The Political Economy of Authoritarian Single-Party Dominance

Authoritarian dominant party systems: meaningful elections where one party maintains the ability to determine social choice through government policy for at least 20 consecutive years or four consecutive elections.

Three elements to difference single party dominance thorugh elections of authoritarian:

1. Single-party dominance implies a power threshold.
Dominance: the ability to determine social choice through policy and legislation.

2. Longevity treshold
30-50 years, permanent or semi permanent governance
If the country hasn't arrived this treshold, it will be consider as proto-dominant party systems.

3. Electoral competition msut be meaningful:

a)The chief executive and a legislature that cannot be dismissed by the executive are chosen through regualr  popular elections.
b)Opposition forces are allowed to form independent parties and compete in elections.
c)The incumbent does not engage in outcome-changing electoral fraud without which dominant party rule would have ended.

Examples: Malaysia (UMNO), Mexico (PRI), Senegal (PS), Singapore (PAP), Taiwan (KMT), Gambia (PPP).

Dominant parties endure despite poor economic performance, voter demand for new parties, and sifficiently permissive electoral isntitutions. Dominant parties continue to win then they can politicize public resources, and they fail when privatizations put the state's fiscal power out of their reach.

The political economy of single-party dominance consits of a large state and a politically quiescent public bureaucracy.  Dominant parties can transform public resources intro patronage goods and illicit funds for partisan compaigning that allow them to buy votes, outspend the opposition at every turn, and make otherwise meaningful elections unfair.  Uncovering the link between the macroeconomic role of the state and the degree of party competition has three main implications:

1. Dominant parties cannot long survive without access to a steady stream of resources, and the msot realible stream comes from transforming the state from a neutral actor into the party's piggy bank.

2. Given that incumbents will no doubt try to use the state's fiscal power for partisan advantage, domestic and international actors interested in creating fair elections should focus on transparent accounting and third party audits of the public sector as well as professionalizing public bureaucracies to make them into neutral defenders of the public through.  Altough there are some dominant parties in  countries such as Malaysia where they can resist the pressure to privatize or find alternative revenue streams, they will need to compete on a more level playing field.

3. Two avenues for future research:

-Studying dominant party systems shows the effect of politicized public resources on partisan competition in extreme instances of the incumbency advantage.

-Identify how incumbents use the state's fiscal power in a range of systems.


Dominant party decline over time

-There are some elements can't explain this fact: social cleavages, higher electoral district magnitude, increased number of competitive parties,  Other variables do a poor job: economic performance, GDP per capita, trade openness or the proportion of democracies in a given region.

There is some evidence that higher ethno-linguistic fragmentation makes dominant parties more vulnerable. Same electoral district magnitude.

Dominant parties persist or fail based primarily on the their ability to politicize public resources.

Dominant parties are threatened when the incumbent's access to public resources declines and opposition parties have more equal opportunities to compete for votes.

The fiscal power of the state is used to distort partisan competition. One particular element of economic liberalization  - the privatization of state-owned enterprises, breaks these monopolies and promotes transitions to fully competitive democracy.

Method: association between resource advantages derived from the public budget and dominant party persitence in power.


Resource Asymmeteries and Single-Party Dominance

Dominant parties - resources advantages from the public budget
                           a large public sector allows the incumbent
                           state encourages domestic businesses 'to play to play'
                           transform public agencies into campaign headquarters
                           public bureaucracy is politically controled through non merit based hiring
                           increase the costs of support opposition parties*
                           it can also deploy the repressive apparatus of the state
                           use their advantages strategically to generate the most votes for the lowest cost
                           his power rise with the size of the public sector


*Forgoing patronage goods that one might receive by choosing the dominant party
Risk of physical coercion

The Political Economy of Authoritarian Single-Party Dominance

Kenneth F. Greene

Comparative Political Studies 2010 43:807