Mind the Gap: Bridging the Theoretical and
Empirical Divide of Party System
Institutionalization and Authoritarian Successor
Parties
Allen Hicken
University of Michigan
[email protected]
Darin Self
Cornell University
[email protected]
March 11, 2016
Abstract
Authoritarian governments bequeath a variety of legacies to their democratic successors. This paper investigates the extent to which the nature of
the authoritarian regimes, specifically choices over whether to build a ruling
party and whether to allow (circumscribed) multiparty competition, shapes
the type of party system that emerges after democratization. Using a new
dataset on party and party system characteristics we test the argument that
institutionalized party systems in new democracies are more likely to emerge
when prior authoritarian regimes have invested in party building1 .
1 Paper
prepared for the MPSA annual meeting - April 2016. Do not cite without
author permission
1
Introduction
Beginning with Samuel Huntington’s seminal 1968 (Huntington, 1968) work on party
institutionalization a large literature has developed with a focus on party and party
system institutionalization. The focus from parties to the party system in the literature was largely spurred by Mainwaring et al. (1995). In their seminal piece on
party systems in Latin America Mainwairing and Scully extend Huntington’s idea
of party institutionalization to that of the system as a whole. For party systems to
be institutionalized, they argue, party systems must meet four criteria; stability in
the rules and nature of interparty competition, parties with strong roots in society,
legitimacy of the electoral process, and cohesive, disciplined, and autonomous parties
(Mainwaring et al., 1995, pg. 5-6). Institutionalized party systems exhibit a pattern
of behavioral regularity (Calvert, 1995; Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta, 2011) in the
electoral process which serves to provide stability and strength to the democratic
system.
An institutionalized party system is a critical component of democratic development and success. Without institutionalized parties and party systems societal
preferences and demands do not have an institutionalized channel to government.
With political parties decoupled from society political parties have weakened incentive to provide the public goods that serve broad societal interests and enhance the
likelihood of democratic consolidation and stability. The lack of an institutionalized
party system can expose the democratic system to charismatic, patronage, or clientelistic elites who, in furthering their own interests, do little do advance the public
interest (Mainwaring et al., 1995; Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta, 2011).
1
Because of the importance of party system institutionalization for democratic
consolidation, theorizing about the determinants of party system institutionalization has tended to focus on the party system within a broader democratic context.2
In fact Mainwaring et al. (1995) almost conflates party system institutionalization
with democracy. While we agree that an institutional party system is likely necessary for robust democratic rule, we proceed from the premise that at least some
of the key determinants of institutionalization are located prior to a transition to
democracy itself. Building on Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta (2011) we explore the
role of authoritarian parties or party systems on party system institutionalization in
democracies. Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta (2011) hypothesize that party systems in
democratic systems might be influenced by their authoritarian predecessors. While
they present some evidence in support of their argument, they do not systematically
test their hypothesis.
The primary purpose of this piece is to build on Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta
(2011) and analyze the extent to which certain factors of authoritarian rule explain
variance in party system institutionalization in current democracies. Specifically, we
focus on how variance in the types of authoritarian rule (Geddes, 1999; Hadenius and
Teorell, 2007) and the degree to which autocrats invest in institutionalize parties and
party systems shapes the type of party system that emerges post-transition. Our
findings speak to both the literature on party system institutionalization and the
literature on democratic consolidation.
2
On the determinants of party system institutionalization see (Roberts and Wibbels, 1999; Reich,
2001, 2004; Tavits, 2005; Mainwaring and Torcal, 2006; Tavits and Annus, 2006; Mainwaring and
Zoco, 2007; Lupu and Stokes, 2010).
2
Democracies are not de novo entities. Most emerged from authoritarian regimes,
albeit in different ways and at different paces. Likewise, democratic parties and party
systems are often not de novo institutions. In some democracies, political parties
are echoes or even direct descendants of parties that competed in earlier episodes of
democracy. In addition, many of the new third wave democracies emerged from authoritarian systems with some semblance of electoral and party competition. Indeed,
Magaloni and Kricheli (2010) and Gandhi and Reuter (2013) find that of autocratic
regimes which existed from 1950-2006 over 50% boasted single or hegemonic party
systems. Many political parties that dominated authoritarian rule continue to survive and some have even thrived after democratic transition.
The existence and survival of parties that held power during authoritarian rule
(henceforth known as Authoritarian Successor Parties (Roberts, 2013a; Loxton, 2015a))
within democratic systems is somewhat perplexing given their role in overseeing human rights abuses and economic or political suppression (Loxton, 2015a). But, while
this may be perplexing to some the survival and success of authoritarian successor
parties is undeniable. Preliminary work by James Loxton shows that of 68 countries
that underwent a democratic transition from 1974 to 2010 - 48 produced a prominent
authoritarian successor party. Of these 48 countries there are 38 where the authoritarian successor party returned to power. The empirical reality of authoritarian
successor parties surviving and thriving demonstrates that in order to understand
the party system institutionalization within democracies our theories must account
for the role of parties and party systems developed prior to democratization. In other
words theories of party system institutionalization must account for the historical
3
legacy of authoritarianism.
Because most democracies emerge from authoritarian regimes it is critical to understand whether and how characteristics of authoritarian rule influence the democratic party system. While Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta (2011) argue that authoritarian legacies play a role in the institutionalization of party systems they do not
explore whether or how differences in authoritarian regime structure shape variance
in party system institutionalization after democratic transitions. This is the scope of
this study. Starting with Geddes (1999) a burgeoning literature has developed that
attempts to catalog the types of authoritarian regimes and assess which types are
more durable. Some of this work has even explored how autocrats use political parties
to ensure their survival (Geddes, 2005; Schedler, 2006; Gandhi and Lust-Okar, 2009;
Svolik, 2009, 2012; Wright and Escriba-Folch, 2012; Boix and Svolik, 2013). In this
piece we will explore how variation in party structures within authoritarian regimes
influences the institutionalization of party systems after democratic transitions.
If the institutionalization of party systems is partially dependent upon authoritarian legacies the type of authoritarian rule should have a significant impact on how
institutionalization takes place after a democratic transition. However, while some
authoritarian regimes embed elections and parties into their political system, by definition these systems are not entirely open and fair (Levitsky and Way, 2002, 2010).
Indeed, Mainwaring et al. (1995) explicitly remove Mexico and Paraguay from their
analysis because the institutions at the time did not allow for fair and open competition within the party system. This introduces a few challenges for developing a
theoretical framework to explore the relationship between authoritarian legacies and
4
party system institutionalization.
The first challenge in developing a theory of the legacy of authoritarianism lies
in the fact that the rules of the game under authoritarian rule effectively prevents
the full institutionalization of party systems. As Mainwaring notes, (Mainwaring
et al., 1995) in autocracies in which only the ruling party is allowed it makes no
sense to talk about a party system, though we may useful examine the degree to
which the party itself is institutionalized. Even where autocrats allow for opposition
parties (e.g. Suharto’s Indonesia or Singapore) electoral competition is usually a
façade as autocrats game the system to prevent opposition parties from competing
on the same terms as the ruling party. This places a limit on developing a theoretical framework that links party system institutionalization under authoritarian rule
directly to that under democracy. Furthermore, the stability of the party system
during authoritarian rule is largely artificial, which obviates the typical indicators
of institutionalization like electoral volatility or party age (Mainwaring et al., 2015).
Thus, a study of institutionalization under autocracy should focus more on parties
than on the interaction between them, and because opposition parties are significantly disadvantaged under authoritarian rule much of the focus should be on how
individual ruling parties institutionalization.
A second challenge is the fact that most authoritarian parties are guaranteed
electoral success and survival. Compared to their democratic counterparts this may
limit their incentives and ability to fully institutionalize. Thus a theory about the
role of authoritarian successor parties must account for how authoritarian successor
parties that do not fully institutionalize under authoritarian rule can still affect the
5
way in which the democratic party system develops. Indeed, the theory developed
herein argues that authoritarian successor parties acquire some antecedent strengths
(Slater and Wong, 2013) which better equip them to withstand the growing pains of
a democratic transition and open electoral competition.
Finally, even if authoritarian parties are able to rely on antecedent strengths to
succeed under democracy our question is not just about individual parties but about
the party system as a whole. A theory of the historical legacy of authoritarian parties
must connect the institutionalization of individual parties with the institutionalization of the party system. This is not necessarily a straightforward process–party
system institutionalization does not necessarily follow from the institutionalization
of individual parties (Randall and Svåsand, 2002).
In order to address these issues we develop a theory of the authoritarian shadow.
In its simplest form our argument is that high levels of party system institutionalization under authoritarian regimes should be associated with higher levels of party
system institution post transition, ceteris paribus. In addition, we explore whether
the type of authoritarian regime in place affects the incentives for political elites to
invest in or institutionalize political parties under autocracy, and hence the degree
of institutionalization after transition. Where the authoritarian regime is structured
in such a way as to induce political elites to invest in parties we should see higher
levels of institutionalization. By contrast, where parties within these systems do not
exist or function as a minimalist or peripheral organizations then we should see lower
levels of institutionalization. Following this reasoning we expect to observe that as
authoritarian regimes use political parties as a means to govern the legislative pro-
6
cess or electoral market we will observe greater institutionalization of political parties
under both authoritarian and democratic rule.
2
2.1
Mind the Gap
Determinates of Institutionalization
The work of Mainwaring et al. (1995) provided the foundation for future research
into the institutionalization of party systems. In this piece Mainwaring and Scully
built on the work of Huntington (1968) to demonstrate how party systems as a whole
institutionalize. Huntington (1968) argued that institutionalized parties are adaptable, complex, autonomous and coherent. Adaptability refers to parties’ ability to
respond to changing circumstances. Organizationally complex parties rely more on
the organization of the party itself than on individual elites. Autonomous parties operate independent of other social groupings and primarily exist to win elections and
legislate. And finally, coherence requires that individual parties hold together and
are not undermined by intra-party factionalism. While this framework has been very
influential in the study of parties, the ability for political scientists to measure institutionalization of individual parties in a comparative manner was and still is supremely
difficult. In part because of these difficulties we have seen a shift in comparative political science to the study of party systems beginning with Dix (1992). Building
on both Dix (1992) and Huntington (1968) Mainwaring et al. (1995) extended and
refined these ideas to produce a new definition party system institutionalization–a
definition that has become the point of departure for most subsequent literature.
7
In their definition of party system institutionalization Mainwaring and Scully
outline four components for party system institutionalization: 1) stability in the
rules and nature of interparty competition, 2) parties with stable roots in society,
3) parties and the electoral process viewed as legitimate, and 4) parties that are
cohesive, disciplined and autonomous. The literature on the causes of party system institutionalization is large3 and explores wide range of possible explanatory
variables. These include: the development of programmatic or ideological linkages
(Tavits, 2005; Mainwaring and Torcal, 2006), strong economic performance (LewisBeck and Stegmaier, 2000), institutional constraints (Roberts and Wibbels, 1999;
Tavits, 2005), the strength or salience of social cleavages (Lipset and Rokkan, 1967;
Tavits, 2005; Birnir, 2006), or the time or timing of democratization (Mainwaring and
Zoco, 2007; Mainwaring and Olivares, 2015). A related literature looks at the factors that contribute to de-institutionaliation, including the dilution of party brands
(Lupu, 2014), significant breaks from party brands (Roberts, 2013a), fluctuations in
economic performance (Roberts and Wibbels, 1999; Tavits, 2005), and shocks to the
electoral marketplace via the introduction of new cleavages or grievances (Bartolini
and Mair, 1990; Madrid, 2005).
Almost without exception these studies focus on explanatory variables solely
within a democratic context. But to what extent do experiences prior to transition
shape democratic party systems? Is the type of party system that emerges somehow
contingent on the organization of political life under authoritarian auspices?
3
Most of these studies focus on electoral volatility as either a key component of institutionalization, or a natural consequent (Mainwaring and Olivares, 2015) with volatility associate with lower
levels of institutionalization.
8
2.2
Institutionalization of Authoritarian Parties
As discussed earlier, we are sympathetic to the argument that party system institutionalization in autocratic contexts means something different than it does under
democracy (Mainwaring and Olivares, 2015) (Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta, 2011,
chpt. 14). After all, it makes little sense to talk about the stability of inter-party
competition where only one party is allowed to compete and where the electoral outcomes are designed to be stable over time. Yet, while the party system institutionalization under authoritarian rule may be incompatible under the strict framework
of Mainwaring et al. (1995) many authoritarian regimes do in fact contain parties
and we know that parties are not solely instruments of democracy. Those parties
exhibit variation in the degree to which they are cohesive, autonomous organizations with strong societal roots, and there is also variation in the extent to which
those parties, and elections themselves, are seen as legitimate parts of the political
environment. This suggests two questions. First, if the structure of authoritarian
rule restricts the full institutionalization of party systems does it still make sense to
talk about the degree of individual party institutionalization? Secondly, if individual
parties can institutionalize does the degree of institutionalization affect party system
institutionalize at a later date?
One obvious way the characteristics of autocratic systems might shape party competition post-transition is through the existence of authoritarian successor parties.
We hypothesize that where authoritarian successor parties are able to adapt and
survive under democracy they serve as an anchor to democratic possibility. Their
existence brings added stability to the fledgling party system and may provide in9
centives for competitors to develop stronger, more institutionalized parties in order
to compete. But what factors shape whether authoritarian parties are able to successfully transition to democracy? The factors discussed in the existing literature
sound very much like the characteristics of institutionalized parties discussed above.
For example, Grzymala-Busse (2002) argues that parties which are highly professionalized during authoritarian rule are better able to remain cohesive and adapt to
democratization without becoming fatally tied to the ideological preferences of past
elites.
In addition to professionalization, another factor that contributes to the success of
authoritarian successor parties is their linkages to society during authoritarian rule.
During authoritarian rule voters and elites have incentives to form alliances and
remain loyal to the ruling party, but ruling parties vary in the extent to which they
invest in thick versus thin organizations. In other words, some authoritarian leaders
choose to invest in institutionalized parties, while others do not. Ruling parties are
in a good position to make the kinds on investments that can help the party compete
after democratization (Geddes et al., 2014). For example, ruling parties can draw
on state and economic ties to create large, robust support networks (Kitschelt and
Singer, 2015), including financial support networks (Cheng, 2006). Additionally,
these parties have the ability to build local bases of support (e.g. local branches)–
opportunities that may be denied the opposition due to legal restrictions (Slater and
Wong, 2013) or lack of resources. Overall recent work in the field demonstrates that
successful authoritarian successor parties tend to be those that are cohesive, have
territorial organization, boast clientelistic networks, and rely on developed economic
10
ties (Loxton, 2015a,b).
2.3
Bridging the Gap
If it is the case that ruling parties that institutionalization under authoritarian auspices are more likely to survive the transition to democracy, can these authoritarian
successor parties then help the new democratic party system itself institutionalize?
As Randall and Svåsand (2002) notes, the institutionalization of a single party does
not necessarily lead to the institutionalization of the entire system. Nonetheless,
there are a number of reasons why the institutionalization of authoritarian successor
parties may actually help the party system as a whole institutionalize. Countering
Randall and Svåsand (2002), Mainwaring and Olivares (2015) argue that individual
parties with a strong organization should increase overall party system institutionalization. This happens in three ways.
First, individual parties that institutionalize may boost the institutionalization
of the entire system by shaping the balance of power between rival forces (Roberts,
2013a). In order to compete against an institutionalized party opposition forces
face incentives to coalesce (LeBas, 2011; Riedl, 2014). In effect, the existence of an
authoritarian party increases the ”environmental hostility” (Tavits, 2013, p. 159)
which then induces opposition parties to become more institutionalized if they hope
to compete and win elections against the authoritarian successor parties. Second, the
increased professionalization developed under authoritarian rule may prove beneficial
if party members defect from the successor party to form new parties and bring with
them organizational skills and experience. Finally, authoritarian successor parties
11
also may carry a strong party brand with them into the democratic period, provided
of course they choose not run from their past. The continuation of this brand should
help reduce the costs to voters of identifying the party positions (Lupu, 2014) across
the parties competing in the new electoral marketplace.
To summarize, we argue, first, that ruling parties protected under authoritarian
rule do vary in their degree of institutionalization. Some parties choose to develop
linkages to society and core constituencies, establish a professionalized organization,
develop strong party brands, and cultivate financial resources. Second, those parties that do invest in institutionalization are more likely to survive the transition
to democracy. Third, these institutionalized successor parties then serve to improve
overall system institutionalization by encouraging the opposition to coalesce, heightening environmental hostility, and promoting distinct party brands. We hypothesize
that the incentives to engage in these forms of behavior will vary depending upon
the type of authoritarian rule. Authoritarian regimes that use parties and party
systems as instruments of rule 4 may open the door to greater levels of party system
institutionalization prior to democratization. We now turn to our hypothesese.
3
Hypotheses
There are a number of empirical implications that follow from the argument we just
outlined. The first, and most simple, is that authoritarian systems with more institutionalized parties/party systems should be associated with more institutionalized
4
As opposed to authoritarian regimes simply using parties as a façade to appear legitimate to
domestic or international opposition
12
party systems post-transition.
Hypothesis 1: The levels of institutionalization under autocracy should be positively associated with the level of party system institutionalization under democracy.
Beyond this simple hypothesis we posited a mechanism by which institutionalization
under autocracy is transmitted into the democratic party system–namely, through
the existence and success of authoritarian successor parties. Two empirical implications of this argument are as follows.
Hypothesis 2: Authoritarian successor parties are more likely where the level of
institutionalization of the ruling party under autocracy was high.
Hypothesis 3: Where authoritarian successor parties are competitive the level of
party system institutionalization should be higher.
Finally, we also argued that autocracies that choose to invest in parties will have
higher levels of institutionalization than those that do not.
Hypothesis 4: Authoritarian regimes that use parties will have higher levels of
party system institutionalization under autocracy.
We are still collecting data on authoritarian successor parties so in this initial analysis
13
we test only hypotheses 1 and 4.
4
Research Design and Data
We argue that the structure and design of authoritarian regimes will have a lasting impact on the institutionalization of party systems after countries transition to
democracy. To test this assertion we employ a large-n global analysis of party system
institutionalization for countries that have experienced some authoritarian interlude
between 1946 and 2010. Previous attempts to determine causes of party system institutionalization have largely been limited to individual regions such as Latin America
or Eastern Europe. With a global sample we are able to explore the determinants of
party system institutionalization independent of geographic regions.
Huntington’s work initially focused on the institutionalization of individual parties. The difficulty of measuring individual party institutionalization, however, led
scholars to shift their focus to the institutionalization of party systems as a whole
(Mainwaring et al., 1995). In these studies party system institutionalization is typically measured in one of two ways: using electoral volatility or average party age
as proxies for party system institutionalization. These two proxies, however, only
capture one aspect of party system institutionalization as conceived by Mainwaring
et al. (1995) - the regularity of intra-party competition, in the case volatility, and organizational strength in the case of party age.5 Our approach is to avoid these fairly
crude measures in favor of newly available data on party systems across the world. In
5
What’s more, volatility itself might more usefully be thought of as a symptom of poor institutionalization, rather than a constituent part Mainwaring and Olivares (2015).
14
the following sections we outline how we measure party system institutionalization
and discuss the measurement of our key explanatory variables.
4.1
Measuring Party System Institutionalization
Our primary measure of party system institutionalization, which we will refer to as
PSI, is a new measure developed by the Varieties of Democracy Project (Hereafter
V-Dem).6 . The construction of PSI, which is a index of five party system-related
components, was a two stage process. The first stage is the aggregation of ordinal
ratings provided by multiple country experts (five or more) for the five individual
components (party organization, branches, linkages, distinct party platforms, and
legislative party cohesion 7 . In the second stage, the outputs of these first stage
analyses are aggregated into the PSI index using Bayesian factor analysis techniques.8
6
We merged a number of datasets to V-Dem V.5 for this study. A significant issue when merging
datasets is the variation in coding country names. To address this problem we used an R package developed by Darin Self to uniformly code countrynames across time. This package can be
downloaded at https://github.com/dsself/standardizecountries
7
The specific questions used to measure these components can be found at the V-Dem website.
https://v-dem.net/media/filer_public/17/fe/17fe9954-d9aa-4961-aa73-f967929ebab9/
v-dem_codebook_v43.pdf
See section 2.16 Party institutionalization index
8
We draw on Bernhard et. al. (2015) for this summary of process: The individual components of
the index are aggregated from the responses that experts provided to the relevant questions on the
V-Dem survey. These multiple ordinal rating were then aggregated into a unified, continuous and
reliable variable using Bayesian item response theory (IRT) models. Because individual raters might
vary with regard to the way they interpret the questions, and in terms of reliability and consistency,
these models are useful because they incorporate the information encoded in the variation in raters
perceptions, and in reliability levels across and within coders into the estimation process (Bollen
and Paxton 2000, Jackman 2004).
IRT models assume that the variable being measured is latent, that it cannot be measured directly
and that each coders response includes a degree of error. The model uses patterns of disagreement
across ratings to estimate coder level errors, and down weighs the ratings provided by coders who
are deemed less informative. The Bayesian framework allows us to estimate country-year level
parameters that capture the latent variable of interest, along with thresholds differentiating the
levels of the variable. For a more detailed discussion see Pemstein et al. (2015).
15
For more details on the characteristics of the PSI index (its strengths and weaknesses)
see Bizzarro et. al. (2016). The V-Dem data includes observations for 193 countries
with fairly regular coverage from 1900 to 2014. As can be viewed in the summary
table below the PSI index ranges from 0-1. While V-Dem boasts an impressive scope
of data across space and time, though the sample employed in this study is far more
limited do the availability of supporting data.
4.2
Explanatory Variable
Our key explanatory variable is the institutionalization of the parties/party system
under autocracy. We take three approaches to operationalizing this concept. Our
primary measure is the average PSI index during authoritarian period (PriorPSI ).
Figure 1
9
compares the level of PSI in autocracies to the level in democracies. A
couple of things are apparent. First, there is a good deal of variation in PSI within
both democracies and autocracies. Second, on average, the level of PSI is higher in
democracies than in autocracies, consistent with Mainwaring (2015). However, we
are interested in whether the level of PSI under autocracies helps predict the level
PSI under democracy.
9
We use a very relaxed definition of democracy for this comparison. Countries were coded as
being democratic if their Polity score was ≥ 0
16
Figure 1: Distribution of PSI by Regime Type
To supplement our primary analysis we also we employ two additional sets of
variables as indicators of the party system under the antecedent regime. First, we
use the data created by (Wahman et al., 2013) (Hereafter ARD). ARD builds and
improves upon work initially done by Geddes (1999) to categorizing authoritarian
regime types. Specifically, they divide autocracies into the following 6 categories10 :
Military, Monarchy, Multi-party, No-party, One-party, and Other.11 A challenge with
this and all such classifications is the reality of hybrid regimes–for example, military
regimes that form a political party. Thus, we expect these estimates to be noisier
than our direct measure of PriorPSI. Recall that we argue that institutionalization of
parties under autocracy should affect the institutionalization post-transition. Thus,
where parties don’t exist, we expect the level of post-transition PSI to be lower. This
10
Unfortunately there are not enough observation for us to test the effect of Monarchy and
No-party
11
By contrast, Geddes (1999) lists five regime types: Military, Personal, Party, Oligarchy, and
Monarchy. Geddes categorization has been criticized for being over simple, and for neglecting the
distinction between single an hegemonic party regimes.
17
includes the Military, and Other regime types, where we expect to see a negative
association with post-transition PSI. By contrast, we expect post-transition PSI to
be highest in systems where multi-party competition was allowed, ceteris paribus.
Finally, our expectations about the level of institutionalization under single party
rule, and therefore the level of PSI under democracy, are unclear. We anticipate that
the level of institutionalization under single party rule will be less than in multi-party
regimes, but more than under other regime types. However, we are uncertain what
to expect in terms of post-transition institutionalization. On the one hand, single
ruling parties may be institutionalized and thus in a good position to become an
authoritarian successor party. On the other hand, it is possible the monopoly on
political organization in single party regimes stunts the development of new parties
post-transition and therefore hampers institutionalization.
Under single-party rule no other parties are allowed to compete in elections and
in many cases opposition parties are completely banned. The existence of a singleparty rule deprives opposition parties of the ability to openly establish linkages with
society, build a party brand, develop professional cadre of staff and candidates, and
raise funds. This may also deincentivize the ruling party from investing in organizational capacity and building linkages to society. In essence single-party rule prevents
the opposition from developing any antecedent strengths that may be carried into
democracy while also making . Thus our expectations about the effect of single
party rule are mixed. If the authoritarian successor party effect dominates we expect
a positive association, but if the monopoly effect dominates we expect a negative
relationship.
18
We use ARD to determine authoritarian regime type and transitions to democracy, and include in our final sample only those cases where the the policy score in
the last year in the data set is ≥ 2. ARD limit their coding of regimes to cases after
the year 1972. Thus, our analysis using ARD limits us to cases where a country had
some year of autocracy in 1972 or later. If a country was coded as democratic in
1972 but had some autocratic experience prior to 1972 we are unable to capture the
previous authoritarian regime type for those cases
12
.
Finally, in addition to PSI and ARD we also use Svolik (2012) (hereafter PAR)
data on the politics of authoritarian rule to model PSI as a function of the antecedent
regime 13 . Unlike Wahman et al. (2013) and Geddes et al. (2014), Svolik (2012) breaks
autocratic regimes into their component parts rather than creating an overarching
typology for all them. These component parts include which type of Executive and
Legislature are present as well the type of Military and Party System structure14
15
.
Within each type we code the sub-types as binary variables. As an example, there
are three categories for types of the military: Civilian, Corporate, and Personal. We
create a single dummy variable for each of these types of military rule and use each
individual type as a treatment.
12
The majority of these cases are 1st or 2nd wave democracies such as the United States, Canada,
and Western European states. Though we are forced to exclude those cases we are able to capture
the majority of countries in the 3rd wave of democracy
13
Svolik (2012) codes authoritarian regimes dating back to 1946. This significantly expands
the time series from Wahman et al. (2013) allowing us to capture most of the 2nd and 3rd wave
democracies but still excluding 1st wave democracies
14
Because Svolik (2012) codes changes in these component parts prior to a full regime change
we also code an alternate to his Party System to account of the party system that was the system
during the majority of time of the prior regime
15
Svolik (2012) codes each regime as a cross section of countries and year ranges rather than a
full panel. Using an R package designed by Darin Self we expand the date to a full country-year
panel. This package can be found at https://github.com/dsself/electionpanel
19
4.3
Control and Balance Variables
We incorporate a number of variables in addition to the core explanatory variables
discussed above as controls as well as covariates to balance the data. Previous
studies that model determinants of party system institutionalization include some
well-known structural and institutional factors. We incorporate additional controls
for GDP from the IMF as well the level of ethno-linguistic fractionalization ELF.
Data from both of these variables come from the Quality of Governance Standard
Dataset. We also included variables measuring the effective number of electoral parties (ENEP ), proportional representation (PR), and whether the democratic regime
is presidential (Presidentialism), all from Selway and Self (2016). We also calculate
how many transitions a country has experienced within the time-frame of the sample
(Regime Number ) as well as the duration Duration (in years) of these regimes. Finally, a significant hypothesis within the party system institutionalization literature
is that party systems become more institutionalized over time and through repeated
elections. To account for this hypothesis we use data drawn from the V-Dem dataset
to capture the number of electoral Rounds under democracy.
4.4
Methodology
To estimate the causal effects of the antecedent regime structure on subsequent party
system institutionalization we employ both matching and regression techniques 16
16
17
.
Because our variation in our primary explanatory variable (PSI ) is relatively homogeneous over
time we condense our sample into a cross-section in order to fit a linear model.
17
For the matching approach we pool our data instead of condensing it into a cross-section
20
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics
Statistic
PSI
PriorPSI
ENEP
PR
Presidentialism
ELF
GDP
Number
Duration
USSRSatellite
N
Mean
St. Dev.
Min
Max
2,844
1,453
2,227
2,348
2,327
2,779
2,274
2,844
2,844
2,844
0.733
0.553
4.122
0.507
0.286
0.389
104.558
1.325
12.999
0.132
0.202
0.254
2.051
0.500
0.452
0.239
168.312
1.687
10.334
0.338
0.120
0.011
1.240
0
0
0.000
0.108
0
1
0
0.985
0.986
14.890
1
1
0.930
998.349
9
39
1
We specify our linear model as follows:
yi = β + x1i β1i + x2i β2i + εi
where x1 i is a binary variable coded for each sub-type of the antecedent regime
structure we wish to effectively use as our treatment, x2 i is a set of control variables
previously discussed, and εi is the error term.
To estimate the effect of sanctions on regime type we also employ a matching
technique using the GenMatch package in R. GenMatch uses genetic matching to
balance data which can then be used to estimate the average treatment effect on the
treatment. Genetic Matching is a balancing method which employs an evolutionary
search algorithm using the Mahalanobis distance to balance the data to allow multivariate matching(Diamond and Sekhon, 2013). When the Mahalanobis distance is
not optimal for achieving balance GenMatch searches over the space of distance
21
metrics to find something better and iterates through this process until it can no
longer improve the balance. GenMatch generalizes the Mahalanonbis distance by
including an additional weight matrix:
1
d(Xi , Xj ) = (Xi − Xj )T − (S −1/2 )T W S −1/2 (Xi − Xj ) 2
where W is a k × k positive definite weight matrix and S 1/2 is the Cholesky decomposition of S which is the variance-covariance matrix of X (Diamond and Sekhon,
2013, pg. 6). The balance matrix X supplied for analysis is:
X = {GDP, P riorP SI, EN P, ELF, P olity, Duration, P residential, N umber}
5
Findings
We argue that PriorPSI will have a significant causal effect on the level of PSI. In
addition to this we also hypothesize that autocrats will vary the extent to which
they invest in party system institutionalization dependent upon the structure of the
authoritarian regime.
We begin our analysis by specifying a fixed effects model of PSI on PriorPSI
with the results reported in Table 2. Our initial model finds a statistically significant
and strong positive relationship between PSI and PriorPSI. To test the strength of
this relationship we add a number of other variables that could possibly mitigate
the strength of this relationship. As previously discussed, the passage of time after
22
Table 2: Estimated Effect of PriorPSI on PSI
Dependent variable:
PSI
(1)
PriorPSI
(2)
∗∗∗
0.168
(0.055)
(4)
∗
0.141
(0.054)
0.081∗
(0.040)
0.079
(0.040)
0.012∗∗∗
(0.004)
Electoral Rounds
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
(3)
∗∗∗
No
198
0.043
0.003
(0.005)
No
198
0.083
∗
Note:
p<0.1;
Yes
72
0.210
∗∗
p<0.05;
Yes
72
0.205
∗∗∗
p<0.01
transitioning to democracy may be another cause of institutionalization. To operationalize this we include a continuous measure of the number of elections at time
t. In the second model we estimate a beta coefficient with a positive slope for both
PriorPSI and Electoral Rounds. However, introducing Electoral Rounds reduced the
size of the beta coefficient for PriorPSI suggesting that the initial model suffered
from omitted variable bias. Because of the possibility of more omitted variable bias
we specified two more models that re-estimate Models 1 and 2 in Table 2 with controls 18 . The introduction of these controls nearly halves the slope of PriorPSI. This
coefficient, however, remains fairly stable when controlling for Electoral Rounds
18
19
.
Controls: ENEP, GDP, ELF, PR, Presidential, USSR Satellite, Number, and Duration
We note here the reduction in the number of observations and potential bias in our estimators
as the presence of missing data is likely the function of factors which may also influence PSI
19
23
We argue that these models identify20 a positive causal relationship between PriorPSI and PSI. We find that party system institutionalization does indeed continue
on into democracy after the end of authoritarianism and that as PriorPSI increases
there is a substantial increase in the subsequent PSI after democratization. This
suggests that democratization does not produce a tabula rasa for party systems and
that democratization should not be considered a starting point for party systems.
These findings affirm our initial beliefs; that there is an authoritarian legacy that
influences how party systems take root in democracies.
Having identified a positive relationship between the institutionalization of party
systems under authoritarian rule and the institutionalization of party systems after
democratization we turn our focus to understanding how differences in authoritarian
regime structure effects the institutionalization of party systems post-transition. As
previously stated, we hypothesize that authoritarian regimes that promote incentives
to invest in party rule will have an overall positive impact on post-transition PSI.
To test this we specify both bivariate and multivariate regressions21 to estimate the
effect of the antecedent regime structure on the expected level of PSI. Our first models
employ the Wahman et al. (2013) data. Wahman et al. (2013) divide authoritarian
regimes into six types: Military, Monarchy, Multi-Party, No-party, and One-party.
Because of a data availability we only estimate the effect of Military, Multi-Party,
and One-party 22 . We estimate two models, a bivariate and multivariate model, for
20
In subsequent papers we will improve our identification strategy to reduce error in our identification strategy.
21
All observations are drawn from a sample where polity2 ≥ 2 unless otherwise stated.
22
We code each regime structure as a dummy with a score of 1 if regime type matches the desired
regime type and 0 for all other types.
24
each type of authoritarian regime and present the results in Table 3 and Table 4. The
coefficients for Military, Multi-party and Single-party regime types are significant in
the bivariate specifications. As expected the coefficient for the Military is negative
while Multi-party is positive. Finally, the coefficient for Single-party is negative. This
would suggest that the monopoly effect of single party regimes swamps the successor
party effect.
These models would estimate the causal effect of each regime type if the regime
type is independent of other factors that also explain levels of party system institutionalization. We do not believe this to be the case and include a number of
controls in subsequent models. These subsequent models alter the coefficients for
all regime types. We also graph these estimates below with coefficient plots. With
these models we find that only the regime type Military has a significant influence
on subsequent PSI. We estimate that authoritarian regimes that have some authoritarian Military experience are expected to have a slightly higher (0.06) PSI than
other regimes types. This result runs counter to the hypotheses laid out previously
where we believed that authoritarian regimes with some party structure would have
a positive effect on PSI after transitions to democracy. However, note that these
models include Prior-PSI as a control, which, if, hypothesis 4 is correct, should be
highly correlated with autocratic regime type. Thus, it is not surprising that when
we both PriorPSI and the regime type in the model that the effects of the latter are
washed away. More on this below.
In addition to Table 3 and Table 4 we graph the coefficients of the models with
their standard errors in Figure 2 below. These figures add greater clarity to the
25
findings presented in Tables 3 and 4. We see that regime types Military, Multi-party,
and Other each have the expected negative impact on the PSI of the subsequent
democratic regime, while multi-party has a a positive impact.
23
This supports our
reasoning that authoritarian regimes that allow for some party competition leads
to a higher expected level of PSI. This is especially notable when compared to the
expected level of PSI for Single-party authoritarian regimes. It appears that eliminating space for opposition parties to form or operate in the authoritarian context
causes party systems to have lower expected levels of PSI after transitions to democracy. This suggests that some party competition, even if uneven competition, leads
to better outcomes for party system institutionalization than completely dominate
party competition by a single party.
Using these models we find some support for our authoritarian regime structure
hypotheses. However, we find a significant change in the coefficient for PriorPSI
upon adding the regime type into the model. Recall that we opened our empirical
tests by modeling the effect of PriorPSI on PSI with results presented in 2. Using
the same controls that we do for the models presented in Tables 3 and 4 the coefficient
for PriorPSI increases substantially while at the same time washing out the effects
of the regime type.
23
When we add controls, specifically priorPSI, the the signs of these variables flip with the error
term for Multi-party and Other barely touching or crossing zero.
26
Table 3: Estimated Effect of Antecedent Regime Structure
Dependent variable:
PSI
Military
(1)
(2)
−0.066∗∗
(0.030)
0.060
(0.040)
Multi-Party
(3)
(4)
0.083∗∗∗
(0.028)
0.023
(0.036)
PriorPSI
0.630∗∗∗
(0.083)
0.591∗∗∗
(0.079)
Electoral Rounds
−0.001
(0.003)
−0.002
(0.003)
Intercept
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
0.540∗∗∗
(0.015)
0.228∗∗∗
(0.079)
0.499∗∗∗
(0.015)
0.257∗∗∗
(0.077)
No
314
0.012
Yes
86
0.515
No
314
0.024
Yes
86
0.503
∗
Note:
27
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Table 4: Estimated Effect of Antecedent Regime Structure
Dependent variable:
PSI
Single-Party
(1)
(2)
−0.082∗∗
(0.037)
−0.041
(0.050)
Other
(3)
(4)
−0.061
(0.041)
0.064
(0.061)
PriorPSI
0.586∗∗∗
(0.079)
0.579∗∗∗
(0.080)
Electoral Rounds
−0.001
(0.003)
−0.002
(0.003)
Intercept
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
0.536∗∗∗
(0.014)
0.274∗∗∗
(0.076)
0.531∗∗∗
(0.014)
0.270∗∗∗
(0.076)
No
314
0.012
Yes
86
0.505
No
314
0.004
Yes
86
0.508
∗
Note:
28
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Figure 2: Coefficient Plots for Tables 3 and 4.
In each of these initial models we found that PriorPSI explains a significant
amount of variation in PSI for democracies with an authoritarian past while the
authoritarian regime type only explains a limited portion of the variation. However,
noting the increase of the coefficient for PriorPSI when adding the regime type
to the model we used a system of equations to identify the effect of the different
authoritarian regime types on PSI. To do this we regressed PriorPSI on each of
the four regime types and extracted the residuals. We then regressed PSI on each
of these residuals only to identify the expected outcomes of PSI as a function of
PriorPSI and regime type and present the results in Table 6.
Using a system of equations we find that countries with the antecedent regime
type Military have a much higher expected PSI than those that had the antecedent
regime type of Multi-party, Single-party, or Other. We are especially interested in the
change in party system institutionalization countries undergo after democratization.
Table 5 gives the average level of PSI prior to democratization.
Unlike the initial OLS models this the result in Table 6 identify a higher expected
29
Table 5: Average Level of PSI During Authoritarianism
PriorPSI
Type
0.374
0.546
0.403
0.365
Military
Multi-party
Single-party
Other
level of PSI for Single-party and Other antecedent authoritarian regime types than
Multi-party
24
. This is especially startling when considering the average level of
PSI which we report in Table 5. In Table 5 we see that Multi-party regimes have
the highest level of PSI of all authoritarian regime types. It appears, however, that
these countries are not expected to experience any increase in PSI after a democratic
transition–the expected level of PSI found in the models reported in Table 6 and the
average PSI prior to democratization are almost the same. This appears to show
that party systems emerging from Multi-party do not undergo any radical shifts. This
is not the case, however, for Military, Single–party, and Other regime types, which
experience radical upward movement of PSI after democratization. This dramatic
shift in PSI is shown in Figure 3 for each type of authoritarian rule. Not that all
party systems drastically increase their level of PSI after democratization with the
exception of Multi-party regimes. This is an intuitive finding as these countries need
to undergo less radical changes to adopt democratic procedures.
24
To draw a modern example the expected level of PSI of a country with the antecedent regime
of Military would compare with current day Ghana with the estimated level of PSI for Single-party
and Multi-party would compare to current Egypt and Colombia respectively.
30
Table 6: Regression on Residuals of Structure and Prior PSI
Dependent variable:
PSI
(1)
Military
(2)
(3)
(4)
0.632∗∗∗
(0.082)
0.542∗∗∗
(0.079)
Multi-Party
0.577∗∗∗
(0.080)
Single-Party
0.578∗∗∗
(0.076)
Other
Electoral Rounds
−0.001
(0.003)
−0.002
(0.003)
−0.003
(0.003)
−0.002
(0.003)
Intercept
0.538∗∗∗
(0.058)
0.554∗∗∗
(0.060)
0.545∗∗∗
(0.059)
0.550∗∗∗
(0.058)
Yes
86
0.520
Yes
86
0.475
Yes
86
0.493
Yes
86
0.514
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
∗
Note:
31
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Figure 3: Estimated Change in PSI After Democratization
We initially modeled the expected level PSI using OLS but now move to use a
matching technique using genetic matching. We do this to check the robustness of the
relationship between authoritarian regime type and PSI found using OLS.In addition
to using Military, Multi-party, Single-party, and Other as types of authoritarian
regime types as we did in the original models we re-specify the models using subtypes as coded by ARD. Wahman et al. (2013) argued that the types used in Geddes
(1999) are too general and have significant overlap. In addition to their main types
of authoritarian regimes Wahman et al. (2013) provide additional coding that adds
nuance to the four typologies previously used. The results of the matching technique
are provided in Figure 4. Using a matching estimator allowed to present a clearer
picture of PSI as a function of regime type and see how this varies across three
32
sub-samples of democracy: High, Medium, and Low
25
.
Figure 4: ATT for PSI by Regime Type
In 4 we find that the estimates of PSI vary across different levels of democracy
for some sup-types of authoritarianism. When estimating the effect of the antecedent
regime type we we find similar results as the OLS models with the antecedent regime
type Military causing slightly higher levels of PSI in subsequent democratic regimes.
We also find that the estimated levels of PSI are typically higher the higher the Polity
score
26
. Surprisingly we find, using a matching technique, that neither Multi-party
or Single-party authoritarian regime types are associated with higher levels of PSI
after democratization.
In addition to finding similar results to what we estimated using OLS we find a
more nuanced story behind the effect of military regimes on PSI. Using the more restricted typologies in Wahman et al. (2013) we find that the causal effect of military
regimes that incorporated a party system on PSI is negative while traditional mili25
High: polity2 ≥ 6, Medium: polity2 ≥ 2, Low: polity2 ≥ 0
This variance is a bit troubling and suggests there still may be some endogenous effects of
democracy not accounted for even when matching on the Polity score.
26
33
tary regimes are expected to have a positive effect. This finding may have identified
the effect of military rulers using political institutions, such as parties, to consolidate
power rather than to function as parties do in democracies. This is countered by
traditional military regimes that do not create democratic-like political institutions
but instead simply use the military organization as an instrument of political rule. In
this case we may have identified a care-taker effect where military regimes intercede,
establish order, and then step away from politics again.
While interesting, these models categorize authoritarian regime structures largely
according to how the regime used parties as an instrument. Moving from ARD’s
conceptualization of authoritarian regime type we explore how different types of
executive, legislative, military, and party structures of authoritarian rule influence
PSI after democratization. To do this we employ the dataset developed for Svolik
(2012) (PAR).
The fundamental difference between ARD and PAR is that PAR creates classifications for the executive, legislature, military, and party system for each authoritarian regime. We again employ a matching estimator as we did when comparing the
general typologies and sub-typologies of ARD. As with the matching estimators for
ARD we also create three sub-samples of democracy: High, Medium, and Low. We
present these estimates in Figures 5, 6, and 7 below.
Our first step in estimating the causal effect of authoritarian regime type as conceptualized by Svolik (2012) was to directly compare the effects of how the executive
or legislature were elected. As Figure 5 below demonstrates, there is little causal
effect of different executive and legislative authoritarian regime types on the average
34
effect of the treatment on the treated. There is one exception, however, to this in
both cases. For both the executive and legislative regime types having an unelected
body causes, on average, a lower level of PSI than other types of executive or legislative regime types. This finding is intuitive and shows that regimes with power
concentrated in an individual will have a negative historical legacy for party systems
after democratization.
Figure 5: ATT for PSI by Executive and Legislature Regime Type
In addition to estimating the effects of the executive and legislative regime types
on PSI we also estimated the effects of different military types, as classified by
Svolik (2012), on subsequent levels of PSI. We present the results of this estimator
in Figure 6. These models produce fairly noisy estimates. The two types of military
rule that have any significant impact on PSI are civilian and personal. For civiliantype regimes we find a negative causal effect on PSI for observations in the sample
35
with Medium and High levels of democracy
27
but not for those with Low levels of
democracy. We find the inverse for this for personal-type military regimes. In this
case sub-samples of Low and Medium have an estimated positive causal effect on PSI
after democratization. In each of these cases, however, these results are not robust
to restricting the sample to cases with higher levels of democracy.
Figure 6: ATT for PSI by Military Type
As a final test of our hypotheses we model the effect of the party type as conceptualized by Svolik (2012) on PSI. Again, we expect to find that systems that
allowed greater levels of party competition will cause higher levels of PSI after democratization. After matching on a number of observables we estimated the average
treatment effect on the treatment for three party types: Banned, Single, and Mul27
High: polity2 ≥ 6, Medium: polity2 ≥ 2, and Low: polity2 ≥ 0
36
tiple. We present the results for these estimators in 7
28
. The figure on the left in
7 presents the results of party systems as coded by Svolik (2012). We noticed, that
Svolik’s coding includes changes to the party system made just prior to a change in
the authoritarian regime. Because of this coding technique many of the regimes are
erroneously classified as having a prior party type that did not exist over the most
of the authoritarian regime’s duration. To adjust for this we re-coded cases where
the party system type changed one year prior to a regime change to reflect the party
system type that was in place for the majority of the duration of the authoritarian
regime. The estimates for this re-coding on presented in 7 on the right. It is clear
from this recoding that the results from the original coding are not robust to our
re-coding. Using our re-coded data we find that Multi-party systems do indeed have
a positive causal effect on the subsequent level of PSI while Single-party regimes
have a negative historical legacy.
28
We note that there were very few observations for democracies that had an prior authoritarian
regime where parties were banned and that these estimates are unreliable
37
Figure 7: ATT for PSI by Party Type
Using a number of techniques we estimate the causal effect of party system institutionalization during authoritarian rule on the institutionalization of party systems
after a democratic transition. Using a new measure of party system institutionalization we find support for the conclusion reached in Hicken and Martinez Kuhonta
(2011) that authoritarian regimes do indeed cast a shadow onto democracy. We find
substantial evidence that party systems do not arise de novo but are instead influenced by forces that shaped them during authoritarian rule. In addition to finding
evidence that the prior level of institutionalization has an effect on post-transition
institutionalization of party systems we find a number of interesting results. First,
the extent to which party systems institutionalize during authoritarian regime is a
function of the authoritarian regime structure. If multiple parties are allowed to
form under authoritarian regimes, even not freely or fairly, these party systems tend
38
to have higher levels of party system institutionalization after a democratic transition. This, however, does not hold for authoritarian regimes that had single-party
regimes. We found that, on average, these systems performed worse after a transition to democracy. This suggests that regimes that ban all opposition damage the
long term prospects of party system institutionalization. We do acknowledge, however, that not all single party systems are the same. Greater research is necessary to
investigate whether this finding is consistent across Marxist-Leninist party systems
and other single-party regimes.
6
Moving forward
While we have found some initial support for our hypotheses there are a number of
ways in which we believe we can better identify the causal relationship between party
system institutionalization under (and as a function of) authoritarianism and democracy. Our first concern centers on the operationalization of authoritarian regimes
types as created by Wahman et al. (2013). We believe that there is significant overlap
with these regime types even though they reduce overlap relative to other available
data (Geddes et al., 2014). To test the robustness of our findings we will use the
party systems as defined by Svolik (2012) to reduce error introduced by overlapping
regime types such as military and party regime types.
We also plan to improve our identification of the causal effect of authoritarian
structure on subsequent party system institutionalization by creating an instrument
that better measures what is happening during authoritarian rule. In this version we
39
essentially treat authoritarian rule as a fairly homogeneous. Authoritarian regimes,
however, differ greatly in how long they last and how much they alter the party
system. We believe that PSI is a function of both how long the authoritarian regime
survived as well as how much it altered, whether positively or negatively, the level of
party system institutionalization it inherited. In subsequent versions of this paper
we will generate an instrument of PriorPSI that is a function of the duration of the
authoritarian regime as well as the difference in PSI from regime onset to end.
As a final note we also plan to look at the transitions between types of authoritarian regimes. When exploring both ARD and PAR we found that many regimes
do not transition abruptly from authoritarian rule to democracy. In many cases,
such as Indonesia, there is a period of non-democratic rule that is substantively
different from the long-lasting authoritarian regime that we would expect to have
the most significant impact on party system institutionalization. In the case of Indonesia, Suharto’s 30 year rule in which he systematically removed and banned the
opposition should have a measurable effect on the party system of Indonesia today.
However, the current structure of the data does not capture this. After the fall of
Suharto Indonesia underwent a period of transitional non-democratic rule prior to
full democracy. In the data this period of time is considered the authoritarian prior
- not the rule of Suharto. Thus, in subsequent versions of this paper we will try
and account for cases a prior authoritarian regime type significantly differs from the
regime type just prior to transition.
40
7
Conclusion
Prior work on party system institutionalization has primarily built off of Mainwairing
and Scully’s seminal piece. Under this conceptualization, party systems must meet
four criteria to be institutionalized; there must be stability in the rules and nature
of interparty competition, systems must have parties with strong roots in society,
there must be legitimacy of the electoral process, as well as cohesive, disciplined,
and autonomous parties (Mainwaring et al., 1995, pg. 5-6). This idea of party system institutionalization, however, is firmly rooted in a conceptualization of party
systems as instruments of democracy. If we restrict ourselves to this conceptualization of a party system we fail to account for how party systems are shaped prior to
democratization.
If democracy without an antecedent authoritarian period were the norm, then
theories that focus on solely on the democratic period would be sufficient. But
most democracies emerge from authoritarian pasts, and we argue that the party
systems found in these democracies are significantly shaped by the antecedent period
of authoritarian rule. Specifically, we argue that the extent to which party system
institutionalized during authoritarian rule will help explain the variance in party
system institutionalization we observe during periods of democracy. Related to this
hypothesis, we also argue that the structure of authoritarian rule shapes the extent
to which party systems institutionalize during the authoritarian period.
Using a new measure of party system institutionalization we test these hypotheses. We find initial evidence that party system institutionalization during democratic
rule is a function of the level of party system institutionalization during authoritarian
41
rule. This finding should have a significant impact on the study of party systems. No
longer can theories of party system institutionalization assume that party systems in
democracies start de novo. Authoritarian regimes cast a shadow into democracy as
political organizations survive the death of an authoritarian regime and extend into
democracy.
In addition to finding evidence that the level of party system institutionalization
explains variation in the institutionalization of party systems after a democratic
transition, we also observed the following. First, the extent to which party systems
institutionalization during authoritarian regime is dependent upon the structure or
type of authoritarian rule. Authoritarian regimes are known to employ political
institutions - such as parties - as instruments of their rule. We find that if autocrats
allow multiple parties to form, whether freely and fairly or not, subsequent party
systems in democracies are expected to be more institutionalized. This, however,
does extend to cases where autocrats used a single-party system. We found that,
on average, these systems performed worse after a transition to democracy. This
suggests that regimes that ban all opposition damage the long term prospects of
party system institutionalization.
Lastly, we found mixed results for former military regimes. Military regimes that
make use of parties tend to, on average, have less institutionalized party systems
after democratization than traditional military regimes where political parties are
absent. These results call for more investigation but We believe this may be due to
”caretaker” regimes where militaries intervene briefly to restore order and then step
away from politics. These regimes may have a less pernicious effect on democratic po-
42
litical institutions than their counterparts that use political institutions during their
rule. Whether this is the case deserves greater theoretical scrutiny and systematic
empirical testing.
The purpose of this project was to determine whether party system institutionalization during authoritarian rule matters for the institutionalization of party systems
during democracy. Additionally, we sought to verify whether the type of authoritarian rule influences the extent to which party systems within democracies institutionalize. We conclude that we have found sufficient evidence to warrant further
investigation of these claims. In our quest to answer whether party system institutionalization during authoritarian rule casts a shadow onto democracy we have also
produced more questions that merit greater inspection. Specifically, is the effect of
single-party rule consistent across various types of single-party rule (i.e. MarxistLeninist vs non-communist)? Do ”caretaker” military regimes affect party systems
in a fundamentally different manner than other military regimes? How does the
length of authoritarian rule affect the ability of new democracies to develop party
systems? Each of these questions address fundamental challenges that 2nd and 3rd
wave democracies currently face today.
43
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8
Appendix
Table 7: Multivariate Regression with Antecedent Regime Structure as Treatment Number of Regimes Less than 3
Dependent variable:
PSI
Military
(1)
(2)
−0.062
(0.040)
0.092∗
(0.052)
Multi-Party
Intercept
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
(3)
(4)
0.095∗∗
(0.041)
−0.015
(0.060)
0.524∗∗∗
(0.021)
0.346∗∗∗
(0.108)
0.486∗∗∗
(0.020)
0.390∗∗∗
(0.119)
No
192
0.008
Yes
43
0.506
No
192
0.022
Yes
43
0.461
∗
Note:
51
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Figure 8: ATT for PSI by Regime Type - Number of Regimes Fewer than Three
52
Table 8: Multivariate Regression with Antecedent Regime Structure as Treatment Number of Regimes Less than 3
Dependent variable:
PSI
Single-Party
(1)
(2)
−0.062
(0.043)
−0.040
(0.057)
Other
Intercept
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
(3)
(4)
−0.013
(0.061)
0.065
(0.080)
0.521∗∗∗
(0.020)
0.397∗∗∗
(0.113)
0.509∗∗∗
(0.019)
0.389∗∗∗
(0.111)
No
192
0.006
Yes
43
0.468
No
192
−0.005
Yes
43
0.470
∗
Note:
53
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Figure 9: ATT for PSI by Regime Type - Number of Regimes Fewer than Three
54
Table 9: Multivariate Regression with Antecedent Regime Structure as Treatment
Dependent variable:
Party Strength
Military
(1)
(2)
−0.032
(0.055)
0.165∗
(0.084)
Multi-Party
(3)
(4)
0.026
(0.051)
−0.080
(0.077)
PriorPSI
0.859∗∗∗
(0.175)
0.742∗∗∗
(0.169)
Electoral Rounds
−0.011∗
(0.006)
−0.014∗∗
(0.006)
Intercept
−0.019
(0.027)
−0.080
(0.168)
−0.034
(0.028)
0.058
(0.165)
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
No
312
−0.002
Yes
86
0.461
No
312
−0.002
Yes
86
0.442
∗
Note:
55
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Figure 10: ATT for Party Strength Without Controls
56
Table 10: Multivariate Regression with Antecedent Regime Structure as Treatment
Dependent variable:
Party Strength
Single-Party
(1)
(2)
0.077
(0.067)
0.081
(0.108)
Other
(3)
(4)
−0.075
(0.074)
0.098
(0.131)
PriorPSI
0.755∗∗∗
(0.170)
0.732∗∗∗
(0.171)
Electoral Rounds
−0.016∗∗
(0.007)
−0.014∗∗
(0.006)
Intercept
Control Variables
Observations
Adjusted R2
−0.037
(0.025)
0.011
(0.164)
−0.018
(0.025)
0.032
(0.163)
No
312
0.001
Yes
86
0.438
No
312
0.0001
Yes
86
0.438
∗
Note:
57
p<0.1;
∗∗
p<0.05;
∗∗∗
p<0.01
Figure 11: ATT for Party Strength With Controls
58