Political Party Structures and Policy Preferences in Autocracies

• In Event: Consequences of Political Parties and Organizations in Autocracies

Abstract

This paper investigates how different features of political parties in authoritarian regimes relate to their policy preferences. We first categorize political parties in dictatorships into four subtypes: (i) strong party organization + strong elite constraints (i.e., traditional dominant parties), (ii) strong party organization + weak elite constraints (i.e.., "party of power" in the post-Soviet region), (iii) weak party organization + strong elite constraints (i.e., the amalgamation of ruling elites' power bases) and (iv) weak party organization + weak elite constraints (i.e., non-party based regimes). Then, we examine how these subtypes map onto the policy preferences of these parties. We find the following preliminary results. Compared to traditional dominant parties, parties with strong organizations but weak elite constraints tend to pursue illiberal policies whereas parties with weak organizations but strong elite constraints tend to pursue liberal policies.

Authors

• Erica Frantz, Michigan State University

• Masaaki Higashijima, University of Tokyo