On Rubber Stamps and Mad Printers: Authoritarian Parliamentary Activity and the Case of the Russian State Duma

• In Event: Inside Russian Authoritarianism: Multi-Level Legitimation and Institutional Adaptation

Abstract

Parliamentary activity is the active exercise of procedural and political prerogatives assigned to
a parliament and/or its members through constitutional privilege or internal standing orders.
Occasions of politically-relevant parliamentary activity are relatively rare in non-democratic
systems, and their outcomes are often ultimately quixotic under such conditions. Yet many long-
lasting electoral authoritarian regimes have found themselves startled by one or another such
form of parliamentary political activity nevertheless, whether constructive or destructive. This
paper investigates the conditions and means by which parliamentary bodies in electoral
authoritarian regimes activate in this way as sites of inter-elite contention, opposition
obstruction, or loyalist policy-making activity. To do so, this paper engages in a theory-building
exercise, using a qualitative analytic narrative of the Russian State Duma as a model case for
longstanding electoral authoritarian rule. It finds evidence to support a structural-institutional
theory of authoritarian parliamentary activity, and concludes with further avenues for research.

Author

• Julian G. Waller, George Washington U