Matthijs Bogaards

How to classify hybrid regimes? Defective democracy and electoral authoritarianism

The ‘third wave’ of democratization has resulted in the proliferation of regimes that are neither fully democratic nor classic authoritarian. To capture the nature of these hybrid regimes, the democratization literature has come up with a wide variety of adjectives as descriptors of different forms of democracy and authoritarianism. This article reviews two of the most systematic recent approaches, centring on the concepts of ‘defective democracy’ and ‘electoral authoritarianism’. An important limitation of both approaches is that each covers only one side of the spectrum. Where they meet in the middle, confusion arises. As a remedy, the article suggests to embed the concepts of defective democracy and electoral authoritarianism in a ‘double-root strategy’ that maps the full range of contemporary regimes from both sides of the political spectrum.

Dominant Party Systems and Electoral Volatility in Africa A Comment on Mozaffar and Scarritt

In a recent publication in this journal, Mozaffar and Scarritt claim to have found a puzzling combination of low fragmentation and high volatility in African party systems. However, if we look at national party systems rather than Africa-wide averages, include regime type as a variable and specify dominance, we find three different constellations: dominant party systems with relatively low volatility, non-dominant and pulverized party systems with high volatility and dominant authoritarian party systems with high volatility. The real surprise is that dominant parties in authoritarian regimes have higher electoral instability than dominant parties in democracies. The analyis is based on data from 78 elections in 20 African countries with at least three consecutive multiparty elections.

Measuring Democracy through Election Outcomes: A Critique with African Data

Cross-national measures of democracy are widely used to track the development and spread of democracy around the world and to study the causes and correlates of democratization. Most of the best-known democracy indexes have a component on election outcomes. In many measures, election outcomes make a significant contribution to a countrys overall rating, and in some, the outcomes are even decisive. However, in the first empirical test of this relationship, using data from 165 African multiparty elections in 26 countries, this article demonstrates that election outcomes are not consistently related to democracy and that the assumptions behind such a relationship are problematic. Therefore, election outcomes are a flawed shortcut to measuring democracy.

Where to draw the line? From degree to dichotomy in measures of democracy

While there is much debate about the merits of dichotomous versus continuous measures of democracy, surprisingly little attention is paid to the question as to how to go from degree to dichotomy. This study identifies no less than 38 different ways in which Freedom House and Polity scores have been used to distinguish between democracies and non-democracies. The analysis shows that it is difficult to draw the line in measures of democracy, even for Freedom House and Polity themselves. These problems are illustrated with the help of a recent study on democratization in Africa. The conclusion formulates some guidelines for good practice and points at the potential of disaggregated scores to distinguish between democracy and dictatorship.

Ethnic party bans in Africa: an introduction

During the 1990s the number of African states allowing multiparty elections increased dramatically. Paradoxically, this has been accompanied in the majority of countries by legal bans on ethnic and other particularistic parties. The main official reason has been the aim of preventing the politicization of ethnicity as this is feared to lead to ethnic conflict and political instability. Despite the resurgent interest in institutional engineering, this phenomenon has received little scholarly attention. This contribution outlines the main research questions and preliminary answers of a collaborative research project which combines large and small N comparisons and case studies. Bans are relatively rarely enforced and the decision actually to ban parties is best explained by the interaction of an experience of ethnic violence in the past and hybrid regimes using these measures to restrict political party competition. Positive effects on democracy and conflict management seem generally limited and are context dependent.

Ethnic party bans and institutional engineering in Nigeria

Nigeria is the African country that implemented ethnic party bans most systematically. At different points in time, a total of at least 64 parties has been denied registration for failing to demonstrate ‘national presence’. Nigeria is also the African country with the longest record in institutional engineering. Ethnic party bans are one instrument in a broader repertoire of incentives for the creation of national parties that transcend the manifold socio-cultural differences. This article provides an overview of the often highly innovative ways in which successive Nigerian leaders, especially military, have sought to control the political organization of ethnicity in the process of democratization.

Elections, Election Outcomes, and Democracy in Southern Africa

Elections and election outcomes are widely used as a convenient short cut to measuring democracy. If this were correct, information on elections and election outcomes would be a time- and cost-saving means of identifying regime type. However, this article shows that the influential democracy measures of Beck et al., Ferree and Singh, Przeworski et al., and Vanhanen fail to adequately identify regime type when applied to ten countries in Southern Africa. For most countries, it is not possible to distinguish democracies from non-democracies on the basis of elections and election outcomes. Multi-party elections are not always free, fair, and democratic; dominant parties and dominant party systems are not necessarily undemocratic; large election victories are not by themselves proof of foul play; and not all authoritarian regimes maintain their rule through overwhelming parliamentary or electoral majorities.

The Origins and Institutional Environment of Consociational Parties

Where do consociational parties come from? And, if consociation-alism, why intraparty instead of interparty consociationalism? These are questions about the origin of consociational parties and the factors contributing to their development. The question why consociationalism in some countries has taken the form of representation and accommodation inside the ruling party and in other countries came about through interparty arrangements among segmental parties has not been addressed in the elaborate consociational literature, for the simple reason that the distinction between intra-and interparty consociationalism has been overlooked. Hence, the first aim of this comparative chapter will be to examine the conditions that give rise to consociational parties. The second aim is to place consociational parties within the broader context of their political systems. More precisely, the analysis will focus on the interaction between consocia-tional parties and the main political institutions. The argument will be that consociational parties benefit from majoritarian institutions. This is a new, at first blush surprising, insight that can be explained by the position of consociational parties as dominant parties.

From Inter-to Intraparty Consociationalism in South Africa?

There is little doubt that the interim constitution that helped South Africa’s transition to an inclusive polity contained power-sharing arrangements.1 However, the permanent constitution and the departure of the National Party (NP) from the Government of National Unity (GNU) in 1996 weakened political accommodation in this plural society. When the African National Congress (ANC) established itself as the dominant party, some observers put their hope in the ANC becoming more inclusive and participatory. This development can be conceptualized as the transformation of a standard form of consociationalism among different parties, each representing their own community, to consociationalism within one, consociational, party. This chapter examines the record of the ANC as a consociational party that within itself represents and accommodates the country’s diversity. It looks at party organization, internal representation, and internal accommodation of socio-cultural differences within the context of the dominant position of the ANC in the wider political system. The conclusion will be that the ANC appears even more negatively disposed to internal consociationalism than it has been to interparty consociationalism, pointing at the possibility of a long-lasting political marginalization of minority interests.

Non-democratic Consociational Parties

The very existence of consociational parties in non-democracies may be doubted due to the powerful constraints that the authoritarian regime logic of power concentration puts on representation and accommodation. Brooker (2000) mentions Kenya as an example of a “party dictatorship”. Linz (2000) discusses Communist Yugoslavia in the section on “post-totalitarian authoritarian regimes”. This notwithstanding, observers have pointed out elements of socio-cultural representation and accommodation inside one-party states and these claims deserve to be scrutinized. Two types of non-democratic consociational parties have been identified and selected for further analysis: the single party (KANU in Kenya) and the League Model (the Yugoslav Communist Party).