How By-the-Book Requests Help Opposition MPs Win Votes in Autocracies

🔎 The Political Puzzle

Autocratic environments give regime-linked candidates informal access to power, while opposition legislators lack those backdoor channels. The argument presented is that formal, institutional authorities tailored to constituency service allow opposition politicians to supply the goods voters expect — leveling the playing field in competition for public support.

📊 How Legislative Requests Were Tracked

• Built a database of legislative activity from recent parliamentary terms in Morocco.
• Recorded more than 27,000 unique queries submitted by elected members of parliament to government ministers.
• Linked MP- and party-level institutional activity to electoral outcomes (voteshare) to test whether voters reward formal constituency service.

📈 What the Data Show

• Voters reward parties and MPs who engage more in constituency service via institutionalized legislative action.
• The positive relationship between legislative activity and voteshare is exclusive to opposition parties.
• Regime-linked parties do not gain votes from increased legislative activity, yet they are also not penalized for shirking in office.

💡 Why It Matters

Formal legislative authorities can provide a realistic route for opposition politicians to build electoral support in autocratic settings. Institutionalized, "by-the-book" constituency service — not only informal ties — helps explain how accountability and electoral competition operate inside autocratic legislatures.