A MODEL OF A LEGISLATURE WITH 2 PARTIES AND A COMMITTEE SYSTEM

In this paper, I propose a model of a legislature with two political parties and a committee system, similar to the U.S. House of Representatives. Equilibrium results are developed that address both the social choice problem and the collective action problem of how to make it in at least some members' interests to act on any collectively shared interests of their party. I further suggest that this basic structure has a very long-term stability and that medium-term periods of more party-centered or more committee-centered politics, suggestive of an equilibrium of institutions within this basic stability, may be due to equilibria in the electoral choices of the public and, thus, in the representative nature of the legislature.