Working Behind the Scenes: Roles and Functions of French and German Parliamentary Staff

The work of parliamentary staff is essential for the functioning of the German Bundestag and the French Assemblée nationale, which present two distinct national parliaments. Parliamentary employees have various tasks, such as providing and brokering information, advising, ghostwriting, or facilitating compromises. However, their concrete activities have not yet been sufficiently explored. Therefore, this article identifies and compares the predominant roles and functions of French and German parliamentary staff by applying an extended version of the role/type matrix by Brandsma and Otjes (2024). It determines four organisational roles in both parliaments: general administrative staff, committee staff, parliamentary party group staff, and personal staff. The empirical findings suggest that these organisational roles differ largely in size and function between the two legislatures. In general, the Bundestag is much better staffed than the Assemblée nationale. While parliamentary party group and personal staff have similar functions (but not size), there is a striking difference in terms of committee staff. The French parliamentary administration puts a higher share of its staff into committee work than the German counterpart. This corresponds to the fact that German committee staff are mainly organisers while the French colleagues fulfil a whole range of functions such as advising, facilitating compromises, and ghostwriting.