Sequencing and Democratization

• In Event: Varities of Time in Comparative Historical Analysis

Abstract

One of the primary contributions of Robert A. Dahl’s (1971) Polyarchy was to frame successful democratization as dependent upon the timing of contestation and participation. Dahl argued that historically, the path in which contestation preceded participation was more conducive to democracy. This paper argues that Dahl overlooked the pivotal role of political parties as drivers of mobilization under conditions of electoral uncertainty. Where competitive elections came first, parties primarily functioned to organize groups of ideologically likeminded individuals in parliamentary sessions and develop bonds of mutual trust between political elites. With the extension of suffrage, these parties built professional organizations to capture the new voters based on programmatic appeals. By contrast, where near universal (male) suffrage and competitive elections occurred in tandem, trust between elites was weaker and elites saw fit to nurture local connections and court voters via clientelist linkages, which had a dampening effect on democratic deepening and stability. Using data from the Varieties of Democracy Project for a sample of roughly 200 countries between 1789 and 2017, we demonstrate two findings. First, the negative impact of suffrage extensions on political party programmatic appeals is stronger in the absence of institutions that ensure competitive elections, as indicated by electoral management body capacity and autonomy and election registries. Second, political party clientelism exerts a negative impact on the rate of democratization and the likelihood of observing a liberal democracy. Testing sequences involving election constraints, parties, and suffrage go beyond the boundaries of Dahl’s contestation-first argument and highlight the importance of the nature of party competition for understanding historical democratic development.

Authors

• Matthew Charles Wilson, University of South Carolina

• David Andersen, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University