4, 5A and 5B test the effect of being assigned to important committees.

Because different PPGs might value the committees differently, a party-specific

ranking was set up based on the number of documents that each PPG initiated in

recent legislative periods (12th through 16th) related to a specific committee. It is

assumed that the more documents a PPG has initiated, the more important this issue

and, consequently, the committee is.

Using the documentation and information centre on parliamentary proceedings the

number of bills (Antrage) and legislative proposals (Gesetzesvorschlage) for each

committee and PPG was counted.73

Table 2 shows similarities across parties with regard to low policy issues but,

especially in the policy areas which are deemed important, there are differences

TABLE 2

RANKING OF COMMITTEES ACCORDING TO BILLS AND LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS (12TH

TO 16TH LEGISLATIVE PERIOD) PER PARTY

CDU/CSU SPD FDPTheLeft Greens

Budget 1 1 1 1 1Economics and Technology 2 3 2 3 4Foreign Affairs 3 2 3 5 2Labour and Social Affairs 4 4 4 2 7Education, Research and Technology Assessment 5 7 6 10 11Affairs of the European Union 6 12 9 13 10Legal Affairs 7 6 5 8 5Transport, Building and Urban Development 8 9 8 4 9Internal Affairs 9 13 11 7 6Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 10 5 10 12 3Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth 11 8 12 9 8Finance 12 15 7 6 14Health 13 14 16 14 16Defence 14 10 14 11 13Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection 15 11 13 17 12Cultural and Media Affairs 16 16 17 15 17Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid 17 17 15 16 15Economic Cooperation and Development 18 18 18 18 18Sports 19 19 19 19 19Tourism 20 20 20 20 20Petitions 21 21 21 21 21Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and Rules of

Procedure22 22 22 22 22

Source: Own data set.

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among parties. The Left files most of its bills and legislative proposals in the field of

social and labour affairs, with the Green Party passing more acts regarding environ-

mental issues than all other parties. Using this ranking of committees, the statistical

analysis was conducted.

ANALYSIS PART I: STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

The hypotheses were tested by fitting a conditional logit (CL) model to the data.74 Such

models are appropriate when dealing with decision makers that choose among a set of

alternatives. The choices of individuals depend on aspects specific to the individuals

(characteristics) as well as to the choices (attributes). In this study MPs serve on a

set of alternatives (i.e. committees) depending on characteristics (e.g. prior experience,

affiliation to interest groups, etc.) and attributes of these choices (the importance of the

committee). The choice is driven by latent variables, often interpreted as indirect

utility, with the individual choosing the alternative that offers the highest value of

indirect utility.75

The results of the conditional logistic regression model are shown in Table 3. Based

on the Wald test for individual variables, the coefficients for prior education, occu-

pation, affiliation to interest groups and committee experience are highly statistically

significant (p , 0.01) across all standing committees. There is no statistically signifi-

cant effect of the numbers of legislative periods, being a freshman or running in a win-

nable constituency on being assigned to more important committees according to the

model.

The interpretation of the coefficients is similar to ordinary logistic regression

models.76 For dichotomous variables, a more intuitive interpretation is to present the

odds ratio,77 indicating the ratio of the probability that an MP (with prior education,

occupation, affiliation, etc.) will be assigned to a corresponding committee to the prob-

ability that the event does not occur, controlling for the remaining variables in the

equation. The odds ratio for prior occupation across all parties is 2.8 (e1.018),

meaning that an MP with prior occupation in an area is almost three times more

likely to be assigned to a committee than those who have no prior occupation. The

effect of affiliation to interest groups connected to a committee is of similar magnitude

(e1.151 ¼ 3.16) but much smaller for prior education (e0.574 ¼ 1.77). By far the stron-

gest predictor of being assigned is committee experience. MPs with prior experience

on a committee are e3.498 ¼ 33.12 more likely to be assigned to the same committee

compared to those who have not been a member according to the model.

Per party (also see Table 3), a similar pattern emerges. Committee experience

remains by far the strongest predictor, and prior education, occupation and affiliation

to interest group are statistically significant. For members of the party The Left, affilia-

tion to interest groups does not have a significant influence. Being a party with a very

left-wing orientation, it might be that the interest group affiliations of its members are

not as diverse as in other PPGs but more selective (with, for example, a focus on

unions) thus making an analysis across all committees non-significant. It might also

be that the party’s disputed past makes interest groups not keen on being represented

by the party or members drawn from those particular socio-demographic back-

grounds.78 Again, the influence of legislative periods (or being a freshman) and

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 431

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running in a winnable district is not statistically significant. Hypotheses 4 and 5A,B can

therefore be rejected while the hypotheses regarding prior education/occupation

(H1A/H1B), committee experience (H2) and affiliation to interest groups (H3) are

accepted.

To get a clearer picture of the individual effects, each committee was analysed sep-

arately (Appendix 2) by only including the statistically significant variables. Although

the results of the analysis should be interpreted with caution, an interesting pattern

emerges. For all committees, committee experience had a highly significant statistical

influence (p , 0.01). Surprisingly, there is no clear picture regarding prior education,

occupation and affiliation of the MPs on a large scale. While for eight committees

affiliation to interest groups has a statistically significant effect, a statistically signifi-

cant effect for prior occupation can be stated only on six committees, meaning that the

assignment process cannot yet be fully grasped with these concepts.

The results of the statistical analysis demand more insight into the allocation

process. Although one factor greatly determines the assignment procedure, the issue

of what made the MP become a member of the committee is not yet conclusive

since committee experience is by itself not a ‘skill’ but a qualification that is acquired

after being assigned. With regard to the other factors no clear pattern emerges.

ANALYSIS PART II: EVIDENCE FROM INTERVIEWS IN BERLIN

To better understand what made the MPs join the committee in the first place, guided

interviews were conducted with Dr Dagmar Enkelmann (deputy whip, The Left), Britta

TABLE 3

RESULTS CONDITIONAL LOGIT MODEL COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS 17TH GERMAN

BUNDESTAG

AcrossPPGs CDU/CSU SPD FDP The Left

GreenParty

Prior education 0.574∗∗∗ 0.164 0.764∗∗ 1.121∗∗∗ 0.698∗ 0.466(0.123) (0.211) (0.255) (0.283) (0.379) (0.384)

Prior occupation 1.018∗∗∗ 1.005∗∗∗ 0.708∗∗ 0.814∗∗ 1.679∗∗∗ 1.563∗∗∗

(0.123) (0.205) (0.262) (0.298) (0.297) (0.448)Committee

experience3.498∗∗∗ 3.575∗∗∗ 3.414∗∗∗ 3.094∗∗∗ 2.542∗∗∗ 3.463∗∗∗

(0.123) (-0.200) (0.231) (0.315) (0.347) (0.371)Affiliation 1.151∗∗∗ 0.823∗∗∗ 1.171∗∗∗ 1.764∗∗∗ 0.976 1.524∗∗

(0.145) (0.235) (0.287) (0.332) (0.708) (0.444)Winnable

constituency–0.018 –0.033 –0.033 0.031 –0.026 0.068(0.014) (0.037) (0.03) (0.101) (0.046) (0.086)

Freshmen –0.009 –0.003 0.030 –0.031 –0.017 0.023(0.012) (0.033) (0.033) (0.024) (0.031) (0.033)

Parliamentaryseniority

–0.002 0.003 –0.003 0.004 0.018 –0.019(0.003) (0.009) (0.006) (0.007) (0.019) (0.012)

Observations 684 262 161 107 78 762 LogLikelihood 2.779.772 1.078.307 590.618 487.049 295.212 289.500Chi2 3.318.459 1.216.292 940.021 369.176 433.636 398.631

∗p , 0.10; ∗∗p , 0.05; ∗∗∗p , 0.01(two-tailed).Standard errors are given in parentheses.Source: Own data set.

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Haßelmann (deputy whip, Greens), Thomas Helm (office manager of Manfred Grund,

whip CDU/CDU), Christian Lange (deputy whip, SPD) and Otto Fricke (whip, FDP)

in Berlin in March 2012.

During the interviews, all parties highlighted the importance of committee senior-

ity; parties in the German Bundestag try to benefit from expertise that is built up during

service on a committee.79 The prior occupation and education of MPs plays a role and

can be especially helpful in certain technical committees which demand special knowl-

edge. Within the legal affairs committee (Rechtsausschuss) a legal background is

almost a prerequisite to fully grasp the matter at hand.80 Being connected to interest

groups is not seen as problematic per se but among all PPGs cases are looked at indi-

vidually and it is carefully considered whether the expertise that is brought along is

beneficial or whether there are possible harmful effects. In dubious cases MPs do

not get assigned or attempts are made to find a good mixture of MPs,81 thus preventing

outlying committees. During the interviews it was strongly denied that partisan con-

siderations play a role by referring to the final vote the committee distribution has to

pass in the caucus in which every MP is given a chance to initiate a crucial vote.

While confirming the earlier findings, all respondents were asked about additional

background variables to explain the missing link. According to the respondents, much

more decisive factors within the assignment process are the political background and

reputation in an area of MPs and the influence of the regional factions:

The ‘substantial, political career of someone, on local, state or federal level plays a

much greater role’.82 Because only few become MPs ‘off the cuff’, but have been

involved actively in the parties, they have initiated the debates and gained a reputation.

Of course there are sometimes newcomers [. . .] but many have been building up

a professional competence since many years in inner-party working groups on

federal (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaften) or state level (Landesarbeitsge-

meinschaften) in which people engage who want to become a member of

parliament.83

During the interviews, especially the larger PPGs underlined the influence of the

regional factions (Landesgruppen). Although less institutionalised than in the CDU/CSU’s ‘carpet dealer convention’, they are an important force in every PPG and

engage in ‘classical lobbying for their people’.84 Especially in the important commit-

tees large regional factions want to be represented. Whips need to take this into con-

sideration so as not to risk unrest. This attempt in finding a good mixture of experts

and inner-party forces is strong evidence that PPGs are eager to prevent the creation

of outlying committees. PPGs seem to be aware of political background and acquired

accomplishments and try to benefit from this experience, and the public appeal.

Additionally, the assignment process is restricted by parliamentary norms. As an

example, it is seen as ‘bad style’ and frowned upon to join a committee if one has

worked in the ministry as minister or under-secretary of state.85

CONCLUSION

This study analysed the committee assignments in the 17th Bundestag by applying US

theories of legislative organisation to the German case, after quantitative studies of the

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 433

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‘who gets what’ were restricted to the mode of election and the localness of MPs. With

a vast amount of literature being available on US state legislatures and Congress,

recently scholars have studied committee assignments in parliamentary systems by

deducing hypotheses from these theories. Although within parliamentary systems

PPGs unarguably have a central role in the assignment process, the three different per-

spectives on legislative organisation, developed initially through research on the US

Congress and state legislatures, offer interesting ground for research due to their differ-

ent assumptions and predictions when applied to the new party-centred setting. With

the committee assignment process in other legislatures being described as a ‘jigsaw

puzzle’,86 the aim was to get some clarity by determining more decisive factors.

The analysis was conducted in two steps. The statistical analysis showed that the

most important predictor of being assigned to a committee was committee experience.

Parties in the Bundestag try to benefit from the expertise that is built up during legis-

lative periods by assigning MPs to the same committee. This is, however, not a solution

to the issue of getting into the committee in the first place. While prior education/occu-

pation and affiliation to interest groups connected to the field of responsibility of the

committee have a significant positive relationship across committees, looking at com-

mittees individually no clear pattern emerged. There was no evidence that parties try to

actively place members in committees with no sign of a restrictive assignment policy

and a ‘greasy ladder’ that freshmen have to climb up. Rather, PPGs seem to want to

achieve an equal composition of new and established MPs. This strategy might be

pursued because PPGs try to provide a ‘fresh perspective’ to the established delegates

in a committee or because it suits the long-term interests of a party. By applying such a

system succession is settled in case established MPs discontinue their membership in

following legislative periods, leaving a new expert at hand.

Interviews in Berlin in March 2012 confirmed these findings. Once in a committee,

MPs usually stay in the same area in successive legislative periods and a strict commit-

tee seniority system is applied. During the evaluation process prior occupation and

education can be valuable arguments for an MP to be assigned but are not decisive.

The connection to interest groups outside parliament is not problematic but is carefully

monitored by party leaders since it could provide the opposition and the public with a

target. Much more important are earlier accomplishments and engagement within a

party and the regional factions’ influence which determine the standing of individual

MPs to a great extent and ‘outweigh’ the expertise acquired through prior edu-

cation/occupation. Although the strong standing of regional factions are connected

to the federal character of the German political system, future research needs to take

within-party forces more into consideration and analyse this feature in other political

systems.

Based on the results, an ‘informational logic’ describes committee assignments in

the German Bundestag best at this point. The balanced composition with regard to

different regional factions, freshmen and senior members and informed members

supports the ‘no outlier’ prediction and hints at the importance of within-party

dynamics that future studies need to take into account. An important issue to concen-

trate on for future studies will be the linkages between actual committee members or,

for smaller PPGs, between the working groups and the caucus during the policy-

making process.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tim Alexander Mickler is a PhD candidate in the department of political science,

Leiden University, The Netherlands. Before his appointment he obtained a Diploma

in Social Sciences from the Ruhr-University Bochum (Germany) and a MSc in

Social Research from the Free University Amsterdam (The Netherlands).

NOTES

1. Kaare Strøm, ‘Parliamentary Government and Legislative Organisation’, in H. Doring (ed.), Parlia-ments and Majority Rule in Western Europe (Mannheim: Mannheim Centre for European SocialResearch, 1995), p.62.

2. Ibid., p.62.3. Keith Krehbiel, Information and Legislative Organisation (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan

Press, 1992), p.2.4. Ingvar Mattson and Kaare Strøm, ‘Parliamentary Committees’, in Doring (ed.), Parliaments and

Majority Rule in Western Europe, pp.249–308; Klaus Von Beyme, Der Gesetzgeber (Opladen: West-deutscher Verlag GmbH, 1997).

5. Helmut Stoltenberg, ‘Arbeitsparlament mit Rekordergebnis’, Das Parlament, Ausgabe 44 (2009),available from http://www.das-parlament.de/2009/44/Themenausgabe/27650412.html (accessed 13Sept. 2013).

6. Magnus Hagevi, ‘Nordic Light on Committee Assignments’, in P. Esaiasson and K. Heidar (eds),Beyond Westminster and Congress. The Nordic Experience (Columbus, OH: Ohio State UniversityPress, 2000), p.237.

7. David W. Rohde and Kenneth A. Shepsle, ‘Democratic Committee Assignments in the House of Repre-sentatives: Strategic Aspects of a Social Choice Process’, The American Political Science Review 67/3(1973), p.889.

8. See for an overview Knut Heidar and Ruud Koole (eds), Parliamentary Party Groups in EuropeanDemocracies. Political Parties behind Closed Doors (London: Routledge, 2000).

9. See e.g. Von Beyme, Der Gesetzgeber; Jurgen Von Oertzen, Das Expertenparlament (Baden-Baden:Nomos, 2006); Lanny W. Martin and Georg Vanberg, ‘Policing the Bargain: Coalition Governmentand Parliamentary Scrutiny’, American Journal of Political Science 48/1 (2004), pp.13–27; Dong-Hun; Kim and Gerhard Loewenberg, ‘The Role of Parliamentary Committees in Coalition Govern-ments: Keeping Tabs on Coalition Partners in the German Bundestag’, Comparative PoliticalStudies 38 (2005), pp.1104–29.

10. Thomas Stratmann and Martin Baur, ‘Plurality Rule, Proportional Representation, and the GermanBundestag: How Incentives to Pork-Barrel Differ Across Electoral Systems’, American Journal of Pol-itical Science 46/3 (2002), pp.506–14; Thomas Gschwend, Matthias Shugart and Thomas Zittel,‘Assigning Committee Seats in Mixed-Member Systems – How Important is “Localness” Comparedto the Mode of Election?’, Paper Presented at ‘ECPR General Conference; Panel: The PersonnelStrategies of Political Parties in Comparative Perspective: Does the Electoral System Matter?’, Univer-sity of Potsdam, 8–10 Sept. 2009. Available from http://www.mzes.uni-mannheim.de/d7/de/publications/presentation/assigning-committee-seats-in-mixed-member-systems-how-important-is-localness-compared-to-the-mode-of-election (accessed Sept. 2013).

11. See for the Turkish Grand Assembly: Sabri Ciftci, Walter Forrest and Yusuf Tekin., ‘CommitteeAssignments in a Nascent Party System: The Case of the Turkish Grand National Assembly’, Inter-national Political Science Review 29 (2008), pp.303–24; for the Danish Folketing: Martin EjnarHansen, ‘Committee Assignment Politics in the Danish Folketing’, Scandinavian Political Studies33/4 (2010), pp.381–401; for the Irish Dail: Martin Ejnar Hansen, ‘A Random Process? CommitteeAssignments in Dail Eireann’, Irish Political Studies 26/3 (2011), pp.345–60.

12. Woodrow Wilson, Congressional Government (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1885); seeHeinz Eulau and Vera McCluggage, ‘Standing Committees in Legislatures: Three Decades ofResearch’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 9/2 (1984), pp.195–270 for an overview.

13. Nikoleta Yordanova, ‘The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament: Dis-tributive, Informational and Partisan Perspectives’, European Union Politics 10 (2009), p.261.

14. See, for example, Barry R. Weingast and William Marshall, ‘The Industrial Organization of Congress;or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets’, Journal of Political Economy 96/1(1988), pp.132–63; David R. Mayhew, Congress: The Electoral Connection (New Haven, CT: Yale

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University Press, 1974); Kenneth A. Shepsle, The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle (Chicago: University of ChicagoPress, 1978); Kenneth A. Shepsle and Barry A. Weingast, ‘Positive Theories of Congressional Insti-tutions’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 19/2 (1994), pp.149–79.

15. Weingast and Marshall, ‘The Industrial Organization of Congress’, p.157.16. David W. Prince and L. Marvin Overby, ‘Legislative Organization Theory and Committee Preference

Outliers in State Senates’, State Politics and Policy Quarterly 5/1 (2005), p.69.17. See, for example, Thomas W. Gilligan and Keith Krehbiel, ‘Organization of Informative Committees

by a Rational Legislature’, American Journal of Political Science 34/2 (1990), pp.531–64; Keith Kreh-biel, ‘Are Congressional Committees Composed of Preference Outliers?’, American Political ScienceReview 84/1 (1990), pp.149–63; Keith Krehbiel, Information and Legislative Organisation (AnnArbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991).

18. Gilligan and Krehbiel, ‘Organization of Informative Committees by a Rational Legislature’, p.536.19. Cifti et al., ‘Committee Assignments in a Nascent Party System’, p.306.20. Krehbiel, Information and Legislative Organisation, p.136.21. See, for example, D.R. Kiewit and Mathew D. McCubbins, The Logic of Delegation (Chicago: Univer-

sity of Chicago Press, 1991); Gary W. Cox and Mathew D. McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan: PartyGovernment in the House (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993).

22. Michael C. Munger, ‘Allocation of Desirable Committee Assignments: Extended Queues versus Com-mittee Expansion’, American Journal of Political Science 32/2 (1988), p.319.

23. See, for example, L. Marvin Overby and Thomas A. Kazee, ‘Outlying Committees in the Statehouse:An Examination of the Prevalence of Committee Outliers in State Legislatures’, The Journal of Politics62/3 (2000), pp.701–28; Prince and Overby, ‘Legislative Organization Theory and Committee Prefer-ence Outliers in State Senates’; John C. Battista, ‘Jurisdiction, Institutional Structure, and CommitteeRepresentativeness’, Political Research Quarterly 59/1 (2006), pp.47–56.

24. John C. Battista and Jesse Richman, ‘Comparing Multiple Measures of Committee Representativenessor Distinctiveness’, Prepared for Presentation at the 2011 State Politics and Policy Conference, Dart-mouth College, Hanover, NH, 2–4 June. Available from http://www.sppc2011.org/Papers/BattistaRichman.pdf.

25. E. Scott Adler and John Lapinski, ‘Demand-Side Theory and Congressional Committee Composition:A Constituency Characteristics Approach’, American Journal of Political Science 41/3 (1997),pp.895–918.

26. Battista and Richman, ‘Comparing Multiple Measures of Committee Representativeness orDistinctiveness’.

27. Yordanova, ‘The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament: Distributive,Informational and Partisan Perspectives’; Shaun Bowler and David M. Farrell, ‘The Organizing ofthe European Parliament: Committees, Specialization and Co-ordination’, British Journal of PoliticalScience 25/2 (1995), pp.219–43; Gail McElroy, ‘Committees and Party Cohesion in the European Par-liament’, EPRG Working Paper No.8 (2001); Gail McElroy, ‘Committee Representation in the Euro-pean Parliament’, European Union Politics 7/1 (2006), pp.5–29.

28. Ciftci et al., ‘Committee Assignments in a Nascent Party System’, p.318.29. Hansen, ‘Committee Assignment Politics in the Danish Folketing’, p.397.30. Hansen, ‘A Random Process?’, p.346.31. Stratmann and Baur, ‘Plurality Rule, Proportional Representation, and the German Bundestag’, p.513.32. Gschwend et al., ‘Assigning Committee Seats in Mixed-Member Systems’.33. Wiliam A. Niskanen Jr., Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine-Atherton,

1971), p.139.34. Geschaftsordnung des Deutschen Bundestages (GOBT), §54(1).35. Ibid., §62 (1)36. Reuven Y. Hazan, Reforming Parliamentary Committees. Israel in Comparative Perspective (Colum-

bus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2001), p.30.37. Stratmann and Baur, ‘Plurality Rule, Proportional Representation, and the German Bundestag’, p.507.38. See for an overview of the number of plenary and committee meetings: Helmut Stoltenberg, ‘Arbeit-

sparlament mit Rekordergebnis’, Das Parlament, Ausgabe 44 (2009), available from http://www.das-parlament.de/2009/44/Themenausgabe/27650412.html (accessed Sept. 2013). Comparing thenumber of plenary sessions to standing committee meetings between the 8th and 16th legislativeperiod shows a successive increase, from around seven committee meetings per plenary session toalmost ten in the 16th Bundestag.

39. Nevil Johnson, ‘Committees in the West German Bundestag’, in John D. Lees and Malcolm Shaw (eds),Committees in Legislatures: A Comparative Analysis (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1979),p.135.

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40. Thomas Saalfeld, ‘Germany: Bundestag and Interest Groups in a “Party Democracy”’, in P. Norton(ed.), Parliaments and Pressure Groups in Western Europe (London: Frank Cass, 1998), p.58.

41. Von Beyme, Der Gesetzgeber, p.189.42. GOBT, §45: Foreign Affairs Committee, Defence Committee, Committee on Petitions and Committee

on the Affairs of the European Union.43. Heinz Eulau, ‘Committee Selection’, in G. Loewenberg, S.C. Patterson and M.E. Jewell (eds), Hand-

book of Legislative Research (Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, 1985), p.196.44. Von Beyme, Der Gesetzgeber, p.189.45. Interview Thomas Helm (CDU), Berlin 2012.46. For example, in the current legislative period, the ratio is 6:1 which means if there is a committee

greater than 7 seats the CSU gets to staff the 8th seat, Interview Thomas Helm (CDU), Berlin 2012.47. Van Oertzen, Das Expertenparlament, p.247.48. Hansen, ‘Committee Assignment Politics in the Danish Folketing’.49. In the 112th Congress, the House of Representatives had 20 standing committees, 103 subcommittees

and one select committee. The Senate has 16 standing committees with 74 subcommittees, as well asfour select or special committees. Both houses share four joint committees; see Valerie Heitshusen,‘Committee Types and Roles’, Congressional Research Service 7-5700/98-241 (2011), p.1.

50. Richard Katz and Robin Kolodny, ‘Party Organization as an Empty Vessel: Parties in American Poli-tics’, in P. Mair (ed.), How Parties Organize: Change and Adaptation in Party Organizations inWestern Democracies (London: Sage, 1994).

51. Suzanne S. Schuttemeyer, ‘Hierarchy and Efficiency in the Bundestag: The German Answer for Insti-tutionalizing Parliament’, in G.W. Copeland and S.C. Patterson (eds), Parliaments in the ModernWorld. Changing Institutions (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1994), p.36; see alsoThomas Saalfeld, ‘Bureaucratisation, Coordination and Competition: Parliamentary Party Groups inthe German Bundestag’, in Heidar and Koole (eds), Parliamentary Party Groups in European Democ-racies, pp.23–39.

52. David W. Rohde, ‘Parties and Committees in the House: Member Motivations, Issues, and InstitutionalArrangements’, Legislative Studies Quarterly 19/3 (1994), p.357.

53. Keith E. Hamm, Ronald D. Hedlund and Stephanie S. Post, ‘Committee Specialization in U.S. StateLegislatures during the 20th Century: Do Legislatures Tap the Talents of Their Members?’, StatePolitics and Policy Quarterly 11/3 (2011), pp.299–324.

54. Roger H. Davidson and Walter J. Oleszek, Congress and Its Members, 5th ed. (Washington, DC:Congressional Quarterly, 1996), p.135.

55. Hamm et al., ‘Committee Specialization in U.S. State Legislatures during the 20th Century’, p.304.56. Adler and Lapinski, ‘Demand-Side Theory and Congressional Committee Composition’.57. Yordanova, ‘The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament’.58. See Gschwend et al., ‘Assigning Committee Seats in Mixed-Member Systems’. In the 17th German

Bundestag, within the CDU/CSU nine out of ten MPs are FPTP legislators (218; total MPs 239),Die Linke won 16 direct mandates (total 76 MPs), Die Grunen one (total 68 MPs) and the FDPnone. Only the SPD has an almost even ratio (64 of 146 MPs).

59. Thomas Saalfeld, ‘Germany: Stability and Strategy in a Mixed-Member Proportional System’, inM. Gallagher and P. Mitchell (eds), The Politics of Electoral Systems (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 2005), pp.209–28.

60. Philip Manow, ‘Electoral Rules and Legislative Turnover: Evidence from Germany’s Mixed ElectoralSystem’, West European Politics 30/1 (2007), pp.195–202. With thanks to the anonymous reviewerswho pointed this out.

61. Gschwend et al., ‘Assigning Committee Seats in Mixed-Member Systems’, p.22.62. Cox and McCubbins, Legislative Leviathan: Party Government in the House, chapter 7.63. David C. Coker and W. Mark Crain, ‘Legislative Committees as Loyalty-Generating Institutions’,

Public Choice 81 (1994), pp.195–221.64. Yordanova, ‘The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament’, p.267.65. Michael Becher and Ulrich Sieberer, ‘Discipline, Electoral Rules and Defection in the Bundestag,

1983–94’, German Politics 17/3 (2008), pp.293–304; An own coding of roll call votes in the 17thGerman Bundestag between the constitution in 2009 and end 2011 (n ¼ 126) confirms this image.

66. Michael Kellermann and Kenneth A. Shepsle, ‘Congressional Careers, Committee Assignments, andSeniority Randomization in the U.S. House of Representatives’ (2008), available from http://mkellermann.org/seniority081808.pdf (accessed 20 Aug. 2012), p.2.

67. Kenneth A. Shepsle and Barry J. Nalebuff, ‘The Commitment to Seniority in Self-Governing Groups’,Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 6 (1990), p.45.

68. See for example for the 80th to 103rd House of Representative: Scott A. Frisch, and Sean Q. Kelly,United States House of Representatives Committee Assignment Request Data, 80th–103rd Congress.

STANDING COMMITTEE ASSIGNMENTS IN THE GERMAN BUNDESTAG 437

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ICPSR21080-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distri-butor], 2008-02-26.

69. This excludes members which were not assigned to a committee (members of the cabinet, secretaries ofstate and members of the executive board of a parliamentary group (party leaders, whips)).

70. Klaus-J. Holzapfel, Kurschners Volkshandbuch Deutscher Bundestag 17. Wahlperiode, 122nd Edition(Darmstadt: Ndv Neue Darmstadter Verlagsanst, 2011).

71. German Bundestag, Online Archive of the German Bundestag, available from http://webarchiv.bundes-tag.de/cgi/archive.php (accessed 23 March 2012).

72. This threshold is based on the argument by Shugart et al., ‘Assigning Committee Seats in Mixed-Member Systems’, see p.22f.

73. The search engine does not offer the possibility to search for ‘Budget’. However, since it functions asthe gatekeeper for all expenses it will naturally be a committee of highest importance of every parlia-mentary group. Equally, petitions and standing orders did not have a subject classification. These com-mittees which do not have significant legislative power are therefore situated at the bottom of thepriority list.

74. See Jan Lammers, Categorische data analyse met SPSS: Inleiding in loglineaire analysetechnieken(Assen: Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2007), p.241ff.A prerequisite of the model is that the personchooses only one alternative from the set of alternatives. 390 MPs served as full member on one stand-ing committee, 138 on two and six MPs were assigned to three standing committees To be able to fit themodel the 144 MPs that serve on two or three committees were inserted as additional cases into theanalysis and are therefore treated as new cases.

75. Daniel McFadden, ‘Econometric Models for Probabilistic Choice Among Products’, The Journal ofBusiness 53/3 (1980), p.15.

76. David W. Hosmer and Stanley Lemeshow, Applied Logistic Regression (New York: John Wiley &Sons, 1989).

77. The odds ratio is calculated by raising the base of the natural log (ex) to the value of the parametercoefficient.

78. I owe these two arguments to one of the anonymous reviewers who suggested them.79. Interviews with Thomas Helm (CDU), Berlin 2012; Otto Fricke (FDP), Berlin 2012; Christian Lange

(SPD), Berlin 2012.80. Interview with Christian Lange (SPD), Berlin 2012.81. Interviews with Thomas Helm (CDU), Berlin 2012; Dr Dagmar Enkelmann (Die Linke), Berlin 2012.82. Interview with Christian Lange (SPD), Berlin 2012.83. Interview with Britta Haßelmann (Green Party), Berlin 2012.84. Interview with Christian Lange (SPD), Berlin 2012.85. Ibid.86. Shepsle, The Giant Jigsaw Puzzle.

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APPENDIX 1

CONGRUENCE OF MEMBERSHIP BETWEEN WORKING GROUPS AND STANDING COMMITTEES (17TH GERMAN BUNDESTAG)

CDU / CSU SPD FDP Die Linke Die Grunen

Work group MPs Work group MPs Work group MPs Work group MPs Work group MPs

SC 1 own WG (14/14) own WG (9/9) AK III (6/6) AK IV (4/4) AK I (4/4)SC 2 own WG (14/14) own WG (7/9) AK I (6/6) AK V (4/4) AK IV (4/4)SC 3 own WG (13/13) own WG (9/9) AK VI (5/5) AK III (4/4) AK V (4/4)SC 4 own WG (11/13) own WG (8/8) AK II (5/5) AK I (5/5) AK II (4/4)SC 5 own WG (14/14) own WG (7/8) AK I (5/5) AK V (4/4) AK IV (2/4)SC 6 own WG (13/13) own WG (8/8) AK VI (5/5) AK IV (4/4) AK V (4/4)SC 7 own WG (14/14) own WG (9/9) AK II (6/6) AK II (4/4) AK I (4/4)SC 8 own WG (14/14) own WG (8/9) AK III (6/6) AK IV (4/4) AK I (4/4)SC 9 own WG (15/16) own WG (10/10) AK II (6/6) AK I (5/5) AK I (3/4)SC 10 own WG (14/14) own WG (9/9) AK IV (6/6) AK III (4/4) AK III (4/4)SC 11 own WG (9/9) own WG (5/5) AK VI (4/4) AK III (3/3) AK V (2/3)SC 12 own WG (7/7) own WG (4/4) AK I (3/3) AK V (2/2) AK IV (2/2)SC 13 own WG (9/10) own WG (6/6) AK IV (2/4) AK I (3/3) AK III (1/3)SC 14 own WG (14/14) own WG (9/9) AK IV (6/6) AK III (3/4) AK III (3/4)SC 15 own WG (7/7) own WG (8/8) AK IV (3/3) AK I (2/2) AK III (0/2)SC 16 own WG (7/7) own WG (4/4) AK II (3/3) AK I (2/2) AK II (2/2)SC 17 own WG (12/13) own WG (4/4) AK V (5/5) AK II (4/4) AK II (4/4)SC 18 own WG (14/14) own WG (8/8) AK V (6/6) AK I (4/4) AK II (4/4)SC 19 own WG (13/13) own WG (9/9) AK I (5/5) AK V (4/4) AK IV (4/4)SC 20 no equivalent own WG (3/3) AK IV (2/2) AK V (1/2) AK III (1/1)SC 21 own WG (13/14) own WG (5/5) AK II (6/6) AK II (4/4) AK I (3/3)SC 22 own WG (8/8) own WG (9/9) AK I (4/4) AK V (3/3) AK IV (2/3)

In parentheses: (Number of full members in committee/Number of members in working group).Sources: Own depiction:Overview working groups Bundestag: available from Bundestag: http://www.bundestag.de/dokumente/datenhandbuch/05/05_08/05_08_02.htmlOverview working groups CDU: available from http://www.cducsu.de/Titel__arbeitsgruppen/TabID__13/SubTabID__15//InhaltTypID__1/Arbeitsgruppen.aspxOverview working groups SPD: available from http://www.spdfraktion.de/fraktion/arbeitsgruppenOverview working groups FDP: available from http://www.fdp-fraktion.de/Was-ist-ein-Arbeitskreis/345b53/index.htmlOverview working groups The Left: available from http://www.linksfraktion.de/arbeitskreise-der-fraktion/Overview working groups Greens: available from http://www.gruene-bundestag.de/fraktion/arbeitskreise_ID_2000013.html (all accessed 12 Dec. 2012).

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APPENDIX 2

RESULTS CONDITIONAL LOGIT MODEL PER COMMITTEE

SC1 SC2 SC3 SC4 SC5 SC6 SC7 SC8 SC9 SC10 SC11 SC12 SC13 SC14 SC15 SC16 SC17 SC18 SC19 SC20 SC21 SC22

Prior education 1.12∗ 0.28 0.20 1.23∗ –0.53 –0.47 –0.44 1.22∗ –0.14 –0.31 1.56∗∗ –0.95 0.90∗∗ 0.38 10.11 –6.81 1.49∗ 0.18 –1.04∗∗ 0.32

(0.67) (0.40) (0.49) (0.65) (0.50) (0.72) (0.32) (0.63) (0.42) (0.60) (0.56) (0.65) (0.41) (1.35) (90.63) (138.35) (0.83) (0.43) (0.50) (0.38)

Prior occupation 0.61 0.27 0.33 0.65 1.29∗∗ 1.43∗∗ 1.69∗∗∗ 1.38∗∗ 0.63 0.46 0.60 1.66 1.15∗ 0.16 –7.76 –7.07 1.21 0.67 0.43 –7.29 0.26 2.03∗∗

(0.40) (0.61) (0.35) (0.65) (0.65) (0.44) (0.44) (0.44) (0.95) (0.55) (0.42) (1.12) (0.63) (0.45) (141.74) (90.62) (0.79) (0.50) (0.65) (114.19) (0.34) (1.00)

Affiliation 0.97∗∗ 1.21∗∗ 0.76 1.10∗∗ 0.47 0.59 0.93 1.13∗∗ –0.76 0.89∗ 0.50 –0.54 2.36∗∗ 0.50 0.98∗∗ 1.17∗∗ 0.68∗ –0.26

(0.40) (0.43) (0.97) (0.52) (0.80) (0.72) (0.61) (0.44) (0.58) (0.48) (0.60) (0.80) (0.74) (0.63) (0.41) (0.57) (0.35) (0.68)

Committee

experience

2.69∗∗∗ 3.33∗∗∗ 2.56∗∗∗ 2.03∗∗∗ 2.85∗∗∗ 2.72∗∗∗ 3.60∗∗∗ 3.02∗∗∗ 4.25∗∗∗ 3.21∗∗∗ 1.88∗∗∗ 2.05∗∗∗ 1.53∗∗∗ 1.78∗∗∗ 2.86∗∗∗ 2.26∗∗∗ 3.51∗∗∗ 2.58∗∗∗ 2.76∗∗∗ 3.54∗∗∗ 2.58∗∗∗ 2.46∗∗∗

(0.48) (0.44) (0.48) (0.47) (0.39) (0.41) (0.44) (0.48) (0.45) (0.38) (0.55) (0.49) (0.46) (0.40) (0.59) (0.51) (0.41) (0.48) (0.46) (0.56) (0.35) (0.46)

–2 LL 4161.09 4142.69 4193.57 4133.87 4166.82 4173.67 4130.35 4135.03 4117.87 4146.90 4185.66 4207.33 4216.73 4165.15 4204.21 4197.38 4141.2 4172.1 4179.61 4192.27 4161.4 4200.83

Chi2 177.54 255.89 88.58 268.06 161.02 138.67 275.9 263.82 360.22 218.58 103.76 45.21 18.11 144.73 58.89 78.08 262.1 148.92 132.63 85.48 170.78 64.92

Abbreviations:SC1 ¼ Social and Labor Affairs; SC2 ¼ Foreign Affairs; SC3 ¼ Education, Research and Technology Assessment; SC4 ¼ Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection;SC5 ¼ Affairs of the European Union; SC6 ¼ Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth; SC7 ¼ Finance; SC8 ¼ Health; SC9¼ Budget; SC10 ¼ InternalAffairs; SC11 ¼ Cultural and Media Affairs; SC12 ¼ Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid; SC13 ¼ Petitions; SC14 ¼ Legal Affairs; SC15 ¼ Sports; SC16 ¼ Tourism;SC17 ¼ Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety; SC18 ¼ Transport, Building and Urban Development; SC19 ¼ Defence; SC20¼ Scrutiny of Elections,Immunity and the Rules of Procedure; SC21 ¼ Economics and Technology; SC22 ¼ Economic Cooperation and Development.∗p , 0.10; ∗∗p , 0.05; ∗∗∗p , 0.01(two–tailed).Standard errors are given in parentheses.Source: Own data set.

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