Who Gives Evidence to Parliamentary Committees? A Comparative Investigation of Parliamentary Committees and their Constituencies

Abstract

This article focuses on the interaction between parliamentary committees and external
\nactors. How is the interaction organised, and how does it influence which interests are
\nvoiced? The authors show that institutional variation in procedures for calling witnesses
\nand variation in committee agendas influence both the composition of actors and the concentration
\nof evidence. By composition of actors, they refer to the set of different actor
\ntypes involved. By evidence concentration, they refer to the extent to which evidence is
\nprovided by a relatively small share of active actors. The study is based on a new data
\nset of all contacts between parliamentary committees and external actors in one year
\nacross three countries: the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands. Interestingly,
\nthe findings show that procedures of invitation rather than open calls increase the diversity
\nof actor composition and decrease the concentration of actor evidence. This, however,
\ncomes at a cost, since the overall volume of contacts is reduced.