1
Within comparative politics it has become increasingly common to suggest that
legislatures are important institutions or, at the very least, institutions whose significance have
long been underestimated.
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Historically characterized as subordinate to the executive in
parliamentary systems of government, recent research suggests that legislatures do indeed
play a significant role in policy making and in keeping watch on the actions of the executive
branch (see, for example, Martin and Vanberg 2005). Despite this, we know very little about
how and why legislative structures have evolved in parliamentary systems. This lack of
knowledge is in stark contrast with the rich literature on the origins and consequences of
internal legislative design under presidentialism (Gamm and Huber 2002). Committees have
long been seen as the most significant form of internal legislative organization in both
presidential and parliamentary systems. Perhaps the most scrutinized committee system is that
of the United States Congress, where the puzzle of strong committees has been the focus of
much scholarly activity (for competing explanations of committee power in the US Congress
see, among others, Shepsle and Weingast 1987, Krehbiel 1991, Cox and McCubbins 1993 and
Maltzman 1997). Legislative specialists have been remarkably unsuccessful at transposing
theories of Congressional committees to a cross-national perspective (see, for example, the
notable exclusion of committees as a topic in the volume edited by Loewenberg et al. [2002]).
However, as Strøm (1998) notes, even under parliamentarism, a strong committee system is a
necessary, if not sufficient, requirement for the legislative branch to operate effectively,
especially in terms of its relationship with the executive branch.
This paper explores the nature of, and reasons for, variation in committee structures
across different legislatures operating under parliamentary government. My fundamental
proposition is that strong committee systems emerge as a rational-efficient solution to the
problem of principal-to-agent delegation inherent in multiparty government In short,
Convention