Levels Of Party Institutionalization Research Articles

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.

Party Institutionalization and Partisan Mobilization

AbstractThis article investigates the relationship between levels of party institutionalization and individual-level partisan mobilization. Levels of party institutionalization have been linked to macro-level outcomes such as party system stability, but little is known about the micro-level underpinnings of such patterns. This article investigates one set of mechanisms through which party institutionalization might affect electoral outcomes. Specifically, we ask how routinization and value infusion – two central dimensions of party institutionalization – shape partisans’ political mobilization. We investigate these relationships by matching data on individual-level behaviour (taken from the International Social Survey Program (ISSP) 2014 wave) with data on party attributes commonly associated with levels of institutionalization (taken from the Democratic Accountability and Linkages Project – DALP). We find that while value infusion encourages relatively greater participation from non-member supporters, party routinization depresses non-member participation but may mobilize otherwise inactive members. These findings suggest that to understand the effects of party institutionalization on a macro-level phenomenon such as electoral volatility, it may be necessary to study how parties institutionalize, rather than just asking how much they institutionalize.

Presidential Instability in Latin America: Why Institutionalized Parties Matter

AbstractPedro P. Kuczynski (Peru 2018) and Evo Morales (Bolivia 2019) are the most recent cases in a long list of Latin American presidents who have been forced out of office. We seek to contribute to understanding why some presidents fail to fulfil their terms by analysing the role of an actor overlooked by the extant literature on presidential failures: political parties. We hypothesize a non-linear relation between party institutionalization and the risk of presidential failure. That is, when parties are weakly or highly institutionalized, the hazard of presidential failure is lower than when parties are moderately institutionalized. We test this and other hypotheses with a survival analysis of 157 Latin American administrations (1979–2018). We also qualitatively explore how the occurrence (or non-occurrence) of certain events affects the risk of failure in three countries with different levels of party institutionalization. We find that party institutionalization – as well as legislative support, anti-government demonstrations, presidential scandals and economic growth – significantly affects the risk of presidential failure.

Inclusionary regimes, party institutionalization and redistribution under authoritarianism

ABSTRACT This article examines the variation in income redistribution across autocracies. It argues that the degree of electoral uncertainty affects two mechanisms that shape the redistributive nature of autocratic regimes. The inclusion and exclusion from political power on the grounds of socioeconomic and social attributes, and the institutionalization of political parties determine the incentive and capacity for autocrats to redistribute income and economic benefits. Using data from 105 autocracies between 1960 and 2016 and within-between random effects models, I estimate within- and between-country effects of the variables. The analysis suggests that more inclusionary ruling coalitions have higher levels of income redistribution compared to more exclusionary regimes. Second, regimes with higher levels of party institutionalization redistribute more than regimes in which authoritarian parties are less institutionalized. Third, the effects are largely conditional on the electoral uncertainty. This analysis improves our understanding about how authoritarian regime characteristics affect the political economy of those regimes. Its findings provide empirical support for the selectorate theory and the literature on authoritarian institutionalization and have implications for democratization and democratic consolidation.

Factional Dynamics in Philippine Party Politics, 1900–2019

The Philippines is a rich case study in the examination of intra-party factions and factionalism in competitive party systems of Southeast Asia. Intra-party factionalism is a recurring, yet understudied, aspect of Philippine party politics. The factional nature of Philippine party politics has endured through time – from bifactionalism of the post-war two-party system to the multi-factionalism of the post-authoritarian multi-party system. All the major political parties that have dominated politics at different historical epochs have experienced intense factional splits. Intra-party factionalism remains a consistent feature of party politics and has become more complicated over time. The number of factions has increased at every period of party system development, while the level of party institutionalization has remained generally low. This article seeks to address this puzzle by tracing the history of political factionalism in the Philippines. It maintains that factional resilience in Philippine party politics is an outcome of combined institutional and structural factors rooted in history. Adopting a historical institutional approach, it will delineate the path-dependent trajectory of intra-party factionalism at critical political junctures. Moreover, it will examine the role of intra-party factionalism in the under-institutionalization of the Philippine party system.

The V-Dem Party Institutionalization Index: A New Global Indicator (1900-2015)

Because levels of party institutionalization may affect the availability of good data, existing datasets have limited reliability and coverage. To overcome these problems, we introduce the V-Dem Party Institutionalization Index, the first global country-level index on the issue. It covers – as of May 2017 – 173 countries for 116 years (1900-2016). Its geographical coverage, timespan, and conceptual reach are larger than any existing alternative. We offer an additive index that measures the scope and depth of party institutionalization in a country every year. Scope is measured by the proportion of parties that reach a threshold of minimal institutionalization, while the linkages party establish with the masses and the elites define the depth. Exploring a set of well-known cases, we show that: the index has extensive face validity, is consistent across regime types, and is comparable to other established indicators of institutionalization.

Civil Society, Party Institutionalization, and Democratic Breakdown in the Interwar Period

The relationship between the strength of civil society and democratic survival in the interwar period has been much debated. Prominent studies have questioned the existence of a positive association, arguing that the relationship is conditioned by the level of party institutionalization. This revisionist perspective has been vindicated by case studies of important European cases, in particular Germany and Italy. But due to a lack of cross-national data, neither the direct effect of civil society nor the alternative perspective has so far been subjected to a comprehensive statistical analysis. In this paper we enlist novel data from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project that enable us to carry out such an assessment of all democratic spells in the interwar years. Our survival analysis demonstrates that a vibrant civil society generally contributed to democratic survival in this period and that this effect was not moderated by the level of party institutionalization.

Political party assistance in transition: the German ‘Stiftungen’ in sub-Saharan Africa

Despite the fact that the German Stiftungen (political foundations) were the first international institutions to work in the field of political party development, their party assistance has been neglected in political party research for a long time. Remarkably little is known about the approaches, strategies and results of their activities. This contribution explores the role of the Stiftungen and their party assistance approaches in the various stages of the democratization process. It explicitly traces the self-declared ambitions of the German Stiftungen, and it explores the extent to which their party assistance activities take account of the various stages of the democratic transition process and of the level of party institutionalization, or simply follow abstract, generalized and preconceived ideas. The study develops a ‘phase model of party assistance’ in the transition process and examines the party assistance activities in two illustrative cases – the Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Kenya and in South Africa – in seven dimensions of party institutionalization: (1) level of organization, (2) internal party democracy, (3) political programme, (4) autonomy, (5) roots in society, (6) coherence, and (7) regional and international integration.