Party System Institutionalization Research Articles

Explaining Party Switching in an Institutionalised Party System: The Case of South Africa

Institutionalised party systems are said to foster stronger party allegiances and fewer switches. However, this expectation is called into question when we observe the case of South Africa. Despite being characterised by a highly institutionalised dominant party system as well as party-centred electoral and candidate selection rules, South Africa has experienced frequent episodes of floor-crossing over time. This article advances an analytical framework that links elites’ vote-seeking and office-seeking incentives to party switching and party system functioning. It posits that as elites strive for (re)selection and (re-)election, they will depart from smaller to larger parties, and this ultimately reinforces the party system of the day. Utilising an original dataset of 5,230 candidates to the National Assembly and the provincial legislatures of South Africa between 1999 and 2019, the study charts the overall rate of party switching and tests hypotheses postulating the effect of party size and candidates’ electoral marginality on the likelihood of switching parties. The analyses reveal that candidates from smaller parties and those who failed to be (re-)elected by the narrowest margin are more likely to switch parties in the next election. Additionally, most candidates who switched parties tended to move to parties that fared better than their original party in the next election; and they switched from parties that either did worse or stayed the same. But we did not find a strong correlation linking party performance to switches. The study highlights the role of intra-party competition in patterns of elite migration and reveals the importance of linking elite behaviour to party system functioning.

Party System Institutionalization and Party Institutionalization : Concept, Measurement, and Implications to South Korea

Party System Institutionalization and Party Institutionalization : Concept, Measurement, and Implications to South Korea

Weak party system institutionalization and autocratization: evidence from Tunisia

ABSTRACT Why do party systems remain weak in transitioning countries in ways that can hamper the democratization process? We answer this question through a case study of Tunisia, which was the only success story of the Arab uprisings. Tunisia has experienced a process of autocratization since President Saied's presidential coup in 2021. Utilizing a historical institutionalist framework, we conducted interviews with 15 leaders from the major political parties. We find that, in contrast to conventional wisdom, the strong party institutionalization under authoritarian rule did not lead to an institutionalized party system after authoritarian rule ended. We attribute this dynamic to the inability of regime-successor parties to institutionalize, perpetuating democratic vulnerabilities inherited from authoritarian rule. We also find that too-powerful civil societies can be detrimental to transitions. The labour union, UGTT, acted as a de facto veto player and limited the ability of cabinets to implement reforms. Furthermore, leftist parties could not benefit from the UGTT's base. The 2011 revolution was a critical juncture that could have facilitated the establishment of an institutionalized party system. However, the political elite's institutional choices put additional challenges on parties. The weakness of the party system in turn contributed to President Saied's self-coup and dismantling of Tunisia's democratic institutions.

Tanah tak Bertuan: Volatilitas dan Stabilitas Elektoral di Jawa Barat Pasca Ode Baru

The changing power of political parties is one of the most important phenomena studied in democratic political systems. It can shed light on the extent to which political parties are connected to voters, the strengthening or weakening of party institutionalisation, the influence of personalities in politics, the influence of electoral and party institutional design, and so on. Studies on political party change (electoral volatility and stability) have been conducted comparatively, and some studies are conducted by looking at the national context of Indonesia. However, while studies have been conducted on these issues at the local level, they remain overlooked. This article fills this gap by presenting a description and analysis of electoral volatility and stability in West Java in the post-New Order era. Using the theoretical framework of electoral volatility and stability as well as the theory of party system institutionalisation (PSI), this study proposes three findings: high party turnover; higher electoral volatility in West Java compared to national electoral volatility; more competitive political party competition at the district/city level in West Java. The findings on electoral volatility, stability and competition are influenced by the restrictions of political party regulations, which have an impact on the decreasing number of political parties in elections, the personalisation of politics and the presidentialisation of politics, as well as the historical roots of the old-established parties that have been entrenched since the New Order era.

Ideological polarization in roll call votes in constitutional conventions: The case of Chile in 2021–2

Abstract What factors account for polarization in constitutional conventions comprised of party members and many independents without prior legislative experience? Using the 4,669 roll call votes in the 155-member constitutional convention in Chile (2021–2), comprised of more independents than party members, we explore the determinants of ideological polarization. Relying on absolute values for the WNominate scores, we find that party members are less polarized than independents and that prior legislative experience does not impact polarization. In institutionalized party systems that allow independents to compete with party members on a level playing field, a larger presence of independents in legislatures might help increase ideological polarization while a larger number of party members helps reduce ideological polarization in roll call votes.

Executive Approval Dynamics in Presidential and Parliamentary Democratic Regimes

Does the type of democratic regime matter for public evaluations of leaders? We argue two characteristics intrinsic to presidential and parliamentary regimes lead to divergent patterns of executive approval. For presidents, direct elections foster more personal leader-voter linkages; for prime ministers, dependence on the legislature for survival contributes to more institutionalized party systems. These two mechanisms should generate higher approval at the outset of a term—larger honeymoons— for presidents than for prime ministers, but also more rapid decline. Analyses of data from 40 countries produce evidence consistent with these constitutionally-based distinctions. Yet we uncover important within-regime differences. Within presidential systems, approval patterns vary along with paths to power—first-election versus re-election, and elected versus unelected. Within parliamentarism, honeymoons are greater for prime ministers overseeing single-party majoritarian governments. Study findings advance long-standing debates about the relative merits of presidential and parliamentary systems—particularly the tradeoff between democratic responsiveness and stability.

Party system institutionalization and the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes

AbstractParty system institutionalization (PSI) is regarded as a critical underpinning of democracies, but its role in non‐democratic systems has been understudied. In this paper, we evaluate whether the concept has meaningful and perhaps unique implications for the durability of competitive authoritarian regimes. We argue that a modified version of electoral volatility – the most common measure of PSI in democracies – conveys useful information about PSI in competitive authoritarian contexts by signalling the ability of the ruling party to manage the opposition. To this end, we construct an original data set that disaggregates electoral volatility into ruling party seat change and opposition party seat volatility and further divides opposition party volatility into Type‐A and Type‐B volatility. We find robust results that democratization becomes more likely when decreases in the ruling party's seat share coincide with an increase in opposition party Type‐B volatility. This paper demonstrates that the concept of PSI has utility for understanding regime dynamics in competitive authoritarian contexts.

Do populist parties promote direct democracy? An empirical assessment in 29 countries in the last two decades

ABSTRACT Populism is often associated with direct democracy. However, empirical support for this connection remains limited. Analysing a unique dataset on national referendums across 29 countries, this study challenges the presumption that populists are more inclined to advocate for referendums. Surprisingly, populists exhibit this tendency primarily when in opposition. Despite the increasing inclusion of populist parties in coalition governments, their impact on facilitating national-level direct democracy is more complex than anticipated. Utilising V-DEM data over 30 years, we find that populists prima facie enhance the use of direct democracy. However, this effect is contingent on contextual factors, such as party system institutionalisation and the democracy's age, indicating a nuanced relationship between populism and direct democratic practices.

The populist ambivalence. Presidents and democracy in Latin America

ABSTRACT This article aims to explore the conditions under which populist presidents undermine, preserve or improve democracy, with evidence from Latin America. We address five varieties of democracy in the region (electoral, liberal, participatory, deliberative, and egalitarian) from 1994 to 2019 in 18 countries and focus on the backsliding or its absence during each presidential term. To do so, we rely on a QCA approach, through which we interpret the changes on each variety, acknowledging the presence/absence of populist presidents, presidents’ popularity, political and economic critical junctures, support for democracy, an institutionalised party system and political stability. Results show an ambivalent relationship between populism and democracy as highlighted by part of the literature. Although populism emerges as an almost necessary condition for democratic backsliding in any variety, there are several cases where the presence of populist presidents led to an improvement of democracy in the different aspects analysed.

Citizens’ Stability of Electoral Preferences in Chile Since the Social Upheaval

A strong oscillation of electoral preferences took place in Chile between the election of the members of the Constitutional Convention in May 2021 and the election of the members of the Constitutional Council in May 2023. This is surprising because, until the national-scale social uprising in 2019, there was a broad consensus that Chile was a highly institutionalised party system where political preferences tended to be stable. In this research note, we study how the electoral choices made by citizens shifted between both elections, using the ecological inference approach based on a Bayesian hierarchical model developed elsewhere. We find that a vast majority of the new voters that resulted from the compulsory voting policy implemented between both elections opted for centre-right to right-wing candidates. However, this evidence is insufficient to determine whether these new voters predominantly align with right-leaning ideologies or hold anti-systemic viewpoints.

Assessing Congressional Institutionalization and Political Elites’ Renewal in Latin America Through Legislative Amateurism

Legislative experience, one of the various indicators of both congressional institutionalization and political elites’ renewal, has been mostly measured by either turnover or reelection. However, in regions such as Latin America, with more volatile and less institutionalized party systems, where most careers are not stable and ambitions are not mostly static, turnover and reelection may not be accurate measures of legislative experience. This paper aims to fill this gap by assessing parliamentary experience in Latin America by means of a more accurate indicator: legislative amateurism. Using a novel dataset comprising eighteen national single or lower-chamber legislatures over almost three decades, we find that legislative amateurism is a consequence of party system institutionalization, electoral volatility, and newly implemented gender quotas. Overall, our findings suggest that weak political parties and certain electoral rules may become fertile ground for amateur legislatorś landing in Congress.

Measuring party system institutionalization in democracies

Party system institutionalization (PSI) is regarded as a critical underpinning of democracy. However, the systematic study of PSI in democracies is constrained by weaknesses in existing measures, which are limited in coverage or comprehensiveness, and do not account for the latent nature of the concept, measurement error, and non-random missing data. This article presents a novel measure of PSI that uses a Bayesian latent variable measurement strategy to overcome extant measurement issues. The subsequent measure not only offers unmatched coverage and has demonstrated validity, but also exhibits more robust empirical associations with a range of outcomes related to the performance of democracy than existing measures. The measure should facilitate more integrated research on the causes and consequences of PSI in democracies around the world.

Party and Party System Institutionalization: Which Comes First?

Parties and party systems are treated as separate phenomena in theory, but not in research practice. This is most clearly so in the literature on the institutionalization of party politics, where the party level and the systemic levels are often analyzed through combined fuzzy indices. We 1) propose separate indicators for measuring institutionalization at the party and at the party system level, 2) demonstrate their different dynamics in twentieth and twenty-first century European countries, and 3) investigate the direction of causality. Using a dataset that covers more than 700 elections, 800 parties, and 1,400 instances of government formation in 60 different historical party systems across 45 European countries, we find that party-level institutionalization tends to precede systemic institutionalization. The opposite pattern occurs only in a few countries.

Why vote for an independent? The relevance of negative identity, independent identity, and dealignment in a pro-independent political environment

We know that political parties play a crucial role in the electoral processes of established democracies. However, we know much less about how this role fades away. In this paper, we study the case of Chile, a country that, until a few years ago, was cited as an example of a stable and institutionalized party system. We study how the phenomenon of independent candidates has shaken the national party system. We use two separate strategies to study this phenomenon. First, we measure the marginal effect of the independent label, compared to other party labels, using a conjoint experiment. Our findings show that candidates who are presented as independents have a significant increase in their probability of being chosen. Second, we measure whether this electoral effect relates to party identification. We find that respondents show low animosity towards independent candidates and high animosity towards traditional parties. Furthermore, a majority of the studied population can be classified as negative partisans. These findings suggest that the recent emergence of independent candidates is a result of negative views on parties.

‘Too many parties and still counting’: in defense of multiparty democracy in Zimbabwe

ABSTRACT Since the onset of multi-party democracy, which saw elections becoming the ‘only game in town’, political parties are viewed as lodestars of democracy. However, there are times when the political scene becomes ‘crowded’ with ‘too many parties’. This trend has been pervasive in some African countries, including Zimbabwe. How do we account for this phenomenon, and what does this say about party system institutionalisation, affective polarisation – let alone the maturation and deepening of electoral democracy? While the scholarly literature has examined party utility in entrenching multi-party democracy, particularly during the onset of the Third Wave era of democratisation, less well known is the efficacy or lack thereof of having numerous political parties in entrenching democracy. In response to this paucity of empirical research, this article focuses its analytic gaze on the Zimbabwean case study.

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The paper examined the contributions of party system to democratic development in Africa. Democratic governance and meaningful elections have long been considered unachievable in the absence of political parties and party competition. This is because party system institutionalization is important for the consolidation of democracy. Democracy instead of being the bedrock of good governance stayed on as an unfulfilled promise because the method of power acquisition remained basically authoritarian and functioned on the basis of a hierarchy of networks and alliances with local tribe, ethnic group or through top-down utter sovereignty of institutions that choke the grassroots politicization of society which had been the moral fibre of the process of democratization. To this end, it was discovered that the relationship between political parties, electoral volatility and democracy in Africa cannot be addressed unconnectedly. The paper therefore recommends that; assumptions about the trajectory and outcomes of democratic development in Africa need to be more effectively investigated on the basis of empirically informed analysis of operationalized politics in these systems. It is important to bear in mind that most of the electoral systems, laws, institutions and constitutions that govern elections in Africa were inherited from colonialism. Electoral politics came as a proposed solution to other socio-economic and political problems. This therefore calls for an amendment to these electoral processes in order to mirror the present realities in Africa as well as adhere to best practice as it is in developed democracies. It is contended that if an electoral system is to append value to democracy, it must promote the accountability of the elected representatives to their constituencies which could be furnished through strong political parties. The paper relied on secondary data using descriptive analytical method.

Институционализация партийной системы в де-факто государствах постсоветского пространства (на примере Республики Абхазия)

To ensure the democratic functioning of the state, the party system must be competitive and institutionalized, in connection with which it is relevant to study the process of institutionalization of the party system in the Republic of Abkhazia, which allows us to determine not only the stages of this process, but also a number of its features, including the degree of institutionalization . The novelty of the work: the reasons for the low level of institutionalization of parties and party systems in Abkhazia are identified. Object of study: the party system of the de facto states of the post-Soviet space. Subject: institutionalization of the party system in Abkhazia. The purpose of the work is to determine the features and main stages of the institutionalization of the party system in Abkhazia. Methodology and research methods: to analyze the process of institutionalization of the party system of Abkhazia, the organizational approach proposed in the works of M. Duverger and M. Ya. Ostrogorsky, which makes it possible to analyze the process of institutionalization of parties from the point of view of their organizational structure. The results of the research contribute to the scientific discussion about the role of political parties and the level of institutionalization of the party systems of Abkhazia and can serve as a basis for further study of the role of public associations and political parties in political processes, including in other de facto republics of the post-Soviet space. Conclusions: the programs of all parties are united in matters of the status of Abkhazia in the global political space, socio-economic development priorities and the preservation of the institution of the president; high informational activity of pro-government parties; The choice of the Abkhazian electorate is focused primarily on individuals, and not on ideology and the party program.

Predatory Co-optation and Party System Reversal: A Behavioural Perspective on Zambian Political Parties

Based on a Zambian case study of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), this paper applies the behavioural theory of party competition to explain how, through vote-seeking and office-seeking strategies, political parties may employ rapacious predatory co-optation of members from competing political parties as a mobilisation strategy. The paper concludes that in the absence of a dominant political party, parties and political elites may resort to predation to bolster their electoral fortunes. While predatory co-optation may strengthen some parties, it also weakens others and undermines or reverses party system institutionalisation and vertical accountability.

Opening the box of parties and party systems under autocratization: evidence from Turkey

ABSTRACT Party institutionalization (PI) and party system institutionalization (PSI) are critical for processes of democratization and democratic consolidation, yet their impact and relationship have not been explored under conditions of autocratization. How does autocratization relate to party and party system stability, and how does that link manifest itself? To answer those questions, we draw evidence from Turkey to demonstrate that when autocratization occurs, stabilization at the systemic level can go hand in hand with declining levels of PI. We also conceptualize the process of stabilization at the systemic level alongside unit-level de-institutionalization as a form of systemic ossification. Ossified party systems appear stable but are continuously subject to the possibility of de-stabilization, or even implosion, due to the under-institutionalization of incumbent parties. Driving factors of such (de)stabilization are: (1) the increasing unevenness of party competition and (2) increasing levels of societal and political polarization resulting from autocratization.

Legal autocratisation ahead of the 2021 Zambian elections

ABSTRACT Zambia experienced an episode of distinct democratic backsliding between 2011 and 2021. Autocratisation resulted from the deliberate use of legal mechanisms to enhance executive power. Tracing key legal changes through legal documents, press reports and informant interviews, the article examines this recent episode of autocratisation as a consequence of a poorly institutionalised party system in a fledgling and unconsolidated presidential democracy. We show that under PF rule, autocratisation resulted from the deliberate use of legal mechanisms to enhance executive power, stifle the opposition, muzzle the press and undermine civil society forces. The election of opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema in August 2021 may have ended this episode of backsliding as for the third time in the country´s history, power changed peacefully through the ballot box. But, to what extent the 2021 elections will move Zambia away from this authoritarian trend is uncertain as the state of the country’s political institutions, hereunder a poorly institutionalised party system in an unconsolidated presidential democracy, may leave it vulnerable to further episodes of backsliding. The main contribution of this paper is the documentation of the role of lawfare in processes of autocratisation, and how integral it has been to the decline of democracy in Zambia.