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That leadership is disproportionately composed of professional politicians. The most important aspects of the complex organization are the committees. Each is composed of members of the four parliamentary parties in proportion to their strength. Committees chairs are also distributed among all four parties again proportionately to their strength. These aspects of the organization afford all parties a full chance to participate in the legislative process. Legislation is initiated by the cabinet and revised in consultation with interest groups, the parliamentary parties and their specialized working groups, and the parliamentary committees. Often legislation is not finally enacted till a compromise has been achieved that has the approval of the principal opposition party as well as the governing majority. Before the entry of the Greens into the Bundestag one-third of the most important bills and fully two-thirds of all bills were adopted
unanimously.
The organization of the work of the members of the Bundestag consists of a complex division of labor among them, including a differentiation of members' roles depending on their status in the governing or the opposition parties, on their committee memberships, on their position on the front or back benches, and on the extent of their commitment to a parliamentary career. This is not a parliament of interchangeable amateurs whose work can be easily comprehended by the lay public. Its structure is not malleable. Rather, the division of labor and the distribution of power is maintained by a group of experienced and professional members who manage a complex organization in which roles are well defined. That is a third sign of its institutionalization.
The
Let me summarize my observations to this point. Bundestag shows all the signs. of its distinctiveness as an institution because it is not easily entered by outsiders; once entered it provides its members with a valued, professional career; it makes collective decisions according to formal and informal rules that are applied in an impersonal and non-partisan manner; and the exercise of power within it is distributed in a complex way. In these respects there has been great continuity through three generations of members. Such change and adaptation as has occurred has grown out of the collective experience of the members within Parliament, not out of preconceived notions of reforms imposed from the outside.
Centrality
The Bundestag is not only a clearly identifiable political institution with a distinctive membership, a characteristic way of conducting its business, and a subtly complicated organization. It is also a central institution in the German political system, electing the Chancellor, influencing the