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

Register Here

Alejandro Bonvecchi
Kellogg Institute Visiting Fellow

This project studies the institutional design of legislatures in authoritarian regimes and its effects on legislative performance. It argues that regimes concentrating executive power in one person generally organize legislatures with little to no agenda or policymaking powers, or no legislature at all; whereas regimes distributing executive power within a collective body generally organize legislatures with comparatively stronger agenda or policymaking powers. It tests these arguments by studying the organization and performance of legislatures in three cases: Argentina's last military dictatorship; the Franco regime; and the Brazilian military regime. Preliminary results support the hypotheses: while the Cortes under Franco's personal dictatorship rarely rejected government bills, the Comisión de Asesoramiento Legislativo under the collective dictatorship of the Armed Forces in Argentina rejected a significant share; and in both legislatures opposing factions amended each other's bills.