Abstract
AbstractAspiring dominant-party regimes often institute major institutional and political reforms at the national level to ensure they retain control. However, subnational politics is an important, under-studied, component of regime consolidation. This study uses mayoral races in Hungary and Poland from 2006 to 2018 to examine two factors that may inhibit dominant-party regime consolidation in local politics: the use of two-round, i.e. runoff, electoral systems and strategic coordination among opposition parties. While we find little evidence that strategic coordination can lead to widespread opposition success in single-round systems, we do find that increasing the number of candidates decreases the likelihood of the nationally dominant party winning in the first round while not affecting the second round. As such, two-round mayoral elections may be an important buffer to dominant-party regime consolidation and may provide a training ground for the future opposition.
Highlights
Aspiring dominant-party regimes often institute major institutional and political reforms at the national level to ensure they retain control
We find evidence that two-round electoral systems advantage opposition candidates but little evidence that strategic coordination on its own is effective in blocking the encroachment of dominant parties into local government
The models are organized into three groups, with country-specific subsets depending on the hypotheses under examination: a first set of baseline models with only the control variables included; a second set focusing on unified opposition strategies; and a third set examining two-round electoral systems
Summary
If local-level opposition coordination is a viable strategy in post-communist circumstances, we should observe a positive relationship between the number of candidates and the dominant-party candidate’s odds of victory. The possibility of a second round limits the incentives for opposition candidates to cooperate and unify in the first round, which would lead us to expect more candidates entering races How might this affect the dominant-party candidate’s odds? Fidesz evolved as a party catering to rural voters and maintained this electoral strength as it achieved structural dominance (Knutsen 2013), while PiS performs much worse in urban areas in national elections (Marcinkiewicz 2018) Both parties are considered to have their base in small- to medium-sized municipalities that are less economically dynamic, whose residents are older on average and have lower levels of educational attainment.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
