Working within the framework of rational choice theory, scholars have found that certain features of legislatures reduce the likelihood of cycling. In particular, “[i]n legislative settings, the answers invariably center on committees and rules” (Krehbiel 1991, p. 32). Shepsle's 1979 study was the first in a series of studies of the U.S. Congress that investigate how institutional design – the rules governing the legislative process – prevents cycling and enables a legislature to enact coherent and stable policies. At the end of over a decade of research, it was common to refer to a “textbook” Congress, a stable legislature dominated by committees and characterized by its rules (Shepsle and Weingast 1995, p. 3).

The argument of this book hinges on the implications of changes in the organization of deputy preferences; the reason that everything depends on deputy preferences is because at no time was the institutional design of the Russian Parliament sufficient to prevent cycling. In this chapter, I explore the most important rules of procedure, those that affected how the legislature made its decisions.

COMMITTEES AND PRESIDIUM IN THE RUSSIAN PARLIAMENT

The Russian Parliament inherited several features from its predecessor, the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Republic, the most significant of which were a jurisdiction-based committee system and a central organizing body known as the Presidium. Before Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev introduced competitive elections to the Soviet Union, the Russian Supreme Soviet was a rubber-stamp institution that met rarely and, when it did, was dominated by its Presidium.