Opposition Boycott Research Articles

Elections in Nondemocratic Settings: When and Why Do They Help Regime Survival?

Background: Elections in nondemocratic settings are expected to play a regime sustaining role and a regime subverting role. Recent research finds that these two seemingly competing views are not mutually exclusive, but rather complementary with each other. This is the case because the regime subverting role of elections is at work in the short run, whereas the regime sustaining role operates in the long term. In this paper, I argue that these effects are conditional on the nature of competition in those elections. Specifically, I contend that these effects that derive from the informational role of elections do not emerge when opposition forces boycott the elections. Methods: Using data from 262 nondemocratic regimes in 116 countries from 1946 to 2007, I examined (1) whether holding multiparty elections with ex ante competition increases the risks of authoritarian breakdowns; (2) whether holding multiparty elections without opposition boycott increases the risks of authoritarian breakdowns in the short term; and (3) whether holding multiparty elections without opposition boycott decreases the likelihood of authoritarian breakdowns in the long run. Results: First, only legislative elections with ex ante competition are found to increase the probability of authoritarian breakdowns. Second, both presidential and legislative elections increase the likelihood of authoritarian breakdowns in the short term only if viable opposition candidates or parties compete. Lastly, both presidential and legislative elections decrease the chances of authoritarian breakdowns in the long run, but this effect is present only when viable opposition do not boycott the elections. Conclusions: The regime subverting role and the regime sustaining role of elections in nondemocratic settings can be contaminated by the absence of opposition forces. This paper suggests a need to further scrutinize the nature and quality of elections when assessing their impact on the survival of nondemocratic regimes.

Demokratie auf dem Abstellgleis? Eine Bestandsaufnahme des serbischen Parteien- systems nach der Parlamentswahl 2020

Serbia’s 2020 parliamentary election, held amid a pandemic and an opposition boycott, received an unusual amount of international attention. It marked the temporary nadir of Serbia’s democratic development after the fall of the autocrat Slobodan Milošević and, at the same time, the zenith of the rise of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) under Aleksandar Vučić. In the twenty years in between, various governments faced numerous domestic and external challenges that have hampered sustainable democratization of the state, of parties, and society. From candidate selection to the management and control of elections as well as the formation of parliamentary parties, ubiquitous party potentates control political decision-making in Serbia. The explanation for supposed paradoxes, such as the population’s low confidence in political parties while party membership is high, lies in the close-meshed connections between state institutions, businesses, and the ruling parties. The population’s hopes for democratic change rest less in the divided opposition parties than in social and civic organizations.

Venezuela: An Unstable Equilibrium

Venezuela’s descent into the abyss deepened in 2018. Half of the country’s GDP has been lost in the last five years; poverty and income inequality have deepened, erasing the previous gains from the earlier years of the Bolivarian Revolution. Significant economic reforms failed to contain the hyperinflation, and emigration accelerated to reach three million people between 2014 and 2018, ten percent of the population. Politically, the government of Nicolas Maduro completed its authoritarian turn following the failed Santo Domingo dialogue in February, and called for an early election in May 2018. Maduro’s victory amidst a partial opposition boycott and international condemnation set the stage for a major constitutional clash in January 2019, when the world was divided between acknowledging Maduro’s second term or an opposition-declared interim president, Juan Guaido.

Why Boycott of the Elections is a Bad Idea?

By studying the game theory, we find that many games are related to each other and leave mutual effect on each other. In addition, we find that the Nash equilibrium does not exist in some games or, if there is in one, does not describe a real event. Here we show that the matching pennies game with pure strategy has the solution, but this solution is a game that happens simultaneously with this game. Using this solution, we will answer the Brookings Institution's question of boycotting the election whether the opposition's boycott of elections is, in different circumstances, a defeated strategy. A strategy that its result in most cases is failure and the least possible consequence by the opposition. In response to the Brookings Institution's question, one of the major issues facing political science theorists is whether the realization of democracy requires a consensus and a public agreement on the public sphere. So far, various answers have been given to this question. In this article, we will focus on the two key concepts of agonism and antagonism, while briefly reviewing the answers.

Parliamentary Democracy in Bangladesh: An Evaluation of the Parliament during 1991–2006

This study of three parliaments in Bangladesh during 1991–2006 argues that parliament has failed to become the centre of political and legislative activities. This is mainly because the ruling parties deliberately bypass parliament, while the opposition deserts it. The parliament has been dysfunctional for more than half of its tenure. For the short periods it has been active, its business sessions were devoted more to party political bickering than legislative activity. Due to the opposition boycott, the ruling party's negligence and the absenteeism of ordinary members, the standing committees of the parliaments were less effective, and parliamentary accountability of government was lacking.

Ghana’s Encouraging Elections: A Major Step Forward

Ghana’s Encouraging ElectionsA Major Step Forward Terrence Lyons (bio) On 7 December 1996, President Jerry Rawlings won his second multiparty election in Ghana, completing another important step in the building of sustainable political and economic institutions in that West African state. Previous elections, in 1992, ended in charges of fraud and an opposition boycott of the 200-seat, unicameral National Assembly. This time, however, important reforms in the electoral system and a spirited campaign by an opposition coalition gave Ghanaians a meaningful choice on election day. The opposition won a third of the seats in the Assembly, and can use this base both to scrutinize the Rawlings government and to build more effective political parties for subsequent elections. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Courtesy of the U.S. State Department While the election received less attention than it deserved in the international media, Ghana offers a series of hopeful lessons for African states struggling with the challenges of macroeconomic structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and the transition from authoritarianism to democracy. The case of Ghana also highlights the tendency in a number of African countries for soldiers who seized power through coups to reinvent themselves as democratic leaders. In such West African states as Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso, Guinea, and Gambia, military leaders have remained in power in part by manipulating elections or by forcing the opposition to withdraw. President Rawlings of Ghana, a former air force officer, has cultivated a rural base of support that has allowed him to go from coup leader to winner of two multiparty elections—all while steering the country through a difficult period of economic reform. Ghana has served as the preeminent test case of structural adjustment [End Page 65] in Africa. Following the virtual collapse of the formal economy in the early 1980s, the Rawlings government reversed its populist policies and adopted an SAP with the strong encouragement of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and bilateral donors. The results were dramatic. The country’s GDP grew at rates of 6 to 7 percent annually from 1984 to 1988—the highest in sub-Saharan Africa at that time. These considerable economic accomplishments, however, began to stall in the early 1990s. The disputed 1992 elections and the subsequent opposition boycott of parliament raised questions about stability and made private investors wary [End Page 66] . The stakes in the 1996 election, therefore, were high. As the Financial Times put it: “If Ghana falters in its trailblazing role, not only will international confidence in the continent’s capacity to recover be jolted, the credibility of the donors’ development strategy for Africa will also be eroded.” 1 Ghana could not afford to stand pat, and still less to repeat the contentious 1992 elections. The Rule of Rawlings To evaluate the transition in Ghana, it is necessary to understand the degree to which both economic and political institutions had deteriorated by the time of Rawlings’s 31 December 1981 coup. Ghana had achieved independence in 1957 with a per-capita income roughly equal to South Korea’s. Over the next 25 years, however, disastrous import-substitution strategies, sagging export revenues, rampant corruption, and statism laid waste to the economy. Between 1974 and 1981, for example, GDP dropped 15 percent and cocoa exports, the leading source of foreign exchange, shrank by more than 40 percent. The independence movement in Ghana was led by Kwame Nkrumah and his Convention People’s Party (CPP). In 1966, after a decade of increasingly authoritarian rule, a coup toppled him. Following an election three years later, the military returned power to civilians. The winners of this election, Prime Minister Kofi A. Busia and his Progress Party, ruled for just over two years. Senior military officers retook power in early 1972. In June 1979, then-Flight Lieutenant Rawlings led the Armed Forces Revolution Council in a junior-officers’ putsch. Later that year, Rawlings handed power over to President Hilla Limann and his People’s National Party (PNP), the winners of national elections. It was Limann whom Rawlings overthrew on the last day of 1981. 2 This thumbnail sketch shows that elections and established political parties are as much...

Political Unrest and Democracy in Bangladesh

Two focal demands dominated the 22-month confrontation, bitter impasse, widespread anti-government rioting, and for a period of time, strident non-cooperation movement during 1994-96 in Bangladesh. They were: (1) the resignation of Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, and (2) her replacement by a nonpartisan caretaker government to supervise new elections and transfer of power to newly elected leaders. Both demands originated with the Awami League's (AL) allegations that the governing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) had blatantly rigged a by-election in the district of Magura and that the AL could not hope for free and fair voting under a BNP-led government. But Khaleda refused to yield to what she perceived as unconstitutional opposition pressure and stayed to the end of her term despite the opposition's boycott of Parliament. The government held a general election in the middle of violent political unrest on February 15, 1996, without any nonpolitical interim executive to supervise it. The protest intensified drastically after the election, which the BNP won easily-with all major opposition parties boycotting the polls-and Khaleda was inaugurated as the prime minister for a second term. But as the protests reached a climax, she acceded to opposition demands, and the 13th constitutional amendment establishing a caretaker government to supervise future elections was hurriedly approved by the newly elected Parliament to facilitate her resignation. Once the constitutional provision was in place, the Parliament elected in February was dissolved and Khaleda stepped down in March. A nonpolitical caretaker executive headed by former Chief Justice Habibur Rahman assumed authority under the amended Constitution, the second interregnum in five years entrusted with the supervision of an election and trans-

The Dispute Over Japan's Police Law

A T JAPAN'S GENERAL ELECTION in May 1958 Mr. Kishi's Liberal-Democratic Party retained its absolute majority unimpaired. Although it was not among the principal issues of the campaign, the Party in its election manifesto called for industrial peace based on enlightened management and a cessation of the periodical spring and autumn strike offensives of organized labour. It also committed itself to institute criminal proceedings, as in the past, against civil servants who indulged in dispute action, to enforce the school-teachers' efficiency rating system, and to reestablish the teaching of ethics in the schools as a separate, compulsory, subject. In the ensuing session of the Diet in June, although the Premier spoke of the necessity for dealing firmly with undemocratic activity, whether it came from the left or the right, the Government devoted itself principally to matters left over from the previous session. On September 29 the Diet was reconvened for a forty-day session. Simultaneously a legislative programme was announced containing some forty specific bills most of which were not controversial. A week later it was announced that discussions were in progress within the Liberal-Democratic Party with a view to immediately introducing a Police Duties Law Amendment Bill. On October 8 the Cabinet hastily approved the bill and announced that it would be introduced in the House of Representatives the following day. The Opposition (the Socialists) immediately denounced the bill as reestablishing the Police State, declared their determination to prevent its becoming law, and threatened to boycott all Diet proceedings if the Government attempted to force through the legislation. The Liberal-Democrats replied that they were prepared to pass the Bill even in the absence of the Opposition. The Opposition boycott began on October io and the following day, after two days of inconclusive discussion between the leaders of both parties, the Speaker (a Liberal-Democrat) committed the bill to the appropriate House committee (Local Administration Committee). This action was denounced by the Opposition as an attempt to stifle discussion and was criticised by the press as partisan. However, though unprecedented in the case of an important bill, the Speaker's action would appear to have been lawful