Party Affiliation and Individual Incentives: Committee Assignments in the Chamber of Deputies in Chile, 1990-2018

In presidential democracies with strong party systems, the congress shares legis- lative powers with the executive, and parties strongly influence the behavior of legislators. The law-making process should reflect that balance of power, as the reactive legislative powers of Congress should make committee membership less valuable than in systems where the legislature enjoys proactive powers. The strong party system and electoral rules should also be reflected in committee assignment dynamics. We test 4 hypotheses on the impact of individual (distributional and in- formational theories) and party level incentives (cartel party and issue ownership theories) on annual committee membership in the Chamber of Deputies in Chile (1990-2018). District and legislator specific characteristics—like the economic acti- vity in the district and the legislator’s professional expertise, respectively—explain committee membership. In some policy dimensions, parties that exercise issue ow- nership also have more presence in the respective committees.