Why dictators veto: legislation, legitimation and control in Kazakhstan and Russia

ABSTRACT

Why do authoritarian presidents still use their legislative power? Although recent studies have argued that authoritarian legislatures are more than “rubberstamps” and can serve as arenas for elite bargaining over policy, there is no evidence that legislators would pass bills that go against presidential preferences. This article investigates this apparent paradox and proposes a theoretical framework to explain presidential activism in authoritarian regimes. It argues that any bills that contravene constraints on policy-making set by the president should generally be stopped or amended by other actors loyal to the regime. Thus, presidents will rather use their veto (1) to protect the regime’s output legitimacy and stability, and/or (2) to reinforce their power vis-à-vis other actors. The argument is tested using two case studies of veto use in Kazakhstan and Russia over the last 10 years. The analysis supports the propositions of the theoretical framework and furthermore highlights the potential use of vetoes as a means of distraction, particularly in relation to international audiences. The article extends research on presidential veto power to authoritarian regimes and its findings contribute to the growing literature on the activities of authoritarian legislatures.

KEYWORDS:

• authoritarian regimes
• dictators
• legislative process
• presidents
• veto power

Acknowledgements

The research for this study was largely conducted while I was a Senior Research Fellow in the School of Psychology, Politics and Sociology, Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. Earlier versions were presented at the BASEES Annual Conference 2017 and the ECPR General Conference 2018 – among the attendees, I am particularly grateful to Miloš Brunlík, Eske van Gils, Gerrit Krol, Ben Noble and Richard Sakwa for their helpful feedback. I would also like to thank the late Robert Elgie (who ultimately gave me the idea for this article), my colleagues in Hannover and three anonymous reviewers for their suggestions on how to improve this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

ORCID

Philipp Köker http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2529-6947

Notes

1 Cf. Rivera, “Authoritarian Institutions and State Repression,” 2190; Nurumov and Vashchanka, “Constitutional Development of Kazakhstan”; Remington, “President-Parliament Relations.”

2 See e.g. Brancati, “Democratic Authoritarianism”; Schuler and Malesky “Authoritarian Legislatures.”

3 Cf. Krol, “Legislative Performance”; Noble, “Authoritarian Amendments”; Noble and Schulman, “Not a Rubberstamp”; Remington, “President-Parliament Relations.”

4 E.g. Belarussian president Lukashenko used his veto in March 2019 for the first time in six and a half years, Naviny.by, “Лукашенко вернул два законопроекта.”

5 Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 134.

6 Helmke and Levitsky “Informal Institutions”; Carey and Shugart, Executive Decree Authority; Haspel et al. “Lawmaking and Decree Making.”

7 Shugart and Carey, Presidents and Assemblies, 134.

8 E.g. Alemán and Schwartz, “Presidential Vetoes”; Cameron, Veto Bargaining; Hammond and Miller, “Core of the Constitution”; Köker, Presidential Activism and Veto Power; Tavits, Presidents and Prime Ministers.

9 Presidents may also use threats to extract concessions from the legislature; Cameron, Veto bargaining; Cameron and McCarty, “Models of Vetoes”; Groseclose and McCarty, “Politics of Blame.”

10 For an overview see Köker, Presidential Activism and Veto Power; see also Cameron, “Veto Bargaining.”

11 E.g. Gandhi and Przeworski “Survival of Autocrats”; Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing and Longevity”; Boix and Svolik, “Limited authoritarian government.”

12 Carey and Shugart, Executive Decree Authority; Protsyk, “Ruling with Decrees”; Haspel et al., “Lawmaking and Decree Making”; Prempeh, “Imperial Presidency in Africa”; Remington, Presidential Decrees in Russia.

13 Prempeh, “Imperial Presidency in Africa”; Arriola, “Patronage and Political Stability”; van Cranenburgh, “Restraining Executive Power”; Willerton, “Presidency and Executive.”

14 See e.g. Remington, “President-Parliament Relations”; Reuter and Turovsky, “Dominant Party Rule.”

15 The veto and other legislative prerogatives are thereby important drivers of high scores across authoritarian regimes; cf. van Cranenburgh, “Big Men Rule”; Elgie and Moestrup, Semi-Presidentialism.

16 E.g. Noble and Schulmann, “Not a Rubberstamp,” present data on presidential vetoes in Russia, 1996–2015, yet combine them with bills returned by the Federation Council, discussing only the latter.

17 Tsebelis and Rizova, “Conditional Agenda-Setting.”

18 Tsebelis, Veto Players.

19 Cheibub, Gandhi and Vreeland, “Democracy and Dictatorship Revisited”; Bove and Rivera, “Elite Co-optation in Autocracies.”

20 Bracanti “Democratic Authoritarianism,” 317; see also Schuler and Malesky “Authoritarian Legislatures.”

21 Kendall-Taylor and Frantz, “Mimicking democracy,” 76; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism; Knutsen et al. “Autocratic Elections”; nevertheless, given associated costs and widespread awareness of election rigging, generating legitimacy cannot be their only function, see also Malesky and Schuler, “Elections without Opposition.”

22 Wintrobe, Political Economy of Dictatorship; Aron, “Growth and Institutions”; Wright and Escribà-Folch, “Authoritarian Institutions and Regime Survival”; see also Brancati, “Democratic Authoritarianism.”

23 Boix and Svolik, “Limited Authoritarian Government”; Gandhi, Institutions under Dictatorship; Gandhi and Przeworski, “Cooperation, Cooptation, Rebellion”; Wintrobe, Political Economy of Dictatorship; however, even semi-competitive elections in authoritarian regimes are rarely sufficiently free to produce high-quality information, casting doubts on this line of argument, see Brancati, “Democratic Authoritarianism.”

24 Gandhi and Przeworski, “Cooperation, Cooptation, Rebellion”; Gandhi, Institutions under Dictatorship; Bove and Rivera, “Elite Co-optation in Autocracies”; Reuter and Robertson, “Legislatures, Cooptation, and Protest”; Rivera, “Authoritarian institutions and State Repression.”

25 Svolik, Politics of Authoritarian Rule; Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing”; co-optation and power-sharing may even happen at the same time, although this is not explicitly discussed by the authors.

26 Bove and Rivera, “Elite Cooptation in Autocracies”; Magaloni, “Credible Power-sharing”; Gandhi and Przeworski, “Cooperation, Cooptation, Rebellion”;

27 Wright and Escribà-Folch, “Authoritarian Institutions.”

28 Reuter and Robinson, “Legislatures, Cooptation, and Protest”; Rivera, “Authoritarian Institutions and State Repression”.

29 Baumgartner et al., “Budgetary Change”; Noble, “Amending Budget Bills”; see also Noble, “Authoritarian Amendments.”

30 Noble and Schulmann, “Not a Rubberstamp,” 51.

31 Krol, “Legislative Performance,” 451.

32 Krol, “Legislative Performance”; Remington, “President-Parliament Relations.”

33 Neither are other elites conceptualized as additional veto players, cf. Tsebelis, Veto Players, 77.

34 Cf. Bove and Rivera, “Elite-cooptation in Autocracies,” 461.

35 Gandhi, Institutions under Dictatorship, 82.

36 Desai, Olofsgård, and Yousef. “Logic of Authoritarian Bargains.”; von Soest and Grauvogel, “Identities, Prodecures, Performance”; Wintrobe, Political Economy of Dictatorship; N.B. scholars generally assume strong intrinsic policy motivation in democratic systems; see e.g. Cameron, Veto Bargaining; Köker, Presidential Activism and Veto Power.

37 Brancati, “Democratic Authoritarianism.”

38 Gandhi and Przeworski, “Cooperation, Cooptation, Rebellion”; Gandhi, Institutions under Dictatorship; Svolik, Politics of Authoritarian Rule; Magaloni, “Credible Power-sharing.”

39 Noble and Schulmann, “Not a Rubberstamp”; Krol, “Legislative Performance.”

40 A similar argument has been made with regard to delegation of topics for public debate, see Schuler, “Public Debate in Single-Party Legislatures.”

41 Baturo and Elgie, “Authoritarian Bicameralism”; Noble and Schulman, “Not a Rubberstamp.”

42 Remington, “President-Parliament Relations”; Reuter and Turovsky, “Dominant Party Rule.”

43 Willerton, “Presidency and Executive.”

44 Desai, Olofsgård, and Yousef. “Authoritarian Bargains”; von Soest and Grauvogel, “Identities, Prodecures, Performance.”

45 Gandhi, Institutions under Dictatorship, 112; Desai, Olofsgård, and Yousef. “Logic of Authoritarian Bargains.”

46 Noble and Schulman, “Not a Rubberstamp,” 71.

47 Schatz, “Soft Authoritarian Tool Kit,” 207.

48 Cf. Gandhi, Institutions under Dictatorship, 73ff.

49 Goode, “Redefining Russia”; Ahram and Goode, “Researching authoritarianism.”

50 While this study presents the most accurate record available, official statistics oftentimes still deviate from reference data in academic or journalistic publications.

51 Kailitz, “Classifying Political Regimes,” 43.

52 Sedelius and Linde, “Democracy and Government Performance.”

53 Seawright and Gerring, “Case Selection”; N.B. Putin and Nazarbayev have held power continuously for close to two, respectively three decades (Putin not only as president but also as prime minister), which is overall less characteristic of many authoritarian regimes; nonetheless, it ensures comparability and holds variation in factors related to individual incumbents relatively constant.

54 Brill Olcott, “Nazarbayev as a Strong President.”

55 Nurumov and Vashchanka, “Constitutional Development of Kazakhstan.”

56 Tengri News, “Назарбаев может отложить”; Nuttal, “Protest Over Retirement Age.”

57 Trud.ru, “Назарбаев уволил министра.”

58 Government of Kazakhstan, “О государственной службе.”

59 Tengri News “Президент Казахстана подписал закон.”

60 Mavlonii, “Казахстане хотят праздновать Наурыз.”

61 Nurumov and Vashchanka, “Constitutional Development of Kazakhstan.”

62 Toguzbaev, “Неожиданный шаг Назарбаева.”

63 Willerton, “Presidency and Executive.”

64 Ca. 25% of bills were vetoed; Haspel et al., “Lawmaking and Decree Making.”

65 Krol, “Legislative performance”; Noble “Authoritarian Amendments”; Noble and Schulmann, “Not a rubberstamp.”

66 New York Times, “Medvedev Vetoes Curbs on Protests”; Shakirov, “Президентское вето.”

67 Kremlin, “Президент отклонил закон.”

68 Kremlin, “Президент отклонил Федеральный закон”.

69 Meyer, “Kremlin Intrigue.”

70 Not discussed above; BBC, “President Blocks Media Law.”

71 East European Legislative Monitor, “Belarus”; own calculations based on data from http://www.pravo.by.

72 Cf. Goode, “Redefining Russia”; Brancanti, “Democratic Authoritarianism”; Ahram and Goode, “Researching Authoritarianism.”

73 Cf. Köker, Presidential Activism and Veto Power, 93–185.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Philipp Köker

Philipp Köker is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science, Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, and formerly Senior Research Fellow in Politics and IR at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. His research interests include comparative presidential politics, political parties and elections in modern political regimes. He is the author of Presidential Activism and Veto Power in Central and Eastern Europe (Palgrave, 2017) and winner of the ECPR Jean Blondel Prize 2016.