Policymaking in personalist dictatorships: a theory of outbidding

This article offers a novel perspective on policymaking in personalist dictatorships based on outbidding theory. Originally developed with reference to ethnic conflict and terrorist organizations, outbidding suggests that individuals or organizations compete for support from their relevant audience, which produces predictable outcomes. I present a modified version of outbidding theory derived from the incentives faced by autocratic elites’ desire to avoid upward accountability and attract the favour of the dictator. I probe the theory’s plausibility for explaining policymaking in one prominent authoritarian legislature, the State Duma in Russia. Using two conditions “most likely” to reveal outbidding dynamics – the archetypal personalist regime of Putin’s Russia and the realm of electoral policy – I couple quantitative text analysis with rigorous study of legislative debates. The findings support the existence of outbidding behaviour in Russian policymaking, suggest that it may result in positive outcomes for Duma deputies, and substantiate outbidding’s effects on the repressiveness of public policy.