The subnational units’ right of legislative initiative: political orientation as a mechanism of institutional isomorphism?

The direct participation of subnational units in legislative activity at the national level is not a common practice in countries around the world, but even more rarely it is presented in the form of a constitutional right to initiate the procedure for adopting national (federal) laws, that is, to act like presidents, governments, deputies and factions of the national legislature. Empirical analysis based on data from the Comparative Constitutions Project, the Regional Authority Index, texts of constitution allowed us to establish that this right has been enshrined in the constitutions of 26 states over the past two centuries. Among them are both federations and unitary states in the constitutional sense. They are also diverse in other respects. However, most cases of the first appearance of the mechanism in a constitution have one common feature: the involvement of political forces identifying themselves as “left” in the creation of the corresponding constitutions. This does not seem accidental, and the study is devoted to an attempt to clarify the possible mechanism of this connection, based on the theory of institutional isomorphism. Of the three main mechanisms by which institutional isomorphic changes occur, the main focus is on normative isomorphism, although in some cases coercive is also apparently significant. However, normative isomorphism operates both in the logic of professionalization as in the original theory and in the ideological dimension. But, although ideological orientation of professional communities and other forces involved in the development of constitutions matters, it does not in itself predetermine the use of the right of legislative initiative in a country by regions and other subnational units.

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