Thesis
Two steps forward, one step back: Europe’s piecemeal democratization
In 19th and early 20th century Europe, legislative reform was one of the key ways in which democratization advanced. I analyse legislators’ roll call votes and parliamentary speeches on both democratizing and ‘autocratizing’ bills, such as suffrage expansions and civil liberty restrictions, respectively, in order to test competing theories of democratization on some of the earliest cases, including the UK, Germany and Norway. By examining the patterns in and motivations for democratizing (or retrenching democracy) in these different institutional contexts, I look at how these contexts shape the incentives faced by legislators when making these consequential decisions.
Research interests
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Democratization
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Quantitative methods
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Causal inference
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History
Publications
“Property and Power: MPs’ assets and support for democratization in the 1867 UK Reform Act” (Legislative Studies Quarterly, forthcoming)
Contact
Email: L.Bronner@lse.ac.uk|
Website: www.laurabronner.com|