Legislating parliaments in authoritarian regimes : Eurasian legislatures and presidents compared

dc.contributor.authorKROL, Leendert Jan Gerrit
dc.date.accessioned2020-11-06T11:35:21Z
dc.date.embargo2024-11-04
dc.date.issued2020
dc.descriptionDefence date: 4 November 2020en
dc.descriptionExamining Board: Prof. Stefano Bartolini (European University Institute); Prof. Anton Hemerijck (European University Institute); Prof. Vladimir Gel'man (EUSP / University of Helsinki); Prof. Petr Kopecký (Leiden University)en
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation investigates to what extent parliaments have a legislative function in authoritarian regimes. Arguably bolstering the legitimacy of authoritarian systems, power sharing institutions give politically relevant actors access to policy making. This analysis distinguishes two forms of power sharing (‘contestation’ and ‘differentiation’) and examines their impact on the legislative activity of parliaments. Legislative activity is measured in terms of size and scope, and refers to parliamentary initiative, as well as the amendment and delay of executive bills. Contestation, defined as multiparty elections, supposedly stimulates legislative activity by giving legislators a stronger bargaining position vis-à-vis the leadership. Higher levels of contestedness enhance the credibility of defection and require legislative concessions to potential defectors to secure regime stability. Alternatively, differentiation, referring to the dispersion of decision-making responsibilities in a political regime, affects legislative activity by marking the parliament’s proximity to the government and through the delegation of legislative responsibilities to institutional positions in the parliament. The empirical section consists of statistical analyses and paired comparisons of similar cases, focusing on legislatures in Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan that vary in terms of contestedness and differentiation. The analysis is based on two original datasets with information on 12,712 enacted laws and 6,693 MPs in the selected countries between 1998 and 2016. The results show that the selected legislatures, on average, initiated 38% of all enacted laws, rewrote executive bills, on average, for 43% and spent months deliberating on each executive bill. The results show that power sharing arrangements provide important explanations for this activity. Members of parliament increase their legislative activity when the level of contestedness is high and when the parliament’s constitutional leverage vis-à-vis the government is strong. The most important legislators are, however, allies of the ruler who have a position with institutionally delegated legislative power.en
dc.description.versionChapter 6 ‘Legislative activity(I)' of the PhD thesis draws upon an earlier version published as an article 'Parliamentary initiative in authoritarian regimes : power sharing in Eurasian legislatures' (2020) in the journal ‘The journal of legislative studies’
dc.embargo.terms2024-11-04
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationFlorence : European University Institute, 2020en
dc.identifier.doi10.2870/55112
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/68815
dc.language.isoenen
dc.orcid.uploadtrue*
dc.publisherEuropean University Instituteen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesEUIen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesSPSen
dc.relation.ispartofseriesPhD Thesisen
dc.relation.replaceshttps://hdl.handle.net/1814/68838
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
dc.subject.lcshLegislative bodies
dc.subject.lcshComparative government
dc.titleLegislating parliaments in authoritarian regimes : Eurasian legislatures and presidents compareden
dc.typeThesisen
dspace.entity.typePublication
eui.subscribe.skiptrue
person.identifier.other39091
relation.isAuthorOfPublication008f5718-44f0-481e-8179-7b4e03a46cf8
relation.isAuthorOfPublication.latestForDiscovery008f5718-44f0-481e-8179-7b4e03a46cf8
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