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Legislative Malapportionment and institutional persistence

Author

Listed:
  • Francisco Gallego

    (Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.)

  • Miriam Bruhn
  • Massimiliano Onorato
Abstract
This paper argues that legislative malapportionment, denoting a discrepancy between the share of legislative seats and the share of population held by electoral districts, serves as a tool for predemocratic elites to preserve their political power and economic interests after a transition to democracy. We claim that legislative malapportionment enhances the predemocratic elite’s political influence by overrepresenting areas that are more likely to vote for parties aligned with the elite. This biased political representation survives in equilibrium as long as it helps democratic consolidation. We use data from Latin America to document empirically that malapportionment increases the probability of transitioning to a democracy. Moreover, our data show that overrepresented electoral districts are more likely to vote for parties close to pre-democracy ruling groups. We also find that overrepresented areas have lower levels of political competition and they receive more transfers per capita from the central government, both of which favor the persistence of power of prodemocracy elites.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Gallego & Miriam Bruhn & Massimiliano Onorato, 2010. "Legislative Malapportionment and institutional persistence," Working Papers ClioLab 11, EH Clio Lab. Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.
    • Handle: RePEc:ioe:clabwp:11
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    File URL: http://cliolab.economia.uc.cl/docs/wp/wp_11.pdf
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    Cited by:

    1. Jorge M. Streb, 2018. "Tributación sin representación: la democracia argentina desde 1983," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 633, Universidad del CEMA.
    2. Sebastian Galiani & Iván Torre & Gustavo Torrens, 2016. "Fiscal Federalism and Legislative Malapportionment: Causal Evidence from Independent but Related Natural Experiments," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 133-159, March.
    3. Robinson, James A. & Baland, Jean-Marie, 2011. "The Political Value of Land: Democratization and Land Prices in Chile," CEPR Discussion Papers 8296, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2020. "Persistent Effects of Colonial Institutions on Long‐Run Development: Local Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Design in Argentina," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 820-861, December.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • N46 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Latin America; Caribbean
    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • P48 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Other Economic Systems - - - Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies

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