The Cosponsorship Patterns of Reserved Seat Legislators

Bibliographic Data

ID6300829
AuthorsTaishi Muraoka (0000-0003-0304-4677, Harvard University, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume45
Issue4
Pages555-580
Publication date2020-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueLegislative Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0362-9805 • E-ISSN: 1939-9162
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/lsq.12271
OpenAlexW2997098397
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited48

This study analyzes the bill cosponsorship behavior of reserved seat legislators in the Pakistan National Assembly, where special legislative seats are reserved for women and religious minorities. It offers a critical case because two theories on reserved seat legislators—the theory of electoral incentives and the theory of institutional weakness—lead to opposite predictions about the extent to which such legislators will engage in bill cosponsorship, with the former (latter) predicting the negative (positive) effect of reserved seats. I find that women and minorities in reserved seats initiate a greater number of bills and cosponsor bills with a larger number of peers than nonreserved male legislators. Using network analysis, I also show that reserved legislators tend to play a role in bridging different partisan blocs of legislators within the cosponsorship network. These empirical patterns provide support to the theory of institutional weakness, rather than to the theory of electoral incentives

Bridging (networking · Computer security · Economics · Incentive · Legislature · Microeconomics · Political science · Weakness · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America