Institutional Specialization in the Congress: Evidence from Taiwan

• In Event: Elites vs. the Public in Taiwan

Abstract

Compared to the Congress in established democracies, nascent democracies often face challenges related to incomplete institutional development, causing inefficiency in the legislative process. The purpose of the article is to investigate how Congress in nascent democracies becomes much more institutionally specialized. To this question, instead of focusing on the duration of bill passage, our inquiry centers on understanding the behavior of legislators. Specifically, we explore how legislators respond to the committee systems and how institutionally specialized they are. We use Taiwan as a case: the legislators in the 7th, 8th, and 9th terms in the Legislative Yuan.

To measure the level of specialization of Congress, we calculate the concentration level of legislators’ proposals within their belonging committees, following Gaddie and Kuzenski’s article (1996). The finding indicates, on the whole, that legislators in these three terms exhibit a sightly low concentration of proposals. Specifically, when a legislator serves as the primary proposer and submits ten proposals, on average, less than five of these proposals are referred to their respective committees. Compared to the 7th-term legislators, those in the 8th and 9th term demonstrate higher concentrations of legislators’ proposals. Furthermore, we investigate what factors contribute to legislators' institutional specialization. The key points are the election system, the personal background, and the characters of the personal belonging committees. Specifically, legislators who are elected from the party list show a higher concentration of proposals. Also, possessing relevant social and experiential backgrounds and staying on the same committee for multiple legislative sessions would exhibit a higher concentration of proposals. Moreover, legislators who stay in the committee with high media attention tend to have a higher level of concentration on proposals. However, legislators in committees with low media attention but a high proportion of professional members also exhibit a higher concentration of proposals.

Additionally, legislators with a higher concentration of proposals are more likely to achieve legislative success. This is attributed to the fact that proposal concentration helps legislators accumulate legislative knowledge and formulate convincing arguments to persuade committee members. Furthermore, legislators who choose to focus on a specific field of legislation are concerned about the issues in that domain, which motivates them to promote legislative proposals and consequently increases their chances of legislative success.

Author

• Chu-Ling Tseng, National Chengchi University