Policies with and without politics: Committees and the differentiated politicization of legislative debates in the European Parliament

Plenary debates in the European Parliament (EP) constitute important venues for politicization, as they provide the institutional arena for MEPs to publicly express and confront their positions about future policies. Yet, given the central role of committees in EP decision-making and the differences between them, the politicization of plenary debates is likely to vary according to the committees that prepared the legislative files. This article examines that hypothesis, and tests possible explanations for differences in the politicization of plenary debates across committees. The politicization of debates is measured by the number of MEPs who participate in the debate. The results show that legislative debates about files prepared in committees that are less consensual in their internal decision-making tend to be more politicized. However, the analysis does not provide evidence that the saliency of the issues committees deal with affects the politicization of the plenary debates.