Legislative Underrepresentation and Executive Dominance: Why Powerful States Accept Legislative Malapportionment

Abstract Why do politically and economically powerful states accept the loss of their legislative power by assenting to their underrepresentation in the national legislature? Given high levels of legislative malapportionment, it is puzzling why populous states would accept a deal they could easily refute. Powerful states may accept their legislative underrepresentation in order to create a sustainable political-institutional arrangement by which they can secure the real powers of policymaking, especially in the areas of macroeconomic policy, by conceding to small-population states on legislative representation. The historical data of principal political and economic offices in Brazil since 1889 support this compensation hypothesis: legislatively underrepresented regions and states have been significantly overrepresented in the most important policymaking offices, such as the country’s presidency, the presidency of the Chamber of Deputies, federal ministers, and the heads of key economic institutions.