ABSTRACT This study examines legislative gatekeeping in the South Korean National Assembly by analyzing bill review subcommittee meeting frequency from 2004–2024. Unlike the U.S. Congress, where majority parties monopolize committee chairs, Korea's proportional chair allocation system creates a unique institutional setting for testing party cartel theory. Using negative binomial regression on 3314 committee‐months, we find that partisan coordination between committee and subcommittee chairs significantly increases meeting frequency, whereas ideological extremism reduces legislative activity. Meeting patterns follow an inverted U‐shaped electoral cycle, peaking during midterm periods. These effects vary systematically across committee types, with mixed committees showing different dynamics than particularistic or universal goods committees. The findings extend party cartel theory beyond majoritarian systems, demonstrating how “negotiated procedural control” operates when institutional power is distributed rather than monopolized.
Kwak et al. (Fri,) studied this question.