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Ruling Parties in Authoritarian Regimes: Rethinking Institutional Strength

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2019

Anne Meng Open the ORCID record for Anne Meng [Opens in a new window]
Anne Meng*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

A key finding in the literature on authoritarian regimes is that leaders frequently rely on ruling parties to stay in power, but the field lacks systematic ways to measure autocratic party strength. As a result, it is not clear how often ruling parties are actually strong and capable of carrying out important functions. This article demonstrates that strong ruling parties are much rarer than is typically assumed. Using a global sample of dictatorships from 1946–2008, the author shows that most ruling parties are unable to survive the death or departure of the founding leader. This is true even of many ruling parties that have been coded as leading single-party regimes. While strong parties may be key to durable authoritarianism, relatively few parties are truly strong.

Keywords

authoritarian regimeruling partyparty strengthcomparative political institutionsmeasurement
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 526 - 540
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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