Polarization in the European Parliament and Its Standing Committees

In this paper, the European Parliament work is analyzed through its standing committees. More precisely, the recent parliamentarian activity is more and more characterized by partisan conflict in committees (e.g. SIEG). It seems then pertinent to study characteristics of this polarization. Partisan representativity, which is here supposed to define partisan conflict, is measured by two criteria: committees’ composition and the percentage of amendments adopted on the floor stage. Results show that representativity and conflict depend on the type of committees and procedures (legislative or not); then, this paper shows to what extent committees are the “cockpits” of polarization.