It appears that elections increase chances for a smooth transition to democracy only in competitive authoritarian regimes where political instability already exists. This essay explores the process the author calls 'competitive clientelism' whereby elections supply ruling elites in authoritarian regimes opportunities to compete over limited sets of state resources that they then distribute to local elites a structure that reduces demand for any change to democracy. Adapted from the source document.
Clientelism and ethnic favoritism appear to go hand in hand in many diverse societies in the developing world. But, while some ethnic communities receive generous material rewards for their political support, others receive very modest payoffs. The Price of a Vote in the Middle East examines this key - and often overlooked - component of clientelism. The author draws on elite interviews and original survey data collected during his years of field research in Lebanon and Yemen; two Arab countries in which political constituencies follow sectarian, regional, and tribal divisions. He demonstrates that voters in internally-competitive communal groups receive more, and better, payoffs for their political support than voters trapped in uncompetitive groups dominated by a single, hegemonic leader. Ultimately, politicians provide services when compelled by competitive pressures to do so, whereas leaders sheltered from competition can, and do, take their supporters for granted.
The power of elections in Africa revisited / Staffan I. Lindberg -- The relative powerlessness of elections in Latin America / Jennifer L. McCoy and Jonathan Hartlyn -- Elections as levers of democratization: a global inquiry / Jan Teorell and Axel Hadenius -- Post-Cold War political regimes: when do elections matter? / Philip G. Roessler and Marc M. Howard -- Harbinger of democracy: competitive elections before the end of authoritarianism / Jason Brownlee -- All elections are not the same: why power-sharing elections strengthen democratization / Pippa Norris -- Sources of competition under electoral authoritarianism / Andreas Schedler -- Opposition parties and incumbent presidents: the new dynamics of electoral competition in Africa / Lise Rakner and Nicolas van de Walle -- Legislative elections in hegemonic authoritarian regimes: competitive clientelism and resistance to democratization / Ellen Lust-Okar -- Opposition versus dictators: explaining divergent electoral outcomes in post-Communist Europe and Eurasia / Valerie J. Bunce and Sharon L. Wolchik -- Judicial complexity empowering opposition? Critical elections in Armenia and Georgia / Bryon Moraski -- The contingent power of authoritarian elections / Andreas Schedler -- A theory of elections as a mode of transition / Staffan I. Lindberg
"Capitalists in most authoritarian regimes have been described as "cronies" of political elites, but why do some crony relationships produce growth, while others produce stagnation or even destructive economic crisis? And if business actors are "co-opted" by authoritarian regimes, like China's entrepreneurs have been said to be, what explains why business and the state turn on one another? Precarious Ties offers a novel account of relationships between business and political elites in three authoritarian regimes in developing Asia: Indonesia under Suharto's New Order, Malaysia under the Barisan Nasional, and China under the Chinese Communist Party. All three regimes enjoyed periods of high growth and supposed alliances between autocrats and capitalists, but state-business relations in Indonesia and China became destructive and dangerous when those countries undertook efforts at financial liberalization. Rithmire characterizes this destructive form of state-business relations as mutual endangerment, in which vulnerable business elites are entwined with political elites in ways that imperil both sides, manifest in asset expatriation, weaponized information, and rampant economic looting. Indonesia and China experienced mutual endangerment because of fundamental distrust between business elites and the state combined with financial opening. In contrast, Malaysia's business elites expected cooperation from the regime, and state-business relations have cycled through mutual alignment and competitive clientelism, but never became destructive. Precarious Ties examines how conflict during regime formation affects political trust and dynamics of financial development in authoritarian regimes. The experiences of these three dynamic countries in authoritarian Asia ultimately reveal the inherent instability of state-business ties."
Vote buying and patronage distribution have become widespread in Indonesian elections. Yet, it is also evident that some candidates use programmatic strategies to compete. Drawing on the case of the 2017 election in Kulon Progo district, Yogyakarta Special Region, and using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, this article seeks to explain why the incumbent opted out of vote buying and similar clientelistic strategies and why voters supported his programmatic approach. We show that the incumbent prepared vote buying as a fallback strategy but did not activate it. He was able to make this choice because he faced little competition and had invested politically in programmatic policies, though he was also assisted by his ability to manipulate his proximity with the Yogyakarta Sultanate for electoral purposes. This article shows that Indonesian voters can be highly appreciative of programmatic approaches, rather than simply being the "ballot-sellers" they are often assumed to be in the literature on money politics and patronage. In this case, moreover, programmatic success produced a less competitive election that in turn created the possibility for the incumbent candidate to opt out of clientelism. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)
A credible opposition is necessary for democratic accountability. However, in a multiparty democracy, a credible opposition may fail to emerge when it is in the strategic interest of political parties to collude rather than compete, effectively extinguishing all credible opposition. The author argues that illicit collusion among parties on a representative council is more likely when all viable parties win seats and are thus able to enter into a self-binding commitment to jointly engage in misconduct without risk of exposure. Conversely, when at least one party fails to win representation on the council, there is a credible opposition with the incentive and ability to threaten exposure of rent seeking among council members. The theory is tested using a regression discontinuity design where the electoral threshold to win a single seat is, within a narrow band, an exogenous determinant of whether or not there is an out-party or credible opposition. Exploiting the fact that Mali's decentralization produces within-country variation in both electoral and governance outcomes, the author uses data from commune council elections alongside local-level public goods provision as a measure of rent seeking. Poorer public goods provision is indeed more likely when all political parties in a district win seats on the council. To show that collusion is the mechanism driving this relationship, the author tests several observable implications in the data and uses qualitative evidence as illustration. This examination of when it is in the strategic interest of parties to engage in uncompetitive behavior contributes to the literature on when elections fail to produce democratic accountability. (World Politics / SWP)
How have African rulers responded to the introduction of democratic electoral competition? Despite the broadly negative picture painted by the prevailing focus on electoral fraud, clientelism, and ethnic conflict, the book argues that the full story is somewhat more promising. While these unfortunate practices may be widespread, African rulers also seek to win votes through the provision and distribution of public goods and services. The author's central argument is that in predominantly rural countries the introduction of competitive elections leads governments to implement pro-rural policies, in order to win the votes of the rural majority. As a result, across much of Africa the benefits of democratic electoral competition have accrued primarily in terms of rural development. This broad claim is supported by cross-national evidence, both from public opinion surveys and from individual level data on health and education outcomes. The argument's core assumptions about voting behavior are supported with quantitative evidence from Ghana, and qualitative historical evidence from Botswana presents further evidence for the underlying theoretical mechanism. Taken together, this body of evidence provides reasons to be optimistic about the operation of electoral accountability in Africa. African governments are responding to the accountability structures provided by electoral competition; in that sense, democracy in Africa is working.-- Back cover
Croatia remains largely left out of comparative studies of post-communism even though its political development after 2000 places it firmly within the group of European post-communist consolidated democracies. In this paper I analyse the case of Croatia by combining comparative frameworks that focus on concepts of democratisation and Europeanization. The analysis shows that in the 1990s Croatia belonged to the group of illiberal democracies together with Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. They were characterised by postponed economic and political reforms, clientelism and corruption in government. This is primarily attributed to the absence of a competitive party system with alternations of parties in power. The concept of political party competition as developed by Grzymala Busse (2002, 2007) and Vachudova (2005) is however not sufficient on its own to explain democratisation trajectories, so it is complemented with Schimmelfennig, Engert and Knobel's (2006) concept of political party constellation. According to their argument, in countries where both liberal and illiberal parties structure the party space, the tipping point for democratisation happens when all main parties adopt a liberal political practice. Croatia's 'democratic turn' elections happened in 2000, after which the CDU initiated an internal reform into a pro-European Christian Democratic party. As a result, after 2000 Croatian political party space became dominantly liberal-oriented and pro-EU, jump-starting EU accession. Finally, the analysis suggests that post-communist countries need to democratise first in order for Europeanization of domestic political space to start taking place. Adapted from the source document.
