ABSTRACT

Since the 1960s, political scientists have paid special attention to the question of “how legislatures relate to development” (Smith and Musolf 1979, 3; Komberg and Musolf 1970). The focus of the first batch of publications was on the role of legislatures in modernization and nation building. Entering the 1990s, as “new parliaments abound” (Copeland and Patterson 1994, 1), the rekindled interest of political scientists has been directed more toward the role of legislatures in regime transition; namely how a single-party system with a controlled economy evolves into a democratic system with a market-oriented economy (Olsen and Mezey 1991; Remington 1994; Close 1995; Copeland and Patterson 1994; Olson and Norton 1996; Norton and Ahmed 1999). A common problem under study is how legislatures relate to economic change and democratization.