I first validate the data concerning parliaments' gender and age compositions and numbers of parties. I also provide a number of applications for the study of gender and age representation, legislative turnover, and subnational dynamics in autocracies - all in the paper!

New Working Paper 🚨

I am introducing the new dataset on Parliamentary Elites in Authoritarian Regimes (PEAR). It includes information on the composition of parliaments in 819 legislative terms in 130 autocracies from 1945 - based on over 200k individual-level observations.

tinyurl.com/48h68hmh

📣 Research Assistant Position!

@ozlemtuncel.bsky.social and I are looking for support for a project on higher education and electoral politics in Turkey. Are you:

▪️Ideally, a PhD student
▪️Fluent in Turkish
▪️Familiar with quantitative data

Then please apply here:
gsu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...

Looking at which government departments respond positively also reveals a technocratic pattern. Departments such as the ones for Water Affairs and Environmental Protection are more receptive to proposals showing expertise while the Public Security Bureau is generally not open to outside suggestions.

I study People’s Political Consultative Conferences in China – institutions in which govt officials, entrepreneurs, academics, etc. make (non-binding) suggestions to the government. How does the government respond to them?

Data from 1 province shows: Largely positive (higher values) but not always

How do we engage with authoritarian regimes and how do we study them?

For the launch of the @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social Specialist Group on Autocracy and Regime Change, we discuss these timely issues!

Join us in London or online and register here: forms.gle/Hvh4KRewuUr7...

polisky dictatorsky

Not only that but their strength can also vary across time within the same regimes. While some gradually become stronger (or weaker), others remain fairly stable over time:

Using V-Dem data, I show that authoritarian parliaments can differ a lot in their strength across regimes. Here are some of them with weaker (lighter shades) and stronger (darker) parliaments:

Developing a political econ argument on parliaments as constraints, I theorize that corruption helps political elites build up networks of support and become stronger players in auth politics. In turn, they can use that position to strengthen parliaments and constrain dictators.