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The Journal of Legislative
Studies
Publication details, including instructions for authors
and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/fjls20
Who Gives Evidence to
Parliamentary Committees? A
Comparative Investigation of
Parliamentary Committees and
their Constituencies
Helene Helboe Pedersen, Darren Halpin & Anne
Rasmussen
Published online: 22 May 2015.
To cite this article: Helene Helboe Pedersen, Darren Halpin & Anne Rasmussen (2015)
Who Gives Evidence to Parliamentary Committees? A Comparative Investigation of
Parliamentary Committees and their Constituencies, The Journal of Legislative Studies,
21:3, 408-427, DOI: 10.1080/13572334.2015.1042292
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2015.1042292
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Who Gives Evidence to Parliamentary
Committees? A Comparative Investigation of
Parliamentary Committees and their
Constituencies
HELENE HELBOE PEDERSEN
*
, DARREN HALPIN
and ANNE RASMUSSEN
This article focuses on the interaction between parliamentary committees and external
actors. How is the interaction organised, and how does it influence which interests are
voiced? The authors show that institutional variation in procedures for calling witnesses
and variation in committee agendas influence both the composition of actors and the con-
centration of evidence. By composition of actors, they refer to the set of different actor
types involved. By evidence concentration, they refer to the extent to which evidence is
provided by a relatively small share of active actors. The study is based on a new data
set of all contacts between parliamentary committees and external actors in one year
across three countries: the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands. Interestingly,
the findings show that procedures of invitation rather than open calls increase the diversity
of actor composition and decrease the concentration of actor evidence. This, however,
comes at a cost, since the overall volume of contacts is reduced.
Keywords: interest groups; institutions; parliamentary committees; representation;
comparative study.
Introduction
Representation is crucial for democracy to work (Pitkin, 1967). The link between
the represented and their represen tatives is established most directly through
elections. Yet representation is no less important between elections, and most
political systems have established institutions to facilitate interaction between
civil society and the state. While it is generally deemed to be normatively prefer-
able that these institutions be as accessible to the public as possible, in this article
we show that when designing institutions we face a trade-off. Inclusive insti-
tutions do indeed increase the amount of evidence given, but in contrast to
general assumptions more exclusive institutions may actually pave the way for
interaction between society and state that is less dominated by strong societal
players and mobilises less politically minded actors. We use parliamentary com-
mittees as an example of an institution meant to facilitate representation.
Parliamentary committees serve many functions. They improv e legislative
efficiency through a division of labour, they create opportunity for log-rolling
The Journal of Legislative Studies, 2015
Vol. 21, No. 3, pp. 408–427, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13572334.2015.1042292
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Downloaded by [Australian National University] at 20:45 08 September 2015
and agreement formation, and they contribute to building up expertise by allow-
ing members of parliament (MPs) to specialise and by taking evidence from
external actors. For some, parliamentary committees are seen as the major inno-
vative institutional change in parliaments since the 1960s, and today it is difficult
to find a parliament without committees as a focal point of policymaking and par-
liamentary activity in general (Aldons, 1985; Arter, 2006; Hindmoor, Larkin, &
Kennon, 2009; Krehbiel, 1992; Lijphart, 1999; Longley & Davidson, 1998;
Mattson & Strøm, 2004; Shepsle & Weingast, 1987). Although powers vary,
committees have the potential not only to ease the legislative process but also
to function as an important linkage between state and civil society (Hough,
2012). This helps to secure representation and conduct oversight of the executive.
As a transmission belt, parliament provides legitimacy for government actions in
parliamentary systems (Norton, 2001, pp. 17 –18).
As one might expect, many have examined the influence of parliamentary
committees (see, for example, Cairney, 2006; Damgaard & Jensen, 2006;
Mattson & Strøm, 2004; Monk, 2009). In this way, most studies focus on the
direct legislative impact of these committees whereas other aspects of their
work are given less attention (but see Benton & Russell, 2013; Halpin, Baxter,
& MacLeod, 2012; Norton, 2002). In particular, little scholarly attention has
been given to the way committees engage with external actors and obtain infor-
mation (for important exceptions, see Halpin, MacLeod, & McLaverty, 2012;
Norton, 1999; Rommetvedt, 1998): ‘The relationship between parliament and
citizens is one of the least studied areas in legislative studies yet this is a
crucial dimension in understanding parliaments and the role they play in our pol-
itical systems’ (Leston-Bandeira, 2012, p. 265).
In this article we work towards establishing firmer theoretical expectations for
explaining patterns of contact between committees and civil society. We examine
how differences in committee procedures for taking evidence influence actor
composition and evidence concentration. Actor composition refers to the set of
different actor types involved in parliamentary committee work: we distinguish
among institutions, interest groups, experts and individuals. Evidence concen-
tration refers to the relationship between groups and the volume of evidence
they submit. Evidence is concentrated if a high share of evidence is provided
by a small share of actors (for example, if only 3 per cent of the actors provide
25 per cent of the evidence). We argue that different instruments of access for
involving external stakeholders and different types of committee agenda affect
the composition as well as the concentration of the evidence provided to parlia-
mentary committees. In this way, we lay the ground for further explanatory and
comparative research in the area.
To test the causal effects of the different institutional procedures on actor
composition and evidence concentration we include data on external actor invol-
vement in committee work in Denmark, the Netherlands and the United
Kingdom
1
using a new unique data set with more than 20,000 external actor con-
tacts. We test the impact of institutional variation within each national parliament
WHO GIVES EVIDENCE TO PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEES? 409
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keeping constant other factors, such as party system, overall state–society
relations such as corporatism and pluralism, and the political agenda, because
all these factors may also potentially influence contact patterns. We further
compare the institutional effects across national parliaments to increase the gen-
eralisability of the results.
Our findings indicate that different instruments of access for involving an
external stakeholder as well as different types of committee agenda do in fact
influence both the composition and concentration of external actor evidence to
parliamentary committees. Most importantly, we show how exclusive procedures
for external actor involvement where evidence is invited lead to engagement of
traditionally less politically active actors and to a situation with less chance of
evidence being concentrated in the hands of only a few actors.
How Procedures Influence Interaction between Committees and External
Actors
The literature offers little guidance of what to expect when it comes to explaining
variation in the composition and concentration of external actor evidence to par-
liamentary committees. Most country comparative studies have been based on the
common knowledge that overall state– society relations may explain differences
in the inclusion of external actors (for a dicusssion of these differences see, for
example, Eising, 2007; Rasmussen, 2015). However, political reformists would
also emphasise that variation in institutions within a given political system
(such as parliamentary institutions) matters. Greater attention has been devoted
to institutions since the 1990s (Norton, 2001, p. 16) and most scholars agree
that the institutional design has consequences for the policy process as well as
the policy outcomes (see, for example, Shepsle & Weingast, 1987). The new
committees of the Scottish parliament, for instanc e, were designed to enhance
the role of civil society in the legislative process and to engage the Scottish
people actively – and especially traditionally excluded groups – in the demo-
cratic process. The results of these efforts are not clear, however, since the
same ‘usual suspects’ are still the dominant players giving evidence to the com-
mittees (Cairney, Halpin, & Jordan, 2009; Halpin, MacLeod, & McLaverty,
2012). Also, the British select committees have been evaluated based on their
ability to make the political process less remote and more accessible to citizens
(Hindmoor et al., 2009, p. 73).
Preferences of the Actors
Before we identify institutional factors that might explain variation in the com-
position and concentration of evidence from external actors we need to lay out
our assumptions regarding all the actors involved in evidence giving. On the
one side of the interaction we find the committee members. We assume that
MPs consider representation and information quality (Jensen, 2012) when select-
ing external actors from whom to take evidence.
410
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