PEER-REVIEWED ARTICLES
Amending Budget Bills in the Russian State Duma. Post-Communist Economies. Forthcoming (29(4), 2017).
Do budget bills change during review in the Russian State Duma? If so, by how much and why? Portrayals of the contemporary Federal Assembly as a ‘rubber stamp’ parliament would suggest that budget initiatives undergo no amendment during the formal period of legislative review. There is, however, evidence of bill change. The article’s primary goal is to present this surprising evidence, focusing on changes to spending figures, 2002-2016. The article also discusses why such changes are made, assessing hypotheses concerning legislator influence, technical updating, and intra-executive conflict.
Budgetary Change in Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes. With Frank Baumgartner, Marcello Carammia, Derek Epp, Beatriz Rey, and Tevfik Murat Yildrim. Journal of European Public Policy. Forthcoming (2017). [available here]
We compare patterns of change in budgetary commitments by countries during periods of democracy and authoritarianism. Previous scholarship has focused almost exclusively on democratic governments, finding evidence of punctuated equilibria. Authoritarian regimes may behave differently, both because they may operate with fewer institutional barriers to choice and because they have fewer incentives to gather and respond to policy-relevant information coming from civil society. By analysing public budgeting in Brazil, Turkey, Malta, and Russia before and after their transitions from or to democracy, we can test punctuated equilibrium theory under a variety of governing conditions. Our goal is to advance the understanding of the causes of budgetary instability by leveraging contextual circumstances to push the theory beyond democracies and assess its broader applicability.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Parliament and the Legislative Decision-making Process. With Ekaterina Schulmann. Forthcoming (2017). In D. Treisman (ed.), Arrested Development: Rethinking Politics in Putin's Russia. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
The State Duma, the "Crimean Consensus," and Volodin's Reforms. Forthcoming (2017). In A. Barbashin, F. Burkhardt, O. Irisova, and E. Wyciszkiewicz (eds), Russia: Three Years After Crimea. Warsaw: The Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.
Decriminalising Sex Between Men in the Former Soviet Union, 1991-2003: Conditionality and the Council of Europe. 2013. In K. Goodall, M. Malloch, and B. Munro (eds), Building Justice in Post-Transition Europe? Processes of Criminalisation within Central and Eastern European Societies. Abingdon: Routledge. [available here]
PAPERS IN PROGRESS
Executive Bill Failure under Authoritarianism: Evidence from the Russian Federation, 1996-2013. Under review.
Conventional wisdom holds that executive bills do not fail to become laws in non-democracies. Bill failure is inconsistent with the traditional ‘rubber stamp’ picture of legislative activity in authoritarian states. Recent scholarship, however, presents evidence that executive bills do sometimes fail under authoritarianism. The existing explanation for these ostensibly deviant cases of bill failure holds, moreover, that bills are defeated by oppositional legislators, who are given representation in parliament and limited policy influence in exchange for regime fealty. In other words, the flip-side of opposition co-optation in non-democracies is the possibility of executive bill defeat. This paper challenges the existing argument, drawing on fine-grained policy-making data from the Russian Federation, 1996-2013. Working from the general proposition that bill defeat is simply a subset of bill failure, the paper suggests that authoritarian executives control the failure of their own bills, with failure sometimes resulting from policy conflict between executive actors.
Regions with the Initiative: Russian Regions as Federal Law-making Actors, 1996-2016.
Introduction: Varieties of Authoritarian Legislatures. Introductory article for a special issue proposal on parliaments in non-democracies.
Information Processing Capacity and Budgetary Change in Authoritarian Regimes. With Beatriz Rey, Hao Wang, and Tevfik Murat Yildrim.
Cycles of Liberalisation? Criminal Law Reform in Post-Soviet Russia. With Peter H. Solomon, Jr.
Giving up the Presidency: Constitutional Reform in Post-Soviet Eurasia. With Jody M. LaPorte.
Who Survives? The Determinants and effects of Deputy Incumbency in the Russian State Duma. With Paul Chaisty.
Amending Budget Bills in the Russian State Duma. Post-Communist Economies. Forthcoming (29(4), 2017).
Do budget bills change during review in the Russian State Duma? If so, by how much and why? Portrayals of the contemporary Federal Assembly as a ‘rubber stamp’ parliament would suggest that budget initiatives undergo no amendment during the formal period of legislative review. There is, however, evidence of bill change. The article’s primary goal is to present this surprising evidence, focusing on changes to spending figures, 2002-2016. The article also discusses why such changes are made, assessing hypotheses concerning legislator influence, technical updating, and intra-executive conflict.
Budgetary Change in Authoritarian and Democratic Regimes. With Frank Baumgartner, Marcello Carammia, Derek Epp, Beatriz Rey, and Tevfik Murat Yildrim. Journal of European Public Policy. Forthcoming (2017). [available here]
We compare patterns of change in budgetary commitments by countries during periods of democracy and authoritarianism. Previous scholarship has focused almost exclusively on democratic governments, finding evidence of punctuated equilibria. Authoritarian regimes may behave differently, both because they may operate with fewer institutional barriers to choice and because they have fewer incentives to gather and respond to policy-relevant information coming from civil society. By analysing public budgeting in Brazil, Turkey, Malta, and Russia before and after their transitions from or to democracy, we can test punctuated equilibrium theory under a variety of governing conditions. Our goal is to advance the understanding of the causes of budgetary instability by leveraging contextual circumstances to push the theory beyond democracies and assess its broader applicability.
BOOK CHAPTERS
Parliament and the Legislative Decision-making Process. With Ekaterina Schulmann. Forthcoming (2017). In D. Treisman (ed.), Arrested Development: Rethinking Politics in Putin's Russia. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
The State Duma, the "Crimean Consensus," and Volodin's Reforms. Forthcoming (2017). In A. Barbashin, F. Burkhardt, O. Irisova, and E. Wyciszkiewicz (eds), Russia: Three Years After Crimea. Warsaw: The Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.
Decriminalising Sex Between Men in the Former Soviet Union, 1991-2003: Conditionality and the Council of Europe. 2013. In K. Goodall, M. Malloch, and B. Munro (eds), Building Justice in Post-Transition Europe? Processes of Criminalisation within Central and Eastern European Societies. Abingdon: Routledge. [available here]
PAPERS IN PROGRESS
Executive Bill Failure under Authoritarianism: Evidence from the Russian Federation, 1996-2013. Under review.
Conventional wisdom holds that executive bills do not fail to become laws in non-democracies. Bill failure is inconsistent with the traditional ‘rubber stamp’ picture of legislative activity in authoritarian states. Recent scholarship, however, presents evidence that executive bills do sometimes fail under authoritarianism. The existing explanation for these ostensibly deviant cases of bill failure holds, moreover, that bills are defeated by oppositional legislators, who are given representation in parliament and limited policy influence in exchange for regime fealty. In other words, the flip-side of opposition co-optation in non-democracies is the possibility of executive bill defeat. This paper challenges the existing argument, drawing on fine-grained policy-making data from the Russian Federation, 1996-2013. Working from the general proposition that bill defeat is simply a subset of bill failure, the paper suggests that authoritarian executives control the failure of their own bills, with failure sometimes resulting from policy conflict between executive actors.
Regions with the Initiative: Russian Regions as Federal Law-making Actors, 1996-2016.
Introduction: Varieties of Authoritarian Legislatures. Introductory article for a special issue proposal on parliaments in non-democracies.
Information Processing Capacity and Budgetary Change in Authoritarian Regimes. With Beatriz Rey, Hao Wang, and Tevfik Murat Yildrim.
Cycles of Liberalisation? Criminal Law Reform in Post-Soviet Russia. With Peter H. Solomon, Jr.
Giving up the Presidency: Constitutional Reform in Post-Soviet Eurasia. With Jody M. LaPorte.
Who Survives? The Determinants and effects of Deputy Incumbency in the Russian State Duma. With Paul Chaisty.
