Consequences of Authoritarian Party Exit and Reinvention for Democratic Competition

• Author: Anna Grzymala-Busse
• Date: 01 September 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414019897683
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414019897683

Comparative Political Studies

2020, Vol. 53(10-11) 1704 –1737

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DOI: 10.1177/0010414019897683

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Article

Consequences of

Authoritarian Party

Exit and Reinvention for

Democratic Competition

Anna Grzymala-Busse1

Abstract

How do the successors to authoritarian ruling parties influence subsequent

democratic party competition? The existing literature does not distinguish

among these parties, nor does it differentiate among the distinct strategies of

their adaptation to the collapse of authoritarian rule. As a result, the impact

of these parties on democracy has been unclear and difficult to discern. Yet,

using a novel data set with observations from postcommunist Europe, Africa,

Asia, and Latin America, I find that the exit of authoritarian ruling parties from

power and their subsequent reinvention as committed democratic competitors

are powerfully associated with robust democratic party competition. Mixed

effects regressions and estimates of treatment effects show that authoritarian

exit and reinvention promote the success of democratic party competition.

Keywords

authoritarian successor parties, party competition, quality of democracy

Introduction

How do authoritarian ruling parties and their successors shape postauthoritar-

ian democracies? Specifically, how does their exit from power and subse-

quent transformation influence party competition? Even after their grip on

1Department of Political Science, Stanford University, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Anna Grzymala-Busse, Department of Political Science, Stanford University, Encina Hall,

616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305, USA.

Email: amgbusse@stanford.edu

897683CPSXXX10.1177/0010414019897683Comparative Political StudiesGrzymala-Busse

research-article2020

Grzymala-Busse 1705

power ends, many formerly authoritarian ruling parties continue to partici-

pate in politics. Strikingly, many of these parties reinvent themselves into

democratic competitors, renouncing authoritarianism, accepting democratic

norms, and transforming their organizations, symbols, and programs accord-

ingly. Yet we know little about the consequences of authoritarian exit and

reinvention on subsequent party competition: how vigorous or volatile it is.

By examining these strategies, we can resolve some of the confusion about

the impact of authoritarian successor parties on democratic competition.

Using a novel data set, this article finds that authoritarian exit and reinvention

are powerfully associated with robust political party competition.

Authoritarian ruling parties, whether single ruling parties or hegemonic

parties that tolerate some competition, are as dominant as they are a durable

form of autocracy. They comprise over half (57%) of the autocratic regimes

from 1950 to 2006 (Magaloni & Kricheli, 2010). Their prevalence has actually

increased over time (Reuter & Gandhi, 2010, p. 88). They are stable and

sturdy, partly because they can resolve the critical problems of coopting soci-

ety and credibly sharing power among elites (Geddes, 1999, p. 132; Svolík,

2012). Their ranks include the communist rulers that dominated the politics of

the 27 countries of the former Soviet Bloc, and who continue to exert a politi-

cal monopoly in China, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam. They have also been preva-

lent in Africa, where their rule has followed colonial liberation, and has

buttressed (or simply veiled) strong man rule in many cases (Riedl, 2014).

Authoritarian ruling parties also include hegemonic parties that allowed nomi-

nal competition in countries such as Malaysia, Taiwan until 2000, Singapore

and Indonesia until 1998, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, and Gabon

after the 1990s, and the PRI in Mexico until 2000.

These parties rule by penetrating society with enormous organizations and

bureaucratic rule (notably in the German Democratic Republic, and in many

other communist parties of the former Soviet Bloc), but also by serving as an

organizational veneer for personalistic rule (as in Romania, Ghana, Iraq, or

Gabon.) Their ideologies have ranged from Marxism (the Soviet Bloc,

Angola, Mozambique, etc.) to socialism (Tunisia, Senegal, Nicaragua) to

secular state-building (Turkey and Mexico) to conservative rule in the name

of national security (South Korea, Singapore, or Malaysia.)

In short, these parties are as widespread and diverse as they are resilient.

Yet their hold on power can end. The loss of their monopoly on policymak-

ing, elite selection, and security signals a regime collapse (cf. Geddes et al.,

2014). Parties can react to the collapse of their regimes in several ways.

First, they may retain a role in governance, even if it means sharing office.

Alternatively, they can exit government altogether. If they exit, they face a

second choice: whether to dissolve or remain on the political scene. If they

1706 Comparative Political Studies 53(10-11)

remain, their successors1 face a third choice: whether to retain their ortho-

dox/authoritarian commitments or transform themselves into democratic

competitors.

These decisions, and especially the factors that allowed some authoritarian

ruling parties to reinvent themselves after the collapse of their rule, have been

examined extensively. The most spectacular case of such reinvention were

some of the ruling communist parties in East Central Europe (Bozóki &

Ishiyama, 2002; Grzymala-Busse, 2002; Haughton, 2004; Ishiyama, 1995,

2001; Mahr & Nagle, 1995; Orenstein, 1998; Pop-Eleches, 1999; Waller,

1995; Ziblatt, 1998). As a result, we know quite a bit about how and why

authoritarian ruling parties adapt to democracy. Elite skills, material resources,

and favorable reputations inherited from the previous regime, subnational

organizations, and international incentives all made it possible for these par-

ties to weather and to survive the transition to democracy (Cyr, 2017; Langston,

2017; Loxton, 2015; Miller, 2017).

Yet we know far less about the consequences of authoritarian exit and

reinvention for subsequent regimes. The considerable literatures on authori-

tarian reinvention and party competition have rarely engaged each other.2 It

is these choices and their legacies that are examined here. If successor parties

are often the single most salient inheritance from previous authoritarian sin-

gle-party rule, then we need to know more about their impact on subsequent

politics, and the democratic party competition that may follow.

This article makes three contributions to our understanding of the legacies

of authoritarian party rule. First, it argues that the strategies of authoritarian

ruling parties significantly influence subsequent democratic party competi-

tion. Specifically, the parties’ exit from power and their reinvention as com-

mitted democrats have a strong positive influence on the quality of party

competition, electoral democracy, and the stabilization of party systems. As

the most formidable potential opponents to democracy, and as both the chief

target and source of criticism, they are critical players in ways that other

political parties are not.

Second, we need to distinguish how authoritarian ruling parties respond to

the collapse of their rule. Much of the current literature fails to discern

between reinvented and orthodox parties, and it treats authoritarian successor

parties as functionally equivalent. Yet an authoritarian ruling party that rein-

vents itself sheds its ideological and organizational ballast and becomes a

democratic political actor can bolster nascent democratic party competition.

In contrast, an authoritarian ruling party that is reluctant to leave power and

continues to rely on its favorable access to state resources, autocratic ideol-

ogy, and extant elite networks is likely to undermine, if not stifle, democratic

party competition.