School of Public Policy Working Paper Series: ISSN 1479-9472
Working Paper 15
REPRESENTATION AND
COMMITTEE REPORTS IN THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
Pierre Hausemer
Department of Government
London School of Economics
Houghton St
London WC2A 2AE
The support of UCL Friends Programme is gratefully acknowledged.
School of Public Policy
University College London
The Rubin Building
29/30 Tavistock Square
London WC1H 9QU, UK
Tel 020 7679 4999, Fax 020 7679 4969
Email: spp@ucl.ac.uk
Website: www.ucl.ac.uk/spp
Date: June 2005
Representation and Committee Reports in the EP
Pierre Hausemer
LSE Department of Government
June 10, 2005
Abstract
The paper models the consequences of committee report allocation for political
representation in the European Parliament. Both inter- and intra party group dynamics
determine an individual legislator's ability to write reports on issues that are salient to
his national party. First, party groups compete for salient reports on the basis of their
delegation size. As a consequence, MEPs from smaller party groups are more
constrained in their ability to represent the preferences of their national parties than
their peers in the larger party groups. Second, the party group leadership distributes
these reports among its MEPs in an attempt to maximize the cohesion of the group
and the coherence of its policies. MEPs from larger national delegations, committee
chairs and legislators whose policy preferences deviate from the rest of the group are
allocated less salient reports than their fellow party members.
The model is tested on data from the fifth European Parliament (1999-2001). The
results confirm the importance of political representation in conditioning the
legislative behaviour of MEPs. In policy areas governed by the co-decision procedure,
the EP has evolved into a "normal" Parliament featuring intense competition along a
left-right cleavage across party groups and a hierarchical allocation of legislative
spoils within parties. In policy areas where the EP has less decision-making power,
consensual politics characterised by a proportional distribution of legislative spoils
prevail.
1
Introduction
Over the past twenty years, the European Parliament has assumed increasing
power within the EU’s political system. With political influence also came growing
academic interest. A flurry of studies examines the so-called democratic deficit,
European elections, or the “locus” of the EP within the EU’s institutional structure
(See among others Moravcsik, 2002; Tsebelis and Garrett, 2000). Some more
descriptive studies have addressed the workings and internal structure of the
Parliament (Mamadouh and Raunio, 2001, 2003; Raunio, 1997, Corbett et al, 2003).
With the notable exception of roll-call voting studies (see among others Hix, 2002,
2001, 2002, 2004; Carrubba and Gabel, 1999; Noury, 2002) and several recent papers
on report allocation (e.g. Mamadouh and Raunio, 2001, 2003; Kaeding, 2004;
Hoyland, 2005), most of this research treats the EP as a unitary actor. Yet, little is
known about the legislative participation of individual MEPs outside roll-call voting
sessions. This paper contributes to filling this gap by developing and testing a model
of committee reports in the European Parliament. Which MEPs write which reports
and what are the consequences for party representation in the European Parliament?
The paper models committee reports as legislative tools used by individual
legislators to represent the preferences of their national parties. Party groups bid on
the most salient reports based on the size of their delegation in the EP. The leadership
then allocates its reports to individual MEPs in a way that maximises group cohesion
and policy coherence. The first section describes the report allocation procedure and
discusses existing research on committee reports in the European Parliament. Section
2 introduces and operationalises a measure of political representation based on the
legislative participation of individual MEPs. Section 3 specifies a theoretical model of
representation in committee reports and derives a set of hypotheses to be tested in
section 4. Finally, section 5 concludes with a summary of the results and an indication
of possible areas for future research.
Reports in the European Parliament
Most scholars agree that the production of legislative reports is one of the
most important elements of parliamentary committee work (Mamadouh and Raunio,
2003; Kaeding, 2004; Corbett et al, 2003; McElroy 2001; Kaeding, forthcoming;
Mamadouh and Raunio, 2001). Indeed, the system of rapporteurships enables
individual legislators to take responsibility for, and exert influence over, the policy
position of the Parliament as a whole. This section describes the process of report
allocation and discusses previous research on committee reports in the European
Parliament.
Committee reports have their origins in the parliamentary systems of
continental Europe (Corbett et al., 2003). Topics for reports are either forwarded from
the Council or the Commission under the different decision-making procedures or
they arise at the initiative of an individual MEP. Bills forwarded to the Parliament by
Commission or Council under the co-decision, co-operation, consultation or assent
procedures are assigned to one of the parliamentary committees for consideration. Socalled own-initiative reports may address an entirely new policy area, a Commission
communication on which the Parliament has not been consulted or a motion for a
resolution tabled by an MEP in the plenary (Corbett et al., 2003).
In order to limit committee workload, most motions for resolution are not
taken up and MEPs must have prior approval from their committee before
undertaking an own-initiative report. In 1994, quotas were introduced to reduce
2
committee workload to two own-initiative reports at any one point in time. As a result,
during the 4th legislature, only 212 own initiative reports (or two per committee per
year) were approved, down from 528 in the previous parliament.
Table 1 lists the number of reports by committee in the fourth and fifth
Parliaments. For each committee, the table also lists the number of co-decision reports
adopted in each legislature. Reports that fall under the co-decision procedure are of
particular importance because the European Parliament has most of its legislative
power under this procedure (Tsebelis and Garrett, 1997, 2000; Crombez, 1997;
Hoyland, 2005). The total number of reports includes co-decision reports, reports that
fall under the consultation and assent procedures as well as non-legislative and owninitiative reports. In all of these cases, the Parliament has less decision-making power
than under the co-decision procedure where it acts as an equal co-legislator with the
Council of Ministers.
While it is difficult to compare the data over time because of the 1999
committee reform, the aggregate numbers show that the workload of the Parliament as
a whole as well as its policy influence have increased substantially in the past decade.
Over the 10 year period, the number of reports has risen by 20 percent and the share
of co-decision reports has increased by 50%. One in five reports in the fifth
Parliament fell under the co-decision procedure. Most reports in the 5th Parliament are
written in the environment committee followed by justice and home affairs. In the
previous legislature, Economics and Environment were vastly more prolific than other
committees.
Table 1. Reports in Committees 4th and 5th Legislatures
1994-1999
Committee
All Co-decision
Economic
288
73
Environment
207
86
Transport
165
27
Ext Econ Rel
129
1
Foreign Affairs 127
0
Legal Affairs
117
45
Agriculture
115
3
Energy & Research 113
17
Fisheries
112
0
Budgets
Employment
Civil Liberties
Budgetary Control
Culture
104
99
97
84
75
2
12
4
2
30
Development
73
4
Regional Policy
70
2
Rules of Procedure 35
Women's Rights 32
Institutional Affairs 24
Petitions
12
TOTAL
2078
% Co-decision
15
0
2
0
0
310
1999-2004
Committee
All Co-decision
Environment
263
152
Justice & Home Affairs 254
19
Legal Affairs
229
82
Trade, Research & Energy 219
50
Economic
190
35
Budgetary Control
176
3
Foreign Affairs
153
2
Agriculture & Rural Dev. 147
15
Regional Policy, Transport
147
78
& Tourism
Budgets
144
10
Fisheries
133
0
Social Affairs
109
30
Development
73
18
Constitutional Affairs
56
3
Culture, Youth, Education,
51
25
Media & Sport
Women's Rights & Equal
45
8
Opps
Petitions
23
0
TOTAL
% Co-decision
Sources: Corbett et al, 2003; www.europarl.eu.int
3
2412
22
530
Each time a committee takes on a report, a rapporteur is nominated to draw up
a draft text for approval by the committee. The details of the procedure for
nominating rapporteurs vary though all committees have instituted an auction system
where every political group is allocated a certain number of points based on its size at
the beginning of the Parliament. Committee coordinators fix the initial “price” of each
report and make bids on behalf of their group. If more than one group is interested in
a particular report, the group coordinators can raise their bids up to a certain
maximum. This bidding system allows for a substantial amount of horse-trading
among party groups. However, as Corbett et al. (2003) point out, most technical
reports are referred to committee experts for very few points and only the most
controversial reports are auctioned off along partisan lines.
Once nominated, the rapporteur is in charge of researching, writing and
defending his text in the committee. Rapporteurs, in theory, are “servants of the
committee, not their Groups” and the committee has the power to withdraw their
responsibility for the report (Corbett et al., 2003). Once a report has been approved by
committee vote, the rapporteur presents the text in the plenary where he defends it on
behalf of the committee. Rapporteurs also follow up on the evolution of the report
throughout the decision-making procedures, make recommendations for a possible 2nd
reading and, under the co-decision procedure, take part in the Conciliation Committee
on behalf of the European Parliament.
In sum, reports (whether legislative or own-initiative) require a substantial
amount of involvement on the part of the rapporteur in return for significant power
over the European Parliament’s policy position. By accumulating policy expertise,
building consensus among party groups and negotiating with the Council and the
Commission, individual rapporteurs can accumulate considerable leverage over policy
outcomes at the European level (Mamadouh and Raunio, 2003). This is particularly
the case for issues that fall under the co-decision procedures where the interinstitutional bargaining game can involve up to three readings and the EP has
considerable influence over policy outcomes.
Despite the importance of committee reports, there are few analytical studies
of the allocation procedure and its consequences in the EP. All studies to date have
focussed exclusively on the level rather than the quality of legislative participation in
committee reports (Mamadouh and Raunio, 2001, 2003; Kaeding, 2004, forthcoming;
Hoyland, 2005). In their contributions, Mamadouh and Raunio (2003) identify
national party delegations as “key gatekeepers” for the distribution of reports within
the party group and find that intra-party allocation is largely proportional to the size of
national parties. Across party groups, “partisan interests drive the allocation process”
(Mamadouh and Raunio, 2001). Kaeding (2004) focuses on the environment
committee in the fourth Parliament to show that the group of rapporteurs does not
mirror the composition of the Parliament as a whole. Rapporteurs tend to exhibit high
demand for the policy in their jurisdiction, which is in line with a distributional
explanation of report allocation (Kaeding, forthcoming). Finally, focusing on national
parties in the EP, Hoyland shows that governing and opposition parties have different
strategies for spending their rights to co-decision reports. He argues that governing
parties aim to write as many reports as possible while “opposition parties choose their
involvement more carefully” (Hoyland, 2005).
This paper builds on these findings to analyse the consequences of committee
report allocation for political representation in the European Parliament. The paper
develops a theoretical model of report allocation as a function of competition across
party groups and intra-party politics. Unlike most previous research, the dependent
4
variable takes into account both the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of
legislative participation. The model is tested empirically on data from all seventeen
committees in the fifth legislature. The next section discusses the concept and
operationalisation of political representation in the European Parliament.
Representation and Committee Reports
Most research on the EP has either adopted a descriptive notion of political
representation (Norris and Franklin, 1997; Kohn, 1981) or focused on the congruence
between the stated preferences of represented and representatives (Thomassen &
Schmitt, 1997; Katz, 1997; Marsh and Wessels, 1997). Behavioural scholarship has
been limited to the analysis of various sets of roll-call votes (Hix, 2001, 2002, 2004).
This lack of academic interest may be due to the fact that the specific political context
of the EP offers only limited opportunity to directly test the most prominent existing
behavioural theories of representation developed in the US.
Indeed, unlike in the US Congress, the weak electoral connection in the EP
and a rigorous candidate selection process commanded by national parties locate the
representational focus of MEPs closer to the national party than in most national
legislatures. As Hix and Lord (1997) for instance find, national parties guide the
voting behaviour of MEPs, especially when their preferences contradict those of the
European party group. Similarly, the pattern of committee memberships is more
closely aligned with national parties than with the territorial constituency (Hausemer,
2004). Because parliamentary reports are an essential part of committee work, it is
likely that national parties also play a large role in their allocation.
Nevertheless, representation is an essential part of an MEP’s own role
perception. Table 2 shows the results of a survey that asked MEPs who they think
they should represent. As becomes clear immediately, the national party and the
constituency/country are at the centre of most MEPs’ representational roles. More
than 70% of MEPs see their role primarily in representing the people in their country
followed by a close 67% who are very concerned about representing their national
party. The narrowest (special groups) and the widest (all Europeans) representational
foci are far less popular with 21 and 41 percent respectively. This paper focuses on
national parties and countries as the main representational foci.1
1
The theoretical discussion focuses on national parties rather than the territorial constituency and the
empirical section uses a dependent variable constructed from party level data. However, in order to
account for the importance of country representation in Table 2, all empirical estimations include
separate controls for country effects.
5
Table 2. Representational Foci of MEPs
All people in All people in
Party
Constituency
Europe
Country
Voters
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Portugal
Spain
Sweden
UK
EU-15
30
39
25
18
44
63
73
44
65
.
48
31
42
21
29
40.86
70
44
63
91
56
57
91
89
74
75
76
81
67
64
54
70.13
60
72
13
73
31
59
55
89
41
75
5
56
69
57
79
55.6
80
67
75
73
61
50
64
89
50
75
86
38
78
71
50
67.13
Special
Groups
50
11
.
9
14
17
27
33
20
25
14
19
28
14
14
21.07
Figures are percentages of representatives who indicated that the respective focus is of great importance to them (values 6 and 7
on a 7-point scale, where 1 indicates little importance and 7 great importance); Source: adapted from Wessels, 1999; Note that
in the 1999 European elections most countries only had one electoral district with the exception of the UK (12) and Belgium (3)
How can these role perceptions be operationalised from a behavioural
perspective? First of all, representation increases with the engagement of the legislator
in areas that are important to constituents and thus follows what others have called a
“competence logic” (Schmitt and Thomassen, 2000). The more competently the
representative addresses policy issues that are salient to the represented, the better his
representational performance. The more energy the representative expends on reports
that lack salience, the lower his representational performance. This is unlike most
previous studies of representation where issue congruence is measured as the
closeness of the policy positions of representatives and represented (see for instance
Levitt, 1996).
Mathematically, representational performance can be expressed as:
REPy=
q
i =1
where
q
=
Py,i
=
SALi =
(P
y ,i
* SALi ) (1)
number of policy issues,
number of reports legislator y undertakes in issue i,
salience of issue i to national party,
In equation (1),
q
i =1
(P
y ,i
* SALi ) is the sum across issue areas of the product of
the MEP’s legislative participation and the salience of each issue to his national party.
For a given issue area Py,i * SALi is zero if the MEP either decides not to engage at all
or if the issue area is not salient to the party. It rises as the MEP writes more reports
on issues his party cares about. In other words, equation (1) operationalises political
representation as a combination of the qualitative and quantitative characteristics of
6
legislative participation. The next section models representation on committee reports
as a function of the allocation procedure and inter- and intra-party group politics.
A Theory of Committee Report Allocation
Previous studies have identified two modes of legislative politics (King, 1976;
Sartori, 1976). The inter-party mode is where parties compete against one another for
influence over policy, important offices within the legislature and/or the favours of
the electorate. In the intra-party mode, hierarchy determines the interaction between
the party’s rank-and-file members and the leadership (Weingast and Marshall, 1988;
Boucek, 2002; Mueller, 2000). Like national legislatures, the European Parliament
can only fulfill its role as a representative institution if party groups compete in
elections and organize cohesively to implement their political platforms (Attinà, 1992;
Andeweg,1995; van der Eijk and Franklin, 1996; Hix and Lord, 1997). This section
uses the distinction between inter- and intra-party politics to develop a model of
political representation on EP committee reports. It is the combination of both modes
that determines the distribution of legislative benefits among individual
representatives.
Most observers including the media, academic researchers and the general
public associate legislative politics primarily with the inter-party mode where
governing parties and opposition confront one another, publicly debate policy issues
and make decisions over a variety of policy alternatives. In order to win elections,
political elites develop rival policy ideas which they promise to implement when in
office. Elections provide voters with a mechanism to punish politicians who fail to
implement their electoral promises or who are dishonest or corrupt (Fearon, 1999). As
a consequence, the closer the legislature comes to a situation of perfect political
competition, the more closely legislative behaviour mirrors the preferences of the
represented. Representation in the European Parliament occurs because the largest
party group seizes the largest share of legislative spoils to implement its political
platform.
Like economic competition, perfect political competition is an ideal rather
than an accurate description of reality. In the EP, high majority thresholds and an
institutional structure that defines the Parliament in opposition to the Council of
Ministers and the Commission undermine competition among party groups. Indeed,
much of the earlier research on the EP claims that it is dominated by ‘grand
coalitions’ between the two main party groups (EPP and PES) (e.g., Bardi, 1994; Hix
and Lord, 1997; Kreppel, 2001). However, more recent studies based on the analysis
of roll-call votes have found that voting in the EP pits “minimum-winning majorities
against minimum-losing-oppositions” along a left-right cleavage (Hix, 2004). In any
case, if party groups need to coalesce in order to implement their policy platforms, the
distribution of legislative spoils across party groups should reflect coalition patterns.
Inter-party competition is not the only dynamic at work in Western political
systems. Parties are composed of individual members with their own policy
preferences, constituencies, and different status within the party hierarchy. As Boucek
notes, “parties are not unitary actors but collections of individuals [...] with common
but also divergent preferences and interests and with competing claims on party
resources.” In these circumstances, the party group leadership must take measures to
ensure the cohesion and policy coherence of the group. Weingast and Marshall (1988)
point out that parties, “to the extent that they are able to influence the behaviour of
their members through distribution of resources” can provide a means to enforce
agreements in the legislature and secure desirable policy outcomes. In order to be
7
effective the party leadership must balance the claims of party elites and rank-and-file
(cohesion) without endangering the “brand name” of the party (coherence) (Boucek,
2002).
First, in the face of relatively high majority thresholds, only cohesive parties
can garner the necessary votes to implement their policy platform. As Boucek (2002)
points out, cohesion and unity are “perceived to be necessary to the delivery of
efficient government”. In order to maintain loyalty, the leadership distributes party
resources so as to ensure that the rank-and-file members have a stake in its continued
and efficient operation. MEPs from smaller national delegations and those who have
not been awarded prestigious office, such as committee chairmanships, have less
power over, and a lower stake in, the group. The cohesion imperative predicts that
rank-and-file members and MEPs from small national delegations are allocated a
disproportionate share of non-office spoils within their party group.
Second, in addition to cohesion, the leadership must also ensure a certain
amount of policy coherence to maintain the credibility of the group or, as Boucek
(2002) calls it, protect the party’s “brand name”. Janda (1980) defines coherence as
the “degree of congruence in the attitudes and behaviour of party members”. Even
though legislators, on average, are likely to have more in common with their fellow
party members than with the members of other parties (otherwise they would switch
parties), this is not the case on all issues all the time. On any specific issue, individual
members may disagree with and defect from the policy position of their party. By
screening its members before allocating important legislative spoils, the leadership
can identify rebel backbenchers and reward representatives who toe (or at least are
likely to toe) the party line. Thus, MEPs whose policy preferences are closest to the
rest of their party group are most likely to be trusted with important legislative spoils.
Table 3 summarises inter and intra-party factors that determine the distribution
of legislative benefits among individual representatives. The distribution of seats
among party groups and the legislative coalitions it encourages determine the
allocation of legislative spoils across groups. Additionally, the leadership’s concern
with ensuring the cohesion of the group and the coherence of its policies determines
the distribution of legislative benefits within the party. In order to assess the
representational performance of individual legislators, it is necessary to take into
account not only the nature of political competition across parties but also the
hierarchical organisation of the parties themselves.
Table 3. Inter- and Intra-Party Politics in the European Parliament
Level of Interaction
Inter-Party
Objective
Distribution of Spoils by
Competition
Party Groups Size /
Coalition Dynamics
Intra-Party
Coherence
Policy Closeness
Delegation Size /
Office Status
Cohesion
As discussed in the previous section, committee reports are a highly desirable
legislative spoil, the allocation of which is controlled by the party group leadership.
Salient reports in particular allow legislators to engage in issues that are of relevance
to their national party. Thus, an MEP’s legislative output can be measured as the
ability to represent the preferences of his national party. It varies not only with the
number of reports that he undertakes but also with their salience. This section has
8
shown that an MEP’s representational performance depends on the party group he
belongs to, the leadership’s need to give him a stake in the party and the coherence of
his policy preferences with the rest of the group. Hypotheses 1-4 summarise the
theoretical discussion in this section.
H1: MEPs from party groups that are far from the largest delegation on the leftright spectrum have lower representational performance.
H2: MEPs whose policy preferences are close to the median of their party group
have better representational performance than MEPs who are preference outliers
within their party groups.
H3: MEPs from smaller national parties have higher representational
performance than MEPs from the larger delegations.
H4: Committee chairs have lower representational performance than regular
committee members.
This section has developed a theoretical model of political representation on
European Parliament committee reports and derived four empirically testable
hypotheses. An MEP’s representational performance is controlled by the party group
leadership and governed by both intra- and inter-party group dynamics. The next
section presents the data used to estimate the model and discusses its
operationalisation.
Data
The data for the study include all reports in all seventeen committees between
September 1, 1999 and January 1, 2001. Because committee positions are assigned at
the beginning of each parliament for a minimum of 2.5 years, the paper covers only
the first half of the Parliament before mid-term committee turnover. Data on
committee assignments and reports are available online from the European
Parliament’s website (www.europarl.eu.int).
The unit of analysis in the dataset is the individual committee member. For
each committee, the dataset identifies members and the number of reports they wrote
for the committee in the period under analysis. Because the European Parliament’s
power over policy outcomes varies across the different decision-making procedures,
the data also distinguish between the most influential (co-decision) reports and other
types of reports. With most MEPs having joined two committees, the total number of
observations (1,316) is around twice the size of the actual Parliament (626). MEPs
who chose not to join any committees are excluded from the dataset because they
could not write any reports a priori.
National party positions for most major European parties are available on the
data-CD accompanying Budge et al.’s (2001) cross-country study of party manifestos.
Due to a lack of data for smaller national parties, all empirical tests are run separately,
first, on the full sample of all MEPs for which there were national party data and,
secondly, on the sub-sample of the two largest party groups, the EPP-DE and the PES.
The results are very similar and the empirical analysis below only refers to the full
sample. The coding frame used to match party positions with the different committees
is in the Appendix.
9
National party manifestos are, of course, not a perfect measure of salience.
Manifestos are political documents created for the specific purpose of convincing
voters and winning elections. The manifesto dataset has been especially criticised for
its interpretation of party policy positions (Laver, Benoit and Garry 2003; but see
Klingemann et al. 1994 for a more positive assessment of party manifesto data).
However, party manifestos are authoritative statements as to the policy areas that the
party wants to focus on in government or in opposition and they are widely used in
empirical research.
The empirical analysis in this paper focuses not on policy positions but on
salience. An area is salient if it is prominent in the manifesto, independently of the
policy position that the party advocates. Using party manifestos makes it possible to
include almost all MEPs in the fifth Parliament without having to rely on expert
assessments or public opinion surveys.2
The dependent variable (representational performance) is constructed from
national party manifestos and data on report allocation from the EP database. The
score is high for MEPs who write reports on policy issues that feature prominently in
the electoral manifestos of their national parties and low for MEPs who have not
written salient reports. Salience is defined as the percentage of the electoral manifesto
dedicated to a particular issue. In other words, REPy is an index that measures the
extent to which the behaviour of a legislator matches the preferences of his national
party. No data were available for reports on budgets, budgetary control, legal affairs
and petitions. Mathematically, the score for MEP y can be expressed as follows
REPy =
j
i =1
[REPORTS * % SALIENCE ]
where %Salience varies across parties and Reports is the number of reports undertaken by
MEP y in committee j.
Incumbency is a dummy variable, which is coded 1 for MEPs who were reelected in 1999 and 0 for freshmen. The mean size of electoral districts is taken from
Farrell and Scully’s (2002) paper on Electoral Systems and Representation, national
party delegations are retrieved from the European Parliament’s homepage and party
size is the number of MEPs for each party in the analysis. The distance between an
MEP’s policy preferences and his party group is based on nominate scores which are
available online at www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/eprg/. Nominate scores each legislator’s roll
call voting record along two dimensions: left/right and pro/anti-EU. The distance
measure for each dimension is the difference between an MEP’s Nominate score and
the median score of his party group. Descriptive statistics and correlations for all
variables are in the Appendix. The next section tests the model and its hypotheses
empirically.
Empirical Findings
This section tests the inter- and intra-party predictions of the model using a
combination of bivariate and multivariate statistical tools. Hypothesis 1 suggests that
legislative spoils such as the ability to represent the preferences of one’s party should
vary systematically across party groups. Figure 2 shows the difference between each
party group’s share of the representational pie and its share of seats.
2
Both these alternative tools for measuring salience have their own disadvantages. Expert surveys are
often less comprehensive both in the number of policy areas that they distinguish and in the number of
parties covered. In addition, previous research has criticised both public opinion surveys and expert
evaluations for a lack of reliability.
10
Figure 2. Party Representation and Share of Seats by Party Group and Type of
Report
%
%
OTH Rep
%
COD Rep
%
%
%
EPP
PES
ELDR
GREEN
EUL
UEN
IND
- %
-
%
-
%
Note: EDD not represented due to lack of data; COD Rep is the difference between a party group’s share of salient codecision
reports and its share of seats; OTH Rep is the difference between a party group’s share of salient non -codecision reports and its
share of seats.
Clearly, salient co-decision reports are not distributed proportionally to the
size of a party group’s delegation. Some party groups obtain more salient co-decision
reports than their share of seats whereas others get a lower percentage than their size
in the EP would justify. The largest party group in the 5th Parliament (EPP) is 12%
over-represented followed by its closest coalition partner on the left-right spectrum,
the Liberal ELDR. The main opposition to the EPP, the centre-left PES, on the other
hand is under-represented. The Greens obtain a larger share of salient co-decision
reports than their seats would allow, which may be because they focus their activity
on the influential environment committee. The smaller groups on both edges of the
political spectrum (EUL, UEN and Independents) are most under-represented.
However, what is true for co-decision reports does not extend to all types of
reports. Rather, as Figure 2 illustrates, the distribution of salient non co-decision
reports is proportional to delegation size. The EPP is again most over-represented
with 8%, followed this time by PES and ELDR. The smaller groups of the Greens,
EUL, UEN and Independents also have smaller shares of salient non co-decision
reports than their share of seats. Clearly, for non co-decision reports, the legislative
output of each party group is a direct function of its size within the EP.
Co-decision reports are not allocated in the same way as other reports. Party
group location on the policy spectrum matters for the allocation of co-decision reports
but not for other types of reports. Thus, the party group competition hypothesis (H1)
is borne out only for co-decision reports. The distribution of legislative spoils is
determined not only by the size of each party group but also by coalition patterns
along the left-right spectrum. In other words, the legislative output of each party
group depends on its value as a coalition partner to the largest party group. This
finding confirms recent research on roll-call votes which has identified Left-Right
politics as the predominant cleavage pattern in the EP (Hix, 2004). However, the
Parliament remains governed by strict rules of proportionality in areas where it does
not have much power. Regardless of policy influence, extremists on the left and right
obtain a lower share of legislative spoils than their share of seats.
As Figure 2 has shown for party groups, the emphasis on delegation size and
proportionality in previous research (Mamadouh and Raunio, 2003) is justified only in
11
the case of non co-decision reports. Figure 3 looks at national delegations to
investigate the validity of this argument within party groups. The bars represent the
average representational score on all reports for each member state. On the same
graph, Share Cod plots the share of representational performance attributable to codecision reports.
Figure 3. Representational Performance by Country and Type of Report
.
.
.
.
ALL
.
Share COD
.
.
.
.
LU
FI
GR
NL
DK
SW
GE
UK
AT
PO
SP
IR
BE
FR
IT
Notes: Bars are the average representational scores on all reports by country; the line represents the percentage of
representational performance attributable to codecision reports.
Clearly, delegation size does not have a positive effect on the allocation of
legislative spoils. If anything, the opposite seems to be true. MEPs from Luxembourg
and Finland are most successful in writing reports that are salient to their parties. In
addition, they are the only two countries that have managed to obtain more salient codecision reports than salient other reports (i.e. Share Cod>0.5). The Netherlands,
Greece and the Scandinavian member states also do well on total representation
though only Sweden and Ireland have COD/OTH ratios around 0.4. France and Italy,
two of the largest member states, have the worst scores on both measures. The other
two EU giants, Germany and the UK, have very similar scores at positions 7 and 8.
While the size of the national delegation might affect the purely quantitative aspects
of report allocation, Figure 3 suggests that MEPs from smaller member states are
assigned a disproportionate number of high quality reports. This finding corroborates
the predicted compensatory logic at the basis of the allocation of legislative spoils
within party groups (H3 and H4).
The bivariate analysis so far has presented some support for hypotheses 1, 3
and 4. Figure 2 shows that inter-party competition affects the distribution of salient
reports among party groups, though it does so differently for co-decision and non codecision reports. Similarly, Figure 3 indicates that MEPs from smaller national
delegations tend to engage in issues that are more salient to their party than MEPs
from larger member states. However, a purely bivariate analysis does not allow to
assess the explanatory power of the model or the relative importance of each of the
four hypotheses.
Table 2 summarises the output of three OLS regressions with representation as
dependent variable. Regressions (1) and (2) focus exclusively on co-decision reports
while model (3) includes only reports that do not fall under the co-decision procedure.
An MEP’s ability to write salient reports depends in large part on the committees that
he has joined. Therefore, all regressions incorporate dummies for committee
membership with the Foreign Affairs committee as a reference category. A
12
continuous proxy for committee salience led to very similar results. Regressions (2)
and (3) use country dummies to control for nationality (dummies not shown). With
the UK as a reference, the coefficients for Portugal and Belgium are negative and
significant at the 10% level, the coefficient for Finland is positive and significant at
the 10% level in regression (2) whereas none of the dummies assumed any
significance in regression (3). Regression (1) replaces the country dummies with a
continuous variable that measures the size of electoral districts in European elections.
Table 4. OLS Regression - Dependent Representation Score
(Constant)
Party Competition
PES
ELDR
GREEN
EUL
UEN
IND
Coherence
Left-Right Dist
Pro-Anti Dist
Cohesion
Chairman
Party Size
Control Variables
Total Reports
Share Co-decision
Incumbent
District
Budget
Budget Ctrl
JHA
Economics
Legal
Research/Trade
Social
Environment
(1)
(2)
(3)
3.517*
(2.037)
1.822
(1.214)
1.090
(2.423)
-1.434**
(.731)
-3.064**
(1.293)
-2.115
(1.309)
-3.355**
(1.424)
-1.347
(1.588)
-1.925
(1.835)
-1.324*
(.685)
-2.218**
(1.107)
-2.139*
(1.148)
-2.618**
(1.231)
-1.865
(1.431)
-2.024
(1.702)
.365
(.870)
2.083
(1.538)
-.400
(1.557)
-.782
(1.694)
.839
(1.889)
-2.680
(2.183)
-6.827*
(3.611)
.243
(3.145)
-6.951**
(3.171)
1.344
(2.864)
-.482
(4.295)
-2.863
(3.741)
-4.973**
(2.414)
-.112***
(.042)
-4.942**
(2.412)
-.076***
(023)
-3.138
(2.871)
.018
(.050)
1.435***
(.183)
11.072***
(.968)
.509
(.505)
-
1.459****
(.183)
11.302***
(.959)
.417
(.502)
-.007
(.009)
-.122
(.983)
-.661
(1.581)
-.104
(.836)
2.220****
(.799)
.291
(.977)
.171
(.734)
1.474**
(.718)
-.160
(.692)
4.821***
(.218)
-9.194***
(1.151)
-.598
(.601)
-
-.196
(.989)
-.746
(1.584)
.025
(.848)
2.112***
(.803)
.481
(.982)
-.014
(.744)
1.460**
(.732)
.008
(.699)
13
-.380
(1.176)
1.512
(1.884)
2.778***
(1.008)
6.202***
(.955)
1.412
(1.168)
-.271
(.884)
-.485
(.871)
-1.053
(.831)
Agriculture
N
-.071
(.856)
-.364
(.934)
-1.298*
(.767)
.578
(.888)
.067
(.925)
-.226
(.985)
.339
(.725)
-.057
(1.097)
858
.167
(.851)
-.756
(.919)
-1.449*
(.747)
.429
(.870)
-.079
(.912)
-.231
(.967)
.048
(.703)
-.007
(1.085)
858
-1.309
(1.018)
-1.849*
(1.110)
-1.058
(.913)
.750
(1.056)
-.618
(1.100)
-.228
(1.171)
-1.140
(.862)
1.220
(1.305)
858
Adj R-square
0.286
0.280
0.457
Fisheries
Regional
Culture
Development
Constitution
Women’s
Petitions
Notes: *** significant at 0.01 level, ** significant at 0.05 level, * significant at 0.1 level, reference category for party group
dummies: EPP; the EDD was excluded due to a lack of data; regression 1 includes country dummies (not shown) reference
category: UK; standard errors in parentheses
The results of regression (1) and (2) broadly support the hypotheses developed
in the previous sections and qualify some of the bivariate results presented above.
First, in line with the party competition hypothesis, both estimations show that MEPs
from the largest party group (EPP) have the highest representational performance
scores. The coefficients for all other party groups are negative though they do not
always assume statistical significance. In all three models the extreme left EUL has
the lowest representational scores followed by Greens and ELDR. The scores for the
Socialist PES are also negative and statistically significant though the gap between
PES and EPP is less than that between EPP and party groups to the left of the PES.
There is no representational discrepancy between the EPP and the anti-European UEN
and Independents.
Somewhat surprisingly, in light of Figure 2, the regression results do not
support the hypothesised explanation of representational performance based on policy
proximity to the largest party group (H1). Indeed, the EPP’s closest coalition partner
on the left-right spectrum (ELDR) has a lower representational score than its main
competitor (PES). In addition, the smallest party groups UEN and Independents have
representational scores that are as high as that of the EPP. The national parties that
form the UEN and the Independents distinguish themselves from other parties in the
EP by their euroscepticism. The results in Table 4 show that legislators from smaller
groups which are preference outliers are more successful in gaining salient
rapporteurships than mainstream MEPs who have to compete with members of other
parties with similar preferences.
The results of the first two regressions unequivocally support H2, which
stipulates that the party group leadership’s concern for policy coherence has an impact
on the allocation of salient committee reports. In both models, an MEP’s policy
distance from his party group negatively affects his ability to be allocated salient
reports. Because the leadership is concerned with protecting the brand name of the
party group and maintaining credibility, legislators who often defect from their group
in roll-call votes are less likely to be assigned salient co-decision reports than their
colleagues. In order to preserve group coherence, the leadership screens candidates ex
ante to make sure their reports reflect the opinion of the group as a whole. In addition,
party leaders use their power to allocate reports ex post to reward MEPs who have
toed the party line and sanction defectors. Rebel MEPs are less likely to be assigned
14
reports that are salient to their national parties than MEPs who have policy
preferences in line with the rest of the party group.3
The results also strongly support H3 and H4, which address the party group’s
concern with maintaining loyalty by giving individual legislators a stake in its
operation. In order to maintain unity, the leadership compensates rank-and-file
members who have little influence over the operation of the group with a
disproportionate number of salient reports. In all three estimations reported in Table 4,
MEPs from smaller national parties have higher representational scores than
legislators from larger parties (H3). In addition, committee chairs have lower
representational scores than regular committee members (H4). Indeed, often
committee chairs take responsibility for reports that no other committee member is
willing to take on (Corbett et al, 2003).
The third column in Table 4 replicates model (1) for non–codecision reports.
As the descriptive analysis in this section has shown already, report allocation
depends not only on their salience but also on the power they convey over policy.
Table 4 strongly supports this conclusion. Indeed, none of the independent variables
discussed in this section assumes any significance for non-codecision reports. The
lack of significance of the party group dummies indicates that these reports are
allocated on a purely proportional basis. Membership in one of the larger party groups
does not constitute an representational advantage for non-co-decision reports.
Similarly, reports that have little effect on policy outcomes cannot be used by the
party group leadership to whip members into toeing the party group line. Neither leftright nor pro/anti-EU policy distance have any effect on the allocation of salient noncodecision reports. Finally, an MEP’s national party size and his committee status do
not affect the allocation of these reports. In sum, the allocation of non-codecision
reports follows purely proportional lines. There is no systematic variation in
representational performance across or within party groups for these reports.
The findings in Table 4 show empirical evidence of competition for codecision reports across party groups as well as for the “management dilemma” that
affects the leadership within each group. First, a concern with policy coherence
mandates that important legislative spoils be allocated to representatives whose policy
preferences are close to the rest of the group. At the same time, the party’s efforts to
encourage group cohesion means that rank-and-file members with little stake in the
party are compensated with salient and influential policy tasks.
Conclusion
This paper models the consequences of committee report allocation for
political representation in the European Parliament. Both inter- and intra party group
dynamics determine an individual legislator's ability to represent the preferences of
his national party. First, party groups compete for salient reports on the basis of their
delegation size and left-right policy preferences. For co-decision reports, there is
some evidence of minimum winning coalitions along a left-right spectrum. Second,
the party group leadership distributes these reports among its MEPs in an attempt to
maximize the policy coherence of the group while maintaining the loyalty of its
members. MEPs from large national delegations, committee chairs and legislators
whose policy preferences deviate from the rest of the group are allocated less salient
reports than their party group colleagues.
3
At the same time, the lack of significance for the pro/anti EU distance measures support Hix (2004)
claim that European politics in the EP has gradually become structured along a left-right spectrum
similar to domestic politics.
15
Methodologically, the paper shows that political representation can and must
be measured in terms of legislative behaviour. Studies of participation in the EP have
only just begun and they have so far been limited to purely quantitative assessments
(e.g. the number of reports allocated to each MEP) and a small range of legislative
activities (e.g. roll call votes). Ultimately, political scientists are not only interested in
the workload of representatives but in their influence over policy and the
representational quality of their work. This paper indicates how these less directly
observable characteristics of legislative participation can be systematically analysed.
From a theoretical perspective, scholars of the democratic deficit in the EU
have mostly focused on the European Parliament’s evolving nature and complex
institutional setup in comparison with domestic political systems. The findings in this
paper suggest that inter-party competition in the EP is strongest on issues over which
the Parliament has a lot of policy power. At the same time, fragmentation of party
groups along national lines accounts for the importance of cohesion and policy
coherence in the distribution of legislative spoils. Rather than assessing its
“normality” in comparison with national legislatures, academic scholarship on the
European Parliament should investigate the conditional nature of party group
competition and its implications for democratic representation. This paper develops a
theoretical framework for addressing these questions that can be adapted to a large
number of national and supra-national legislatures.
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18
Appendix – Descriptive Statistics
EPP
PES
ELDR
GREEN
EUL
UEN
EDD
IND
Party Size
Foreign Affairs
Budgets
Budgetary Ctrl
JHA
Economics
Legal Affairs
Research
Social Affairs
Environment
Agriculture
Fisheries
Regional Affairs
Culture
Development
Constitution
Women’s Affairs
Petitions
Incumbent
District
Austria
Belgium
Germany
Spain
France
Greece
Italy
Denmark
Luxembourg
Netherlands
Finland
Portugal
Ireland
Sweden
UK
Representation Score
(Codecision)
Left-right Dist (PG)
Representation Score (Other)
Pro-anti dist (EPG)
# Reports
Chair
Influence
Valid N (listwise)
N
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
1316
Min
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
901
1254
901
1254
1316
1316
1316
858
19
Max
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
53
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
99
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
Mean
.38
.27
.08
.08
.06
.04
.03
.05
16.74
.1900
.14
.07
.14
.14
.12
.18
.18
.20
.13
.09
.19
.11
.11
.09
.14
.10
.50
53.10
.04
.04
.15
.11
.12
.04
.14
.03
.01
.06
.03
.04
.03
.03
.14
Std Dev.
.49
.45
.28
.27
.25
.19
.17
.22
15.68
.39
.35
.26
.34
.34
.3
.38
.39
.40
.34
.28
.39
.31
.31
.29
.35
.30
.50
36.35
.19
.19
.36
.31
.33
.19
.35
.16
.10
.23
.16
.20
.16
.17
.34
0
185.96
1.66
8.28
0
0
0
0
0
0
-
.89
109.17
1.11
24
1
1
-
.09
4.79
.15
.84
.01
.10
-
.15
11.35
.15
1.56
.12
.27
-
Party Manifestos – Coding Frame
No.
Description
Committee
101
Foreign Relations: Positive
1
102
Foreign Relations: Negative
1
103
Anti-imperialism
1
104
Military: Positive
1
105
Military: Negative
1
106
Peace
107
Internationalism: Positive
1
108
European Community: Positive
15
109
Internationalism: Negative
1
110
European Community: Negative
15
201
Freedom & Human Rights
1,4
1,14
202
Democracy
4
203
Constitutionalism: Positive
4
204
Constitutionalism: Negative
4
301
Decentralisation
12
302
Centralisation
12
304
Political Corruption
4
401
Free Enterprise
5
402
Incentives
5
403
Market Regulation
5
404
Economic Planning
5
405
Corporatism
406
Protectionism: Positive
5,7
5
5,7
407
Protectionism: Negative
410
Productivity
5
411
Technology & Infrastructure
7
412
Controlled Economy
5
413
Nationalization
5
414
Economic Orthodoxy
5
501
Environmental Protection
9
502
Culture
13
503
Social Justice
16
504
Welfare State Expansion
8
505
Welfare State Limitation
8
506
Education Expansion
13
507
Education Limitation
13
605
Law & Order
4
606
Social Harmony
8
607
Multiculturalism: Positive
8
608
Multiculturalism: Negative
8
703
Agriculture & Farmers
10,11
Note: See pp. 222-8 in Budge et al., (2001) for more detailed descriptions of Variables
20