Organising the European Parliament: The Role of Committees and their Legislative Influence [Paperback]

The recent empowerment of the European Parliament makes this a timely study of the impact of its internal organisation on legislative politics, interest representation and democracy within the Union.The recent empowerment of the European Parliament makes this a timely study of the impact of its internal organisation on legislative politics, interest representation and democracy within the Union. Using data on all legislators and legislative proposals in the sixth parliamentary term, the book confronts alternative theories of legislative organisation in rigorous statistical analyses supported by rich interview information. The findings indicate that the internal setup and legislative output of the parliamentary committees serve the policy goals of parties in the European Parliament, and in particular the working majority party, rather than special interests or purely informational needs, which the author explains with the formal and informal parliamentary rules. As the committees advance party politics instead of particularistic policies, she concludes that legislating within the committees is positive for democracy in the European Union and raises concerns about the loss in transparency, legitimacy and accountability that the increasingly common fast-track bicameral decision-making outside the committees entails.contentsList of Figures and Tables ixList of Abbreviations xiAcknowledgements xiiiPreface xvChapter One: Introduction 1Chapter Two: Theoretical Framework on Legislative Organisation 11Chapter Three: The Rationale Behind Committee Assignment 37Chapter Four: Distribution of Legislative Tasks 61Chapter Five: Legislative Influence of the European Parliament Committees 85Chapter Six: Main Findings and Empirical Implications 113Chapter Seven: Towards a Combined Theoretical Framework 129Chapter Eight: Concluding Remarks 139References 147Appendices 163Index 191Nikoleta Yordanova is Assistant Professor of European Politics in the Department of Social Sciences at the lã‚