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

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CHAPTER 6 and retirement policies within a dominant party regime. Due to a constitutionally mandated one-term limit for all elected posts, a change in the administration every six and, at the municipal level, three years implied the re-assignment or retirement for not only elected politicians but also for thousands of government employees who held a position due their political or clientelistic association with a politician in an elected post. Thus in the 1960s, accordingtoBrandenburg(1964,157), everysix-year administrationwitnessed “aturnoverof approximately 18,000elective officesand25,000appointive posts.” Thecoupling ofthefixed, term-basedtimehorizonwiththePRI’s politicaldominance inMexico resulted inasystem of upward and downward political mobility that was distinctively interlocked. The expectation of such mobility is consistent with the present model’s emphasis on an appropriate balance in the provision of incentives for political party service between the promise of promotion and a positive rate of political retirement. In the case of Mexico, the nature of this incentive- preserving balance is eloquently summarized by Grindle (1977, 42): “The six-year procession often resembles a national game of musical chairs in which the same actors may reappear in different positions; new players are freely admitted, however, and the number of chairs may be enlarged to accommodate some of them. Those who fail to find a chair and must leave the game do so knowingly they have the possibility of reentering it at a later date.” Note, however, thattheanalysis above doesnotrequire that theregime’s leadership retire on a regular basis or even with a positive probability, as was the case in Mexico under the PRI. This was a unique feature of the Mexican dictatorship, which I addressed in Chapter 4, and which the present model does not account for. 17 Nonetheless, the regular re-assignment 17 In Chapter 4, I suggested that Mexican presidential term limits were a rather unique form of intertem- 24
CHAPTER 6 or dismissal of thousands of senior elected and administrative posts raises an important question about the credibility of retirement rules: Why don’t the senior party ranks simply attempt to stay? A quick but inadequate answer is that the senior ranks retire because the regime’s leadership tells them to go. Gorbachev initiated a large-scale retirement of senior party cadres in the Communist Party’s Central Committee and throughout the Soviet administration after years of “stagnation” under Brezhnev (Mawdsley and White 2000, Chapter 6), and Lee Kuan Yew steadily pressured for “leadership renewal” throughout the People’s Action Party’s existence (Hong and Huang 2008, 101-107). Stalin’s Great Purge and Mao’s Cultural Revolution may in part be interpreted as an exceedingly ruthless way of replacing old by new party cadres (Rigby 1968; MacFarquhar and Schoenhals 2006). But an answer that stops with the regime’s leadership is incomplete because it only begs the question of why a leader would feel compelled to retire senior party cadres. The present model shows that incentives for party service among the junior ranks are inextricably tied to the promise of a promotion, which in turn depends on an appropriate rate of retirement among the senior ranks. At the same time, however, the benefits that senior party members enjoy depend on the continuing survival of the regime, and in turn, on the junior ranks’ party service. Hence the credibility of the leadership’s promise to retire the senior ranks rests on the indispensability of party service for the survival of the regime. If the senior ranks retire at a lower rate or refuse to retire, the motivation to provide costly party service among aspiring and junior party members will diminish or disappear. That is, poral power-sharing among the Mexican elites. In fact, with the exception of Mexico and potentially China since Jiang Zemin, there are no single or dominant party dictatorships with fixed and effective term-limits for the leadership. 25
Page 1 and 2: Chapter 6 Why Authoritarian Parties
Page 3 and 4: CHAPTER 6 and outside of authoritar
Page 5 and 6: CHAPTER 6 political coalitions and
Page 7 and 8: to counter opposition to the exerci
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Page 11 and 12: CHAPTER 6 borhoods, and public inst
Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER 6 have been administered by
Page 15 and 16: CHAPTER 6 Table 6.1: A comparison o
Page 17 and 18: CHAPTER 6 party service and benefit
Page 19 and 20: CHAPTER 6 generosity of the benefit
Page 21 and 22: elevance of the parameters b, w, an
Page 23: CHAPTER 6 that single-party regimes
Page 27 and 28: CHAPTER 6 service and benefits with
Page 29 and 30: u NS i CHAPTER 6 = b/(1−δ) is he
Page 31 and 32: CHAPTER 6 any party that is in the
Page 33 and 34: CHAPTER 6 appointments enhances inc
Page 35 and 36: CHAPTER 6 ality, suppose thattheinc
Page 37 and 38: CHAPTER 6 While both approaches fin
Page 39 and 40: ehind the regime’s stability (Mag
Page 41 and 42: Frequency 0 50 100 150 200 0 20 40
Page 43 and 44: CHAPTER 6 Table 6.3: Restrictions o
Page 45 and 46: Density 0 .005 .01 .015 .02 .025 CH
Page 47 and 48: CHAPTER 6 parties that on average c
Page 49 and 50: CHAPTER 6 Table 6.6: The effect of
Page 51 and 52: CHAPTER 6 I attempted a stronger te
Page 53 and 54: CHAPTER 6 - take advantage of natur
Page 55 and 56: Bibliography Abrami, Regina, Edmund
Page 57 and 58: Press. BIBLIOGRAPHY Dickson, Bruce
Page 59 and 60: tution. BIBLIOGRAPHY Huntington, Sa
Page 61 and 62: BIBLIOGRAPHY Central Committee and
Page 63: World Bank. 2008. World Development

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