Power-Sharing, Institutional Design, and the Performance of Legislatures in Authoritarian Regimes

This chapter presents our theory, which claims that lawmaking institutions and outcomes in autocracies depend upon the nature and dynamics of factional politics. When factional politics is balanced, because the factions that make up the autocratic coalition are highly united and embedded in organizations, they establish reviser legislatures mandated to intervene in all lawmaking processes and empowered not only to review but also to amend and reject government initiatives. In contrast, when factional politics is unbalanced, because factions are less united and embedded, regimes establish notary legislatures with limited and contingent intervention in lawmaking processes, and empowered to amend but not necessarily reject government bills. Reviser legislatures typically amend and reject significant shares of government bills and are able to impose important changes in policy, whereas notary legislatures typically amend government initiatives, but rarely reject them, and are hardly able to impose important policy changes. Variation in the resources of factions may lead legislatures to oscillate between these two extreme types.