Constituency Preferences and Assignment to Agriculture Committees

With only a handful of exceptions, most research examining the impact of constituency preferences on committee assignments in legislatures outside the USA is comprised of single-case studies. This raises the question whether the impact of constituency preferences on committee assignments seen in previous studies apply cross-nationally. Focusing on committees whose remit includes agricultural affairs-because such committees may be particularly sensitive to constituents' particularistic interests-this study examines the impact of constituency preferences on committee assignments in 29 legislatures. The analysis suggests that constituency preferences may impact committee assignments in legislatures around the world, and that this effect varies to only a limited extent according to differences in electoral systems, committee organisation and the partisan consequences of personal vote-seeking.