Parliamentary procedures & interest group mobilization : evidence from the European Parliament’s committees

Abstract:

This paper contributes to discussions surrounding interest group representation in the European Parliament (EP). Different types of procedures effect committees’ demands for legitimacy, impacting the balance of private and public interests. We inspect a population of 10,000 accredited lobbyists, and the entire procedural output across the 7th legislature’s (2009-2014) committees. The results indicate that committees with a higher ratio of Ordinary Legislative Procedures to Own Initiative Reports see greater numbers of private interests involved.

However, in committees where the procedures’ ratios are inverse we observe greater numbers of public interests involved. While this may overturn the premise of business dominance across the Institution. It has implications regarding the balanced representation of public and private interests on a procedural level. The paper offers a novel approach for framing the nature of the committee, whilst bridging discussions on interest group representation and the democratic deficit.