Economic Performance and Elite Defection from Hegemonic Parties

2010 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ora John Reuter ◽  
Jennifer Gandhi
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Chief Executive ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Hegemonic Parties

Hegemonic party regimes are non-democratic regimes that (1) rule with the aid of a dominant political party and (2) hold multi-party elections. Elite coalitions organized under the aegis of a hegemonic party are most vulnerable in elections that coincide with poor economic performance. A declining economy provides elites with a platform around which they can mobilize support to challenge incumbents in elections. As a result, the likelihood of defections from hegemonic parties increases as income declines. This study’s original dataset, which includes 227 elections for the chief executive in hegemonic party dictatorships from 1946 to 2004, and its case studies of defections in Zimbabwe under ZANU-PF in 2008 and Turkey under the Democratic Party in 1955 provide evidence for this proposition.

The Social Origins of Electoral Volatility in Africa

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 759-779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen E. Ferree
Keyword(s):  
Statistical Analysis ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Economic Performance ◽  
Social Group ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Electoral Volatility ◽  
Majority Group ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The Social ◽  
African Context

This article utilizes the statistical analysis of an original dataset of African legislative seat volatility levels and three case studies to demonstrate that the size and configuration of politically salient ethnic groups bear a strong relationship with patterns of legislative seat volatility in Africa. Legislative seat volatility is highest in countries where either no social group is large enough to form a majority on its own, or a majority group contains within itself a second smaller majority group; it is lowest in countries where one, and only one, group forms a majority. In contrast, most standard explanations for volatility, including variations in economic performance, democratic period of origin and democratic duration, do not appear relevant in the African context.

Testing the Causal Mechanisms in Additional Cases

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul D. Kenny
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Party System ◽  
Liberal Democratic Party ◽  
System Stability ◽  
Relative Autonomy ◽  
Causal Mechanisms ◽  
Liberal Democratic

Case studies of Indonesia and Japan illustrate that party-system stability in patronage democracies is deeply affected by the relative autonomy of political brokers. Over the course of a decade, a series of decentralizing reforms in Indonesia weakened patronage-based parties hold on power, with the 2014 election ultimately being a contest between two rival populists: Joko Widodo and Subianto Prabowo. Although Japan was a patronage democracy throughout the twentieth century, the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) remained robust to outsider appeals even in the context of economic and corruption crises. However, reforms in the 1990s weakened the hold of central factional leaders over individual members of the LDP and their patronage machines. This was instrumental to populist Junichiro Koizumi’s winning of the presidency of the LDP and ultimately the prime ministership of Japan. This chapter also reexamines canonical cases of populism in Latin America.

Democratic Disarray: Organizational Messaging Coherence and the Local Echoing Press During the 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus

2021 ◽  
pp. 000276422110108
Author(s):  
Eric C. Wiemer ◽  
Joshua M. Scacco ◽  
Brenda Berkelaar
Keyword(s):  
Crisis Management ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Public Communication ◽  
Organizational Crisis ◽  
Party Organization ◽  
Timely Manner ◽  
Presidential Nomination ◽  
Des Moines ◽  
American Elections

The Iowa caucuses are the inaugural event of the American presidential nomination process. When the state Democratic Party failed to report the 2020 caucus results in a timely manner and manage the consequences, the crisis situation threatened the legitimacy of the party and the integrity of the results. This research presents an in-depth case of the Iowa Democratic Party’s public communication response regarding an event described by the Des Moines Register as “hell” and a “results catastrophe.” Specifically, we were interested in how the Iowa Democratic Party responded to the crisis event and the extent to which the party organization was successful in disseminating favorable messaging about the caucus process to the local press. Drawing on organizational crisis management and echoing press perspectives, this analysis uses network and qualitative analytic approaches to assess message development, dissemination, and ultimately adoption. A local event with national implications presents a critical case in investigating how a political party, due to its institutional role in American elections and unique organizational structure, struggled to respond to the crisis.

scholarly journals Personnel Power: Governing State-Owned Enterprises

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Wendy Leutert ◽  
Samantha A. Vortherms
Keyword(s):  
Economic Performance ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Multinomial Models ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
The World ◽  
Political Connectedness

Abstract State-owned enterprises (SOEs) retain a strong presence in many economies around the world. How do governments manage these firms given their dual economic and political nature? Many states use authority over executive appointments as a key means of governing SOEs. We analyze the nature of this “personnel power” by assessing patterns in SOE leaders’ political mobility in China, the country with the largest state-owned sector. Using logit and multinomial models on an original dataset of central SOE leaders’ attributes and company information from 2003 to 2017, we measure the effects of economic performance and political connectedness on leaders’ likelihood of staying in power. We find that leaders of well-performing firms and those with patronage ties to elites in charge of their evaluation are more likely to stay in office. These findings suggest that states can leverage personnel power in pursuit of economic and political stability when SOE management is highly politically integrated.

When and Where Do Women's Legislative Caucuses Emerge?

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 671-694 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Mitchell Mahoney ◽  
Christopher J. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Event History Analysis ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Ability To Act ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
History Analysis ◽  
Institutional Norms ◽  
Favorable Conditions

Women have organized around their gendered identity to accomplish political goals both inside and outside legislatures. Formal and informal institutional norms shape the form this collective action takes and whether it is successful. What, then, are the favorable conditions for organizing women's caucuses inside legislatures? Using an original dataset and employing an event history analysis, we identify the institutional conditions under which women's caucuses emerged in the 50 US states from 1972 to 2009. Within a feminist institutional framework, we argue that women's ability to alter existing organizational structures and potentially affect gender norms within legislatures is contextual. Although we find that women's presence in conjunction with Democratic Party control partially explains women's ability to act collectively and in a bipartisan way within legislatures, our analysis suggests that institutional-level variables are not enough to untangle this complicated phenomenon. Our work explains how gender and party interact to shape legislative behavior and clarifies the intractability of institutional norms while compelling further qualitative evidence to uncover the best conditions for women's collective action within legislatures.

scholarly journals Governance and the Executive – Legislative Relations since Nigeria’s Fourth Republic (1999 – 2019) and Beyond

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 28
Author(s):  
Kunle Awotokun ◽  
Olu Okotoni
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Secondary Data ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
African Countries ◽  
The People ◽  
Democratic Regimes ◽  
Fourth Republic ◽  
History Of ◽  
Free Transition

The Year 2019 is very significant in the history of party politics in Nigeria. It marked a two decade of uninterrupted democratic regimes culminating in violent-free transition of political power from the defeated ruling political party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to the opposition Party-All Progressive Congress (APC). The cut-throat rivalries among the political parties, as represented in the Executive and legislature, have been responsible for the political instability of the previous republics. What has been responsible for the relative calm in the political space of Nigeria? How has political elites responded to the issue of governance since the inception of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic? How can the Nigerian state build and improve on the current political climate? These and other issues are what the paper has addressed. The work relied contextually on secondary data for appropriate information germane to the work. The findings and analyses will benefit from prognosis that would be of immense value only not to Nigeria, but further implications for other African countries faced with similar political scenario.

TERRORISM AND RIGHT-PARTY VOTE SHARES IN LEGISLATIVE ELECTIONS

World Affairs ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 184 (4) ◽  
pp. 441-471
Author(s):  
Lance Y. Hunter ◽  
Joseph W. Robbins ◽  
Martha H. Ginn
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Multiple Regions ◽  
Psychological Reasoning ◽  
Party Vote Shares

This study examines the electoral consequences for ideologically right-leaning political parties in the wake of terrorist attacks by employing an original dataset that captures political party vote shares and multiple terrorist indicators. Our analysis extends the partisan voting hypothesis to 56 democracies from multiple regions and levels of development between 1975–2014. Specifically, we find that the origins of terrorist perpetrators, the severity of terrorist attacks, and the frequency of terrorist incidents decrease right-party vote shares in legislative contests when incorporating standard controls. All told, these findings reinforce political psychological reasoning that contends terrorist attacks impact citizens’ emotions and voting calculations.

When Participation Wins Votes: Explaining the Emergence of Large-Scale Participatory Democracy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jared Abbott
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Participatory Democracy ◽  
National Level ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Costs ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Nationwide Implementation

Why are large-scale participatory institutions implemented in some countries but only adopted on paper in others? I argue that nationwide implementation of Binding Participatory Institutions (BPIs)––a critical subtype of participatory institutions––is dependent on the backing of a strong institutional supporter, often a political party. In turn, parties will only implement BPIs if they place a lower value on the political costs than on the potential benefits of implementation. This will be true if: 1) significant societal demand exists for BPI implementation and 2) the party’s political opponents cannot take advantage of BPIs for their own gain. I test this theory through two detailed case studies of Venezuela and Ecuador, drawing on 165 interviews with key national-level actors and grassroots activists.

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