Parties as pay-off seekers: Pre-electoral coalitions in a patronage democracy

2021 ◽  
Vol 69 ◽  
pp. 102238
Author(s):  
Adrianus Hendrawan ◽  
Ward Berenschot ◽  
Edward Aspinall
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Coalitions

Capital and Opposition in Africa: Coalition Building in Multiethnic Societies

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 233-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonardo R. Arriola
Keyword(s):  
Commercial Banks ◽  
Coalition Building ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Political Contributions ◽  
Financial Reforms ◽  
Poor Countries ◽  
Financial Autonomy ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Multiethnic Societies

Under what conditions can opposition politicians with ethnic constituencies form electoral coalitions? In Africa's patronage-based political systems, incumbents form coalitions by using state resources to secure the endorsement of politicians from other ethnic groups. Opposition politicians, however, must rely on private resources to do the same. This article presents a political economy theory to explain how the relative autonomy of business from state-controlled capital influences the formation of multiethnic opposition coalitions. It shows that the opposition is unlikely to coalesce across ethnic cleavages where incumbents use their influence over banking and credit to command the political allegiance of business—the largest potential funder of opposition in poor countries. Liberalizing financial reforms, in freeing business to diversify political contributions without fear of reprisal, enable opposition politicians to access the resources needed to mimic the incumbent's pecuniary coalition-building strategy. A binomial logistic regression analysis of executive elections held across Africa between 1990 and 2005 corroborates the theoretical claim: greater financial autonomy for business—as proxied by the number of commercial banks and the provision of credit to the private sector—significantly increases the likelihood of multiethnic opposition coalitions being formed.

Pre-Electoral Coalition Formation in Parliamentary Democracies

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
SONA NADENICHEK GOLDER
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party System ◽  
Executive Power ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Parliamentary Democracies ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Vast Literature ◽  
Coalition Size ◽  
Government Coalition

Political parties that wish to exercise executive power in parliamentary democracies are typically forced to enter some form of coalition. Parties can either form a pre-electoral coalition prior to election or they can compete independently and form a government coalition afterwards. While there is a vast literature on government coalitions, little is known about pre-electoral coalitions. A systematic analysis of these coalitions using a new dataset constructed by the author and presented here contains information on all potential pre-electoral coalition dyads in twenty industrialized parliamentary democracies from 1946 to 1998. Pre-electoral coalitions are more likely to form between ideologically compatible parties. They are also more likely to form when the expected coalition size is large (but not too large) and the potential coalition partners are similar in size. Finally, they are more likely to form if the party system is ideologically polarized and the electoral rules are disproportional.

Social Identity, Electoral Institutions and the Number of Candidates

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-375 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric S. Dickson ◽  
Kenneth Scheve
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Politics ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Empirical Literature ◽  
Electoral Institutions ◽  
Electoral Rules ◽  
Social Cleavages ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Election Results ◽  
The Relationship

The empirical literature in comparative politics holds that social cleavages affect the number of candidates or parties when electoral institutions are ‘permissive’, but it lacks a theoretical account of the strategic candidate entry and exit decisions that ultimately determine electoral coalitions in plural societies. This article incorporates citizen-candidate social identities into game-theoretic models of electoral competition under plurality and majority-runoff electoral rules, indicating that social group demographics can affect the equilibrium number of candidates, even in non-permissive systems. Under plurality rule, the relationship between social homogeneity and the effective number of candidates is non-monotonic and, contrary to the prevailing Duvergerian intuition, for some demographic configurations even the effective number of candidates cannot be near two. Empirical patterns in cross-national presidential election results are consistent with the theoretical model.

More Than a Trace: Political Periods, Presidential Losers, and the Goldwater and McGovern Experiences

The Forum ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew E. Busch
Keyword(s):  
American Politics ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
History Of

AbstractPeriods of American politics marked by recognizable surges of ideas and activists are not driven solely by winners. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were among the biggest losers in the history of American presidential elections, yet they produced surges that continue to affect American politics decades later. These losing candidates had three things in common: 1) Their candidacies represented more than individual attempts to gain the presidency, 2) they altered their parties’ electoral coalitions and strategies, and 3) they each made distinctive arguments that laid the groundwork for future party and movement successes.

The incentives for pre-electoral coalitions in non-democratic elections

2013 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-159 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Gandhi ◽  
Ora John Reuter
Keyword(s):  
Electoral Coalitions ◽  
Democratic Elections
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