Personal Ambitions, Expertise and Parties' Control. Understanding Committee Assignment in the Italian Chamber of Deputies

In this paper we look at committee assignment focusing on the extent to which MPs’ desires to become members of certain committees are fulfilled. Our theoretical argument is based on the assumption that legislators pursue individual goals, which interact with party leaders’ ones. To test our hypotheses we use original survey data about elected candidates in the Italian Parliament collected immediately after the 2013 general election. Our main findings highlight that individual preferences driven by distributive interests are more likely to be accommodated in case of loyal party members. On the contrary, party loyalty does not seem to affect committee assignment when MPs’ choices are driven by expertise-based motivations.