Legislative Institutions and Performance in Authoritarian Regimes

The literature on authoritarian regimes assumes legislatures are inconsequential because dictators ultimately retain their hold on power. We challenge this assumption arguing that legislatures embedded in power-sharing arrangements are costly to ignore, their design affects lawmaking patterns, and t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Bonvecchi, Alejandro, Simison, Emilia
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2017
País:Argentina
Institución:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositorio:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/76721
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/76721
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Authoritarian Regimes
Legislatures
Proceso
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.4
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/5.6
Descripción
Sumario:The literature on authoritarian regimes assumes legislatures are inconsequential because dictators ultimately retain their hold on power. We challenge this assumption arguing that legislatures embedded in power-sharing arrangements are costly to ignore, their design affects lawmaking patterns, and they are more influential when executives are collective, rather than personal. We test these arguments on a case for which complete records exist: the Legislative Advisory Commission in Argentina?s last military dictatorship. Our findings show that the combination of tripartite power-sharing by the armed forces, a collective executive, shared legislative power, and decentralized agenda power led to higher rates of government legislative defeats and bill amendments than typical in authoritarian regimes. These findings support the theory that legislatures under authoritarianism are more influential when power-sharing arrangements include collective executives.