Abstract
One of the fundamental roles of a legislature is to deliberate bills. Therefore, the amount of time legislators spend on deliberation is important in evaluating a legislature's workload. However, previous studies on the legislative process have overlooked the variation in the total amount of legislative time among and within legislatures.
In this study, using the panel data of 47 Japanese prefectural assemblies from 1967 through 2006, I empirically investigate the determinants of the total amount of legislative time within legislatures. Consequently, I find that assemblies under divided governments or those fragmented into many factions tend to spend more legislative days in plenary sessions and committee meetings. Furthermore, the influence of factions on the legislative timetable depends on how much they control the scheduling power, e.g., the members of the Committee of Rules and Administration or the chairs of other committees.
