Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Close examination of cross-national data on single-party rule and breakdown reveals no clear pattern of longevity, leaving open the question of whether single parties themselves create any strengthening effect. In this essay, I argue that single-party organizations only strengthen regimes given certain antecedent conditions to their establishment. I develop a dynamic model of single-party regime consolidation to explain the dramatic variation in longevity among these regimes. The strength of the opposition and level of access to rent patronage revenues during consolidation, I argue, structure the choices available to rulers early in the regime consolidation process. A weak opposition and ready access to rent revenues makes a low-cost consolidation possible, but also provides little incentive to build a robust coalition or strong party organization; this trajectory generates weak single-party rule that is likely to collapse under crisis. Conversely, rulers who face a powerful opposition and have little or no access to rent revenues have no choice but to offer potential allies access to policy making and have powerful incentives to build a strong party organization. Regimes such as these, even though their consolidation is more difficult, prove more resilient over the long run. I conduct an initial plausibility test of the argument against paired comparisons of Guinea-Bissau and Tanzania and of Indonesia and the Philippines.