Political parties and parliamentary oversight committee seats: sharing and trading the costs

Abstract

ABSTRACT Political parties are important actors for making the chain of delegation in parliamentary systems work in practice, but less constructive in securing the corresponding chain of accountability that goes in the opposite direction. This article, however, argues that parliamentary oversight (accountability) conditions improve in institutionalised settings, like in central oversight committees. The article explores political parties’ strategies related to this type of task by investigating who sits in this type of committee. The expectation is that in this setting political parties will share the oversight responsibility, but that smaller parties want to trade the costs because they have fewer resources compared to larger parties. The investigation focuses on the five Nordic national parliaments with strong parties that control elections as well as the committee seat allocation. Overall, the investigation shows that institutionalisation does seem to spur joint responsibility and that larger parties take the load of this type of activity.