Suchergebnisse

State exploitation by political parties is one of the key problems of new democracies. This article looks at party patronage as one of the ways through which political parties exploit the state. It focuses on two new African democracies – Ghana and South Africa – and using the data from an original expert survey explores party appointments across a wide range of state institutions. It also uses these data to illustrate some of the theoretical issues related to the existence of patronage practices. In particular, the article probes into a widespread claim that robust party competition constrains politicians and hence limits patronage politics. Contrary to those theoretical expectations, the article finds that patronage in new democracies is not necessarily higher in a less competitive party system. The article then considers factors other than party competition that might explain this unexpected empirical outcome; it also suggests a theoretical argument positing compatibility between high levels of patronage and robust political competition.

Political parties are central to the process of democratization in east-central Europe. In contrast to the many studies that look at the instability of new parties and party systems, this article focuses on party organizational development. First, a hypothesis is put forward contending that parties in the region are likely to develop as formations with loose electoral constituencies, unimportant membership and a dominant role played by party leaders. Second, this hypothesis is tested on a sample of six parties from the Czech Republic. The analysis shows that certain variations in organizational structure exist, deriving from the distinction between old parties and newly established parties, the former deviating from the hypothesis to a greater extent than the latter.