7
specify every aspect of the committee structure and consequently leaves much discretion over
internal organization to the National Assembly itself. In summary, I assume that the structure
of committees and the resulting strength of committee systems are not exogenous in that the
legislature itself can change and amend structures. Under parliamentarism, this translates into
the governing parties having agenda setting and veto power over how committees are
designed.
I outline below why committees will be stronger in political systems with multiparty
government and where legislators are elected under ballot rules that free them from the need
to be responsive to the particularistic needs of constituents. I begin by exploring the causal
relationship between government form (single party as distinct from coalition government)
and the strength of committees in the legislature.
Committees and Coalition Government
Forming a multiparty government is a complex business revolving around two major
concerns: agreeing on a distribution of offices among the parties (most especially cabinet
portfolios) and negotiating a set of policies to be implemented during the lifetime of the
multiparty government. Policy agreements are so significant that they are more often than not
put in writing in the form of a coalition agreement. Coalition agreements must, in effect, be
agreed ex ante by all parties to the coalition and cover most if not all policy areas within the
competency of the government (Strøm and Müller 1999).
3
The Irish case is indicative of the
significance of such agreements: in recent times all multiparty governments that have formed
have done so following intense and often protracted negotiations leading to the signing of a
policy document. The care and attention given to the preparation of such agreements is based
in large part on the expectation that subsequent government policy will be based not on the
Convention