Replication Data for: \"The Politics of Legislative Expansion\"

The number of seats in national legislatures around the world rarely changes. Yet, in Africa, a substantial number of countries have regularly increased the size of their legislatures, and these increases have become more common in recent years. Previous research on political offices in Africa’s electoral autocracies has suggested that their numbers and increases are largely motivated by patronage and clientelist considerations. Is this also the case for national legislatures? Curiously, very little political science scholarship exists on legislature size, either in Africa or the rest of the world. Using a mixture of descriptive statistics to present a new database, as well as econometrics and three case studies, we find that legislative expansion can be linked to executive branch manipulation. Presidents have found it politically useful to expand the size of African legislatures to weaken and/or control it.

全球各国国家立法机关的席位数量极少发生变动。然而，非洲有相当数量的国家持续扩大本国立法机关的规模，且近年来这类扩容行为愈发普遍。此前针对非洲选举威权政体下政治职位的研究表明，这类职位的设置与扩容，其核心动因大多源于庇护政治与庇护主义考量。那么国家立法机关的席位扩容是否也遵循这一逻辑？令人费解的是，无论在非洲还是全球其他地区，政治学领域针对立法机关规模的研究都极为匮乏。本研究结合描述性统计以构建全新数据库，同时运用计量经济学方法与三个案例展开分析，结果发现立法机关扩容与行政部门的操纵行为存在关联。非洲各国总统通过扩大立法机关规模来削弱乃至掌控该机关，这一做法在政治层面具备实际效用。