Chapter 6 Why Authoritarian Parties? The Regime Party as an ...

on cooptation.
CHAPTER 6
The following two examples illustrate this logic. In their analysis of patrimonial politics
in Africa, Bratton and Van de Walle (1997, 86) identify “plebiscitary” and “competitive”
one-party regimes as an important subset of African dictatorships. Insiders within these
regimes have strong incentives to remain loyal because
“[they] have typically risen through the ranks of political service and ...derive
livelihood principally from state or party offices. Because they face the prospect
of losing all visible means of support in a political transition, they have little
option but to cling to the regime, to sink or swim with it.”
In a similar spirit, Hough (1980, 33) explains that prospects for regime change in the
Soviet Union under Brezhnev were grim because
“the Soviet government has thus far been skillful in the way it has tied the fate
of many individuals in the country to the fate of the regime. By admitting
such a broad range of the educated public into the party, it has provided full
opportunities for upward social mobility for those who avoid dissidence, while
giving everyone in the managerial class reason to wonder what the impact of an
anti-Communist revolution would be on him or her personally.”
The Party Hierarchy and Incentives for Party Membership
As the above examples illustrates, the key political advantage of allocating party service
and benefits hierarchically is the stake in the regime’s survival that arises endogenously
among the senior ranks of the party. A key challenge for authoritarian parties that structure
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