TY - JOUR
T1 - The Perils of Parliamentarism
T2 - Executive Selection Systems and Democratic Transitions from Electoral Authoritarianism
AU - Higashijima, Masaaki
AU - Kasuya, Yuko
N1 - Funding Information:
Previous versions of this paper were presented at the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association (2014), Japanese Political Science Association, and Japan Association for Comparative Politics (2016). The authors appreciate valuable feedback from the participants of these conferences. We are also grateful that Stefano Bartolini, Charles Crabtree, Shingo Hamanaka, Yusaku Horiuchi, Kosuke Imai, Austin Mitchell, Kota Mori, Yoshikuni Ono, Manabu Sengoku, and Yuki Shiraito provided helpful comments in the process of revising this paper. Lastly, the two anonymous reviewers made constructive and helpful feedback, which we really appreciate.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022/6
Y1 - 2022/6
N2 - Why are some electoral authoritarian regimes immune to democratization for decades while others not? This article explores the impact of executive selection systems on democratic transitions from electoral authoritarianism. We argue that under electoral authoritarian regimes, Parliament-based systems permit dictators to more effectively deter democratization compared to Presidential systems. This is because Parliament-based systems indirectly allow electoral manipulation to achieve a victory at the ballot box, such as through gerrymandering and malapportionment. Parliament-based systems also make it difficult for opposition parties to coordinate and incentivize autocrats and ruling elites to engage in power-sharing and thus institutionalize ruling parties. We test our hypothesis as well as the underlying mechanisms employing a dataset of 93 electoral authoritarian countries between 1946 and 2012. Cross-national statistical analyses with instrumental variables estimation provide supporting evidence for our theory.
AB - Why are some electoral authoritarian regimes immune to democratization for decades while others not? This article explores the impact of executive selection systems on democratic transitions from electoral authoritarianism. We argue that under electoral authoritarian regimes, Parliament-based systems permit dictators to more effectively deter democratization compared to Presidential systems. This is because Parliament-based systems indirectly allow electoral manipulation to achieve a victory at the ballot box, such as through gerrymandering and malapportionment. Parliament-based systems also make it difficult for opposition parties to coordinate and incentivize autocrats and ruling elites to engage in power-sharing and thus institutionalize ruling parties. We test our hypothesis as well as the underlying mechanisms employing a dataset of 93 electoral authoritarian countries between 1946 and 2012. Cross-national statistical analyses with instrumental variables estimation provide supporting evidence for our theory.
KW - Autocratic elections
KW - Democratic transitions
KW - Electoral authoritarianism
KW - Electoral fraud
KW - Parliamentarism
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U2 - 10.1007/s12116-022-09350-3
DO - 10.1007/s12116-022-09350-3
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125050368
SN - 0039-3606
VL - 57
SP - 198
EP - 220
JO - Studies in Comparative International Development
JF - Studies in Comparative International Development
IS - 2
ER -