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%T Committee Representation in the European Parliament %A McElroy, Gail %J European Union Politics %N 1 %P 5-29 %V 7 %D 2006 %K committees; European Parliament; preference outliers; %= 2011-05-04T14:44:00Z %~ http://www.peerproject.eu/ %> https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-228941 %X The European Parliament (EP) possesses a highly specialized committee system, operating in a complex institutional and political environment, yet little empirical work has investigated how MEPs are assigned to EP committees and what consequences this process has for representation and policy-making. In this article I examine the growth of EP committees and committee membership since 1979, and address the question of whether these committees are representative of the EP as a whole. Using an original data set of committee membership, national and EP party affiliation, MEP characteristics, and MEP policy preferences derived from roll-call votes, I address three key questions: Does committee membership reflect the party group composition of the EP? Do committee members possess specialized expertise in their committees’ policy areas? And, finally, do committee members’ general or committee-specific policy preferences differ substantially from those of the overall Parliament? The results suggest very strongly that, although committee members do tend to possess policy-specific expertise, committees are, nonetheless, highly representative of the EP as a whole, in terms of both party and policy representation. %C GBR %G en %9 journal article %W GESIS - http://www.gesis.org %~ SSOAR - http://www.ssoar.info