TY - JOUR

T1 - Political ambition and opposition legislative review

T2 - Bill scrutiny as an intra-party signalling device

AU - Behrens, Lion

AU - Nyhuis, Dominic

AU - Gschwend, Thomas

N1 - Funding Information: A previous version of this article was presented at the 14th General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research, 24–28 August 2020. We are grateful to Tom Louwerse for their helpful comments and suggestions. For excellent research assistance, we thank Felix Münchow, Morten Harmening and Marie‐Lou Sohnius. This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) via the SFB 884 on “The Political Economy of Reforms” (Project C7) and the University of Mannheim's Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS).

PY - 2024/1/7

Y1 - 2024/1/7

N2 - Recent research on executive–legislative relations in parliamentary democracies has shown that members of majority parties submit amendments to government bills to police the coalition compromise and to distinguish themselves from their coalition partners. It is poorly understood, however, what motivates members of the opposition to engage in the resource-intensive work of proposing changes to government bills. Not only are amendment proposals by the opposition often unsuccessful (lack of policy motivation), they are largely invisible to the electorate (lack of vote motivation). We argue that amendments by the opposition are best understood as reflecting office motivations of legislators. Ambitious legislators draft amendments to signal skill and expertise to their party peers, which is rewarded with promotions to higher office. We confirm our argument with original data from a German state parliament. The findings further our understanding of legislative review, individual legislative efforts and career trajectories.

AB - Recent research on executive–legislative relations in parliamentary democracies has shown that members of majority parties submit amendments to government bills to police the coalition compromise and to distinguish themselves from their coalition partners. It is poorly understood, however, what motivates members of the opposition to engage in the resource-intensive work of proposing changes to government bills. Not only are amendment proposals by the opposition often unsuccessful (lack of policy motivation), they are largely invisible to the electorate (lack of vote motivation). We argue that amendments by the opposition are best understood as reflecting office motivations of legislators. Ambitious legislators draft amendments to signal skill and expertise to their party peers, which is rewarded with promotions to higher office. We confirm our argument with original data from a German state parliament. The findings further our understanding of legislative review, individual legislative efforts and career trajectories.

KW - Germany

KW - intra-party politics

KW - legislative review

KW - political ambition

KW - political careers

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150967263&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1475-6765.12583

DO - 10.1111/1475-6765.12583

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85150967263

VL - 63

SP - 66

EP - 88

JO - European Journal of Political Research

JF - European Journal of Political Research

SN - 0304-4130

IS - 1

ER -