POWERLESS OPPOSITION Opposition’s Legislative Chances in Autocratizing Regimes: The Case of Ukraine

Abstract

The assumption permeating this thesis is that, in the consensus democracy, the government should respond to the minority interests, which are operationalized as bills sponsored by the opposition. The research pays attention to the typical case of autocratizing states with gradual democratic backsliding – Ukraine. Arguably, in the context of the steady deterioration on the democratic end, there is a risk of political exclusion and, even more, the democratic breakdown. So, I analyze 2868 bills across three convocations of the Ukrainian parliament, covering the period of 2007-2019. The aim is to see whether ignoring opposition’s proposals occurs in autocratizing – yet previously consolidating – democracies. The quantitative analysis shows that, first, bills sponsored by the opposition are less likely to be adopted than those sponsored by the government. Second, the more cosponsors the bill has, the larger are its chances for adoption. The findings are predominantly in line with the previous research on the legislative success determinants. However, one should be cautious with interpreting the increase of the cosponsors’ effect since it is different for different cosponsorship groups. The other tested determinants of legislative success, i.e., the proximity of elections and the gender, do not find sufficient support. The case selection with the explicit opposition-government split indicates the necessity of conducting a similar study in the institutional context of temporary issue-based coalitions. Then, it will be possible to argue whether the regime’s dynamics influence the opposition’s legislative success.