Legislatures and Legislators in Authoritarian Regimes

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

This panel addresses the politics of authoritarian legislatures from multiple angles, ranging from studies of the significance and strength of the institutions themselves to analysis of elite behavior within legislatures and its implications to citizen perceptions of legislative actors. Theoretically, the papers extend the comparative literature on legislative institutions into the realm of authoritarian politics and survival. Empirically, the papers employ a range of methodological approaches, including archival, statistical, and experimental techniques, to analyze the role of legislatures and legislators in authoritarian regimes. Collectively, they contribute to the growing scholarship on this important area of study.

Two papers focus on power sharing and consolidation. In the first, Matthew Wilson and Josef Woldense analyze and measure the relationship between the executive, legislature, and judiciary in authoritarian regimes and how it evolves when the executive attempts to concentrate power. In the second, Ben Noble, Paul Schuler, and Jun Sudduth evaluate the circumstances and reasons why authoritarian leaders decide to close legislatures and the role such closures play in these leaders’ attempts to consolidate power.

The remaining papers shift perspectives to examine legislators’ behavior in authoritarian congresses and their connections with their constituencies. In one, Emilia Simison analyzes how such behavior varies depending on whether legislators are acting as regime’s supporters or oppositors or as constituency representatives. In the second, Erin York analyzes patterns of bill cosponsorship within the Kuwaiti legislature in order to identify predictors and potential for collective action. Lastly, Alexandra Blackman and Marwa Shalaby examine how citizen attitudes toward legislative representatives is influenced by the way they get elected with a focus on the use of gender quotas.

Sub Unit

• Division 22: Legislative Studies

Chair

• Marwa Shalaby University of Wisconsin-Madison

Discussant

• Paul J. Schuler University of Arizona

Individual Presentations

• When One Gets Stronger, Does the Other One Get Weaker? - Matthew Charles Wilson, University of South Carolina; Josef Woldense, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• Coopting the Cowed: How Closing Legislatures Limits the Costs of Power Sharing - Ben Noble, University College London; Paul J. Schuler, University of Arizona; Jun Koga Sudduth, Indiana University, Bloomington

• Party Members or Congress Members? Legislators in Authoritarian Brazil - Emilia Simison, Queen Mary University of London

• Cosponsorship and Collective Action in an Authoritarian Legislature - Erin York, Vanderbilt University

• Gender Quota Policies and Citizens’ Evaluations of Female Politicians - Alexandra Domike Blackman, Cornell University; Marwa Shalaby, University of Wisconsin-Madison