Corruption, Elite Contestation, and Parliaments: Why Do Legislatures Become Stronger in Authoritarian Regimes?

• Published date: 01 March 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129231205296
• Author: Felix Wiebrecht
• Date: 01 March 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2024, Vol. 77(1) 255–269

© The Author(s) 2023

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129231205296

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Corruption, Elite Contestation, and

Parliaments: Why Do Legislatures Become

Stronger in Authoritarian Regimes?

Felix Wiebrecht

1



Abstract

A growing body of literature studies the personalization of power in authoritarian regimes. Yet, how institutions can

become a credible constraint to dictatorial rule is less widely studied. I theorize that corruption is a key factor

associated with stronger legislatures in authoritarian regimes. By engaging in corruption, authoritarian elites in

ruling coalitions can build up networks of support and inf‌luence and ultimately, use their elevated position to impel

more legislative powers vis-`

a-vis the executive. Examining panel data on the strength of legislatures in authoritarian

regimes between 1946 and 2010, I show empirically that authoritarian parliaments are stronger when levels of

corruption in a given regime are high. The link between corruption and legislative strength is especially strong in the

Middle East and Africa, and primarily applies to party-based and military dictatorships. More competitive electoral

and legislative processes, however, do not uniformly affect parliaments’strength. These f‌indings contribute to our

understanding of institutional changes in autocracies and highlight the centrality of elite contestations in determining

institutional trajectories.

Keywords

authoritarianism, legislatures, corruption, institutional development, elites

Introduction

The last decade has seen several authoritarian leaders

personalizing power such as Putin in Russia, Erdogan in

Turkey, and Xi in China. It is, therefore, no surprise that

recent research has widely studied the personalization of

power in autocracies and highlighted its (negative)

consequences on regime survival, leader survival, and

repression (e.g., Frantz et al. 2020;Grundholm 2020;

Chin et al. 2022). A related pressing issue is how to

credibly constrain dictators and prevent them from

centralizing power in the f‌irst place. Here, especially the

role of institutions such as parliaments remains debated

among scholars.

1

While some characterize them as

crucial for restraining dictators and providing a forum

for elite bargaining (e.g., Svolik 2012), others dismiss

their usefulness or even view them as “rubberstamps”

(e.g., Brancati 2014;Meng 2020).

Yet, the strength of legislatures, that is, parliaments’

powers vis-`

a-vis the executive, and therefore, their ability

to effectively constrain dictators, differs remarkably (e.g.,

Fish 2006;Barkan 2009) with important policy impli-

cations, for instance, for regimes’economic growth and

investment (e.g., Wright 2008;Jensen et al. 2014;

Bonvecchi and Simison 2021). While the cross-regime

differences in legislative strength are increasingly well

understood (e.g., Wilson and Woldense 2019;Wiebrecht

2021), there is no reason to assume that legislatures’

strength remains constant once established. Yet, research

has not advanced to explain the temporal dimension of

authoritarian parliaments’power cross-nationally. In other

words, why do legislatures become stronger (or weaker)

over time under authoritarianism? Cases from regimes as

diverse as the German Democratic Republic (Schirmer

2002), Saudi Arabia (Seznec 2002), Myanmar (Egreteau

2019), Zambia (Opalo 2019), as well as Tanzania (Collord

2022), illustrate that legislatures’institutionalization and

strengthening is an empirical reality that warrants further

analysis.

1

University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

Corresponding Author:

Felix Wiebrecht, Department of Politics, University of Liverpool, 8-14

Abercromby Square, Liverpool L69 7WZ, UK.

Email: Felix.wiebrecht@liverpool.ac.uk