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FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam

Elite Political Dynamics in Electoral Autocracies

Alternative title: Politiske eliter i autoritære konkurranseregimer

Awarded: NOK 10.1 mill.

In ELITE, we study political elites in authoritarian competitive regimes. We will examine how they make strategic choices to advance their own careers, and what the consequences of this are for the political system as a whole and for society in general. The project is divided into three themes: Firstly, we will study the interaction between the members of parliament and the presidential administration (cabinet), in order to better understand how the cohesion of the political parties is strengthened or weakened by the politicians' choices. Political parties are important in holding governments and presidents accountable for the policies they pursue. In Elite, we work to study the unity and strength of parliamentarians in various non-democratic regimes. Secondly, we will study whether, and if so how, judges adapt their sentencing to political influence. We focus on verdicts on electoral mischief, and study whether the courts show a political bias when considering which cases they take forward, and the final outcome of these cases. We want to understand what explains why judges can sometimes judge independently of political influence, and why they sometimes submit to the interests of politicians. This has implications for the development of a rule of law, which is central to a modern political and economic system. Thirdly, we will study how politicians' competition for careers affects development. In authoritarian competitive regimes, politicians must compete for the electorate’s votes in elections, but freedom of expression and organization in these elections is often severely restricted. It is therefore unclear whether this competition is sufficient to incentivize politicians to invest financially in the population in order to secure their re-election. In order to study these things, ELITE uses empirical evidence from Zambian politics. We are in the process of systematizing data on the political and legal system in Zambia. In collaboration with the library of the Parliament of Zambia, we have digitized all the parliamentary debates in the National Assembly back to 1924. We have compiled a complete day to day dataset on the ministers, and the complete list of members of parliament throughout the period. For the contemporary period, we have geolocated the polling stations over the past three elections, accompanied by the electoral result at these stations. Finally, we have systematized information on all electoral petitions and their outcomes. With this data, ELITE can test a number of assumptions about colonial states, party dictatorships, and authoritarian competitive regimes, and combine systematic statistical models with deep contextual knowledge.

The aim of ELITE is to study the rank-and-file of political elites in electoral autocracies, and how their strategic interaction affects the overall political system and societal outcomes. The project is divided between three areas of interest. First, we will study the interaction among members of parliament and the executive branch to understand the conditions under which the unity of permanently organized parties is promoted or hindered. Political parties are among the most important institutions for functioning accountability in political systems, but their development is not well understood. Second, we will study the strategic interaction between judges and politicians that explain why judges sometimes are empowered to rule independent from government interests and why the judiciary sometimes instead defers to the interests of the regime. This has implications for the rule of law which is an essential institution for a modern political and economic system. Third, we will study the effect of elite competition on human development. It remains unclear whether electoral competition in electoral autocracies are sufficient to motivate politicians to invest in their electorate, which we will study directly in ELITE. To accomplish this, ELITE will focus on an in-depth look at the Zambian political system. Due to an exceptional data availability from this country, ELITE can produce unique insights about elite dynamics in this specific political system. This allows the project to dig into many of the standard assumptions in the literature, and tests these in rigorous, large-N setups combined with deep contextual knowledge. Overall, the project will result in at least 8 journal articles, 2 policy briefs, 4 unique datasets on political institutions in Zambia, and a workshop. Hosted at PRIO, the project brings together research talent with complementary and different backgrounds and establishes a network with Zambian researchers.

Funding scheme:

FRIHUMSAM-Fri prosj.st. hum og sam