Imperial Governance and the Growth of Legislative Power in America

Abstract

AbstractThe power of assemblies in the British new world grew far beyond the bounds intended at their creation. Although the British crown instructed royal governors to use legal powers to restrain assemblies, they were unsuccessful. I develop a formal model to account for this. In this model colonial assemblies can challenge the agenda setting powers of colonial governors. “Strong” governors withstand these challenges easily; “weak” ones prefer to capitulate. The crown wishes to retain only strong governors; however, it observes only policy outcomes but not the resolution of challenges to the governor's agenda power. In equilibrium, the crown cannot distinguish between a strong governor holding agenda power against a tough assembly, and a weak governor conceding agenda power to a moderate one. Weak governors therefore avoid conflict with the assembly, yet conceal their weakness from the crown. But the assembly observes the governor's concessions, and challenges weak governors even more in the future. This creates a dynamic path of growing assembly power. The model provides a strategic logic of endogenous institutional change, and one of the most important institutional developments in American history: the growth of legislative power.