The Role of the Failure of Multi-Party Systems in Bringing About Dominant Party Systems in Democratizing Countries: The Cases of Bolivia and Turkey

Abstract

Political parties are political societies that have a steady and stable organizational structure that seeks to seize control of the state mechanism with public support. Party systems refers to the arrangement within which political parties operate. Predominant party system is a condition where the opposition parties challenge the strongest party in competitive elections but fail to remove the incumbent from power. The most popular definition and classification for the concept of predominant party system remains Sartori’s conceptualization. According to Sartori, the predominance is established when a party wins three consecutive elections while keeping the majority of the seats in the parliament. How do predominant party systems emerge? This article explains the impact of the failure of multiparty systems in fostering predominant party systems in democratizing countries.