Changing the output: The logic of amendment success in the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee

Abstract

This study tests three hypotheses on factors driving the success and failure of amendments in the European Parliament’s ENVI committee. The hypotheses, which are derived from different theories of legislative organization, are tested with an original dataset containing 550 amendments from 55 ENVI members. Contrary to existing empirical evidence on the structure of political conflict in plenary, the results suggest that a committee member’s general ideological orientation on the left-right dimension is not decisive for his prospects to change the committee output. Instead, it seems like ENVI members with ties to green interest groups play a greater role in the formulation of environmental policies than committee members without comparable affiliations. Finally, the empirical evidence indicates that rapporteurs are only rarely challenged successfully by competing amendments. However, they are often willing to accept compromises.