Legislative Malapportionment and Institutional Persistence

Bruhn, Miriam ; Gallego, Francisco ; Onorato, Massimiliano

关键词: ALLOCATION;    BARGAINING;    BARGAINING POWER;    BICAMERAL SYSTEM;    BOND;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-5467
RP-ID  :  WPS5467

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper argues that legislativemalapportionment, denoting a discrepancy between the shareof legislative seats and the share of population held byelectoral districts, serves as a tool for pre-democraticelites to preserve their political power and economicinterests after a transition to democracy. The authors claimthat legislative malapportionment enhances thepre-democratic elite s political influence byover-representing areas that are more likely to vote forparties aligned with the elite. This biased politicalrepresentation survives in equilibrium as long as it helpsdemocratic consolidation. Using data from Latin America, theauthors document empirically that malapportionment increasesthe probability of transitioning to a democracy. Moreover,the data show that over-represented electoral districts aremore likely to vote for parties close to pre-democracyruling groups. The analysis also finds that overrepresentedareas have lower levels of political competition and receivemore transfers per capita from the central government, bothof which favor the persistence of power of pre-democracy elites.