Political Science Research and Methods
Monitoring coalition partners in the EU: strategic committee appointments in the European Parliament
2025-12-29
Policymaking in the EU requires member states to delegate negotiations to individual ministers. For coalition governments, this creates information asymmetries because parties holding the relevant ministerial portfolio gain privileged access while their coalition partners are sidelined. This paper argues that bicameralism in the EU mitigates this problem: sidelined parties can shadow their coalition partners through the committees of the European Parliament. Committees allow parties to monitor legislative processes and negotiations in the Council, which is particularly attractive for sidelined parties. Analyzing original data on committee and rapporteur assignments between 2004 and 2024, I find that MEPs systematically shadow their coalition partners in policy areas where their national party lacks direct representation in the Council and is misaligned with its coalition partners.