IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v18y2017i3p469-490.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Specialists, party members, or national representatives: Patterns in co-sponsorship of amendments in the European Parliament

Author

Listed:
  • Inger Baller

Abstract

Tabling committee amendments is an important way for Members of the European Parliament to influence legislation, build coalitions, and give signals to constituents. This article questions to what extent these coalitions follow party lines, national lines, or the logic of informational specialisation. Expectations are linked to the theories of legislative organisation and tested using exponential random graph models of the co-sponsorship patterns during the seventh legislature of the European Parliament. The results indicate that representing the same member state, sharing committee membership, and being affiliated to the same European Parliament Party Group all contribute to the formation of recurring co-sponsorship ties. Furthermore, this study indicates that especially the European United Left–Nordic Green Left has strong within-party co-sponsorship bonds and that Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe adopts a pivotal link between left and right in cross-party co-sponsorship.

Suggested Citation

  • Inger Baller, 2017. "Specialists, party members, or national representatives: Patterns in co-sponsorship of amendments in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 18(3), pages 469-490, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:18:y:2017:i:3:p:469-490
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116517712049
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116517712049
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116517712049?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roger Scully & Simon Hix & David M. Farrell, 2012. "National or European Parliamentarians? Evidence from a New Survey of the Members of the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(4), pages 670-683, July.
    2. Steffen Hurka & Michael Kaeding & Lukas Obholzer, 2015. "Learning on the Job? EU Enlargement and the Assignment of (Shadow) Rapporteurships in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(6), pages 1230-1247, November.
    3. Weingast, Barry R & Marshall, William J, 1988. "The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 132-163, February.
    4. Amie Kreppel, 1999. "What Affects the European Parliament’s Legislative Influence? An Analysis of the Success of EP Amendments," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(3), pages 521-537, September.
    5. Shepsle, Kenneth A. & Weingast, Barry R., 1987. "The Institutional Foundations of Committee Power," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 85-104, March.
    6. Charlotte Burns & Neil Carter & Nicholas Worsfold, 2012. "Enlargement and the Environment: The Changing Behaviour of the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(1), pages 54-70, January.
    7. Abdul Ghafar Noury & Simon Hix & Gérard Roland, 2007. "Democratic politics in the European Parliament," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/7744, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    8. Robert van Geffen, 2016. "Impact of Career Paths on MEPs’ Activities," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 54(4), pages 1017-1032, July.
    9. Thomas Braendle, 2015. "Does remuneration affect the discipline and the selection of politicians? Evidence from pay harmonization in the European Parliament," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 162(1), pages 1-24, January.
    10. Bowler, Shaun & Farrell, David M., 1995. "The Organizing of the European Parliament: Committees, Specialization and Co-ordination," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(2), pages 219-243, April.
    11. Handcock, Mark S. & Hunter, David R. & Butts, Carter T. & Goodreau, Steven M. & Morris, Martina, 2008. "statnet: Software Tools for the Representation, Visualization, Analysis and Simulation of Network Data," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 24(i01).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Steffen Hurka, 2013. "Changing the output: The logic of amendment success in the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 14(2), pages 273-296, June.
    2. Lukas Obholzer & Steffen Hurka & Michael Kaeding, 2019. "Party group coordinators and rapporteurs: Discretion and agency loss along the European Parliament’s chains of delegation," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(2), pages 239-260, June.
    3. Thomas Jensen & Thomas Winzen, 2012. "Legislative negotiations in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 13(1), pages 118-149, March.
    4. repec:bla:jcmkts:v:48:y:2010:i::p:811-833 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Steffen Hurka & Maximilian Haag & Constantin Kaplaner, 2023. "Proposal complexity and report allocation in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 24(2), pages 307-326, June.
    6. Fang-Yi Chiou & Silje SL Hermansen & Bjørn Høyland, 2020. "Delegation of committee reports in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(2), pages 233-254, June.
    7. David Marshall, 2010. "Who to lobby and when: Institutional determinants of interest group strategies in European Parliament committees," European Union Politics, , vol. 11(4), pages 553-575, December.
    8. Christian Staat & Colin R. Kuehnhanss, 2017. "Outside Earnings, Electoral Systems and Legislative Effort in the European Parliament," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 368-386, March.
    9. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2011. "The European Parliament: In need of a theory," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(4), pages 597-617, December.
    10. Bjørn Høyland & Indraneel Sircar & Simon Hix, 2009. "Forum Section," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(1), pages 143-152, March.
    11. Anna A. Dekalchuk & Aleksandra Khokhlova & Dmitriy Skougarevskiy, 2016. "National or European Politicians? Gauging MEPs Polarity When Russia is Concerned," HSE Working papers WP BRP 35/PS/2016, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    12. Sara Hagemann & Bjørn Høyland, 2010. "Bicameral Politics in the European Union," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 48(4), pages 811-833, September.
    13. repec:gig:joupla:v:3:y:2011:i:3:p:95-126 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Jonathan B Slapin, 2014. "Measurement, model testing, and legislative influence in the European Union," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(1), pages 24-42, March.
    15. Gavoille, Nicolas, 2018. "Who are the ‘ghost’ MPs? Evidence from the French parliament," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 134-148.
    16. Nikoleta Yordanova, 2009. "The Rationale behind Committee Assignment in the European Parliament," European Union Politics, , vol. 10(2), pages 253-280, June.
    17. Joseph P. McGarrity & Daniel Sutter, 2000. "A Test of the Structure of PAC Contracts: An Analysis of House Gun Control Votes in the 1980s," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(1), pages 41-63, July.
    18. Sean Gailmard, 2020. "Game theory and the study of American political development," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 185(3), pages 335-357, December.
    19. Anne Rasmussen, 2008. "The EU Conciliation Committee," European Union Politics, , vol. 9(1), pages 87-113, March.
    20. Jaehoon Kim & Lawrence S. Rothenberg, 2008. "Foundations of Legislative Organization and Committee Influence," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 339-374, July.
    21. Christophe Crombez & Pieterjan Vangerven, 2014. "Procedural models of European Union politics: Contributions and suggestions for improvement," European Union Politics, , vol. 15(2), pages 289-308, June.
    22. Scartascini, Carlos, 2007. "The Institutional Determinants of Political Transactions," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1961, Inter-American Development Bank.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:18:y:2017:i:3:p:469-490. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.