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<p>Moonlighting, carrying paid or honorary affiliations to external actors, is legal in many parliaments. Given that within parliaments, legislative committees play a central role in policy-making and are therefore attractive targets for interest organisations; the question arises if legislators’ formal connections to external interest organisations also affect their assignment to committees, and if so, how. While parliamentary party groups are responsible for assigning parliamentarians to committees and recent studies have found ties to interest groups to matter in the process, little is known about <i>how</i> they actually affect assignment. Drawing on theories of legislative organisation, this paper examines the link between parliamentarians’ connections to outside interests and their assignment to committees. The analysis of the 381 members of the 19th German <i>Bundestag</i> who were re-elected in the subsequent 20th legislative period (2021–2025) and their 1851 affiliations to external interests shows that ties to these organisations matter for the assignment to some committees, but more so regarding their content (in terms of a match between the organisation’s and the committee’s jurisdiction) than their form (number, composition or category of interest). The articles’ findings have important implications for the ongoing debate on lobbying and the manner in which interest organisations external to parliament affect the assignment process within.</p>

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How do interest affiliations affect assignment to committees?

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年7月30日

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  • Pauline Büsken

摘要

Moonlighting, carrying paid or honorary affiliations to external actors, is legal in many parliaments. Given that within parliaments, legislative committees play a central role in policy-making and are therefore attractive targets for interest organisations; the question arises if legislators’ formal connections to external interest organisations also affect their assignment to committees, and if so, how. While parliamentary party groups are responsible for assigning parliamentarians to committees and recent studies have found ties to interest groups to matter in the process, little is known about how they actually affect assignment. Drawing on theories of legislative organisation, this paper examines the link between parliamentarians’ connections to outside interests and their assignment to committees. The analysis of the 381 members of the 19th German Bundestag who were re-elected in the subsequent 20th legislative period (2021–2025) and their 1851 affiliations to external interests shows that ties to these organisations matter for the assignment to some committees, but more so regarding their content (in terms of a match between the organisation’s and the committee’s jurisdiction) than their form (number, composition or category of interest). The articles’ findings have important implications for the ongoing debate on lobbying and the manner in which interest organisations external to parliament affect the assignment process within.