The policy impact of leadership in committees: Rapporteurs’ influence on the European Parliament’s opinions

Rory Costello and Robert Thomson
Additional contact information
Rory Costello: University of Twente, The Netherlands, r.d.costello@utwente.nl
Robert Thomson: Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

European Union Politics, 2010, vol. 11, issue 2, 219-240

Abstract: What impact do leaders in the European Parliament’s (EP) committees have on the EP’s opinions? This study formulates and tests expectations about the conditions under which rapporteurs influence the EP’s opinions and also about what factors motivate that influence. In line with the informational theory of legislative committees, the most important factor affecting the EP’s opinion is the policy position of the median MEP, not a characteristic of the rapporteur. Nonetheless, the evidence shows that rapporteurs influence the EP’s opinions when legislative proposals are subject to early agreements under the co-decision procedure and when the consultation procedure applies. Rapporteurs’ influence is motivated primarily by national interests, rather than by the interests of their EP party groups.

Keywords: co-decision; committees; European Parliament; rapporteurs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116510353459 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:11:y:2010:i:2:p:219-240

DOI: 10.1177/1465116510353459

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in European Union Politics
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().