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Abstract
Electoral authoritarianism has emerged as a primary mode of authoritarian rule in the post-Cold War era. It is also a notably heterogeneous phenomenon, in terms of both its impact upon incumbents and the quality of contestation. This article investigates a specific type of electoral authoritarian outcome, a competitive hegemony. In competitive hegemonies regimes are able to dominate elections by large vote margins, but with comparatively much lower levels of electoral fraud and coercion. Using a case study of Tanzania and its ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), this article argues that distinct investments made under single-party rule into party institutionalization and the incorporation of subsistence-based peasants provided CCM with additional sources of elite cohesion, strong mobilization capacity, and therefore greater stability. The article shows how during multiparty elections elite defection has in fact been minimal, and voting patterns largely coincide with infrastructural investments made as part of Tanzania's socialist development programme, ujamaa. Moreover, while Tanzania's opposition parties have made important strides in recent years in terms of institutionalization, they are still precluded from competing effectively in large portions of the country where demand for new parties is low.
Notes on contributor
Yonatan L. Morse is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. His research focuses on electoral authoritarianism and democratic transitions, with a regional focus on sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. His dissertation compares the variant electoral authoritarian trajectories of formerly single-party regimes in Africa.
Notes
1. See Diamond, “Thinking About Hybrid Regimes”; Schedler, Electoral Authoritarianism; Lindberg, Democratization by Elections; Levitsky and Way; Competitive Authoritarianism.
2. These specific distinctions are not always clear. For instance, Levitsky and Way consider regimes competitive if opposition participation is not restricted. By contrast, Roessler and Howard infer from competitive authoritarianism a sense of instability and a tendency to tip either towards democracy or a hegemonic form of regime. This is captured through the use of vote-shares. See Roessler and Howard, “Post-Cold War Regimes.”
3. Competitive hegemonies have also existed in other cases like in Mexico under the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Mozambique under the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO), or even South Africa under the African National Congress (ANC).
4. Tanzania has ranked either a three or four since 1992 on the Freedom House Political Rights scale.
5. In particular see the group of essays in Lindberg, Democratization by Elections.
6. Note that this discussion is limited to mainland Tanzania in recognition of Zanzibar's unique political history. While Zanzibar has been part of the Tanzanian Republic since 1964 it has maintained regional autonomy. Likewise, it had been governed by the Afro-Shirazi Party until it merged with mainland TANU to form CCM.
7. For examples of this early scholarship see Hodgkin, African Political Parties; Coleman and Rosberg, Political Parties; Huntington and Moore, Authoritarian Politics.
8. See the critiques made in Bienen, Armies and Parties in Africa with regard to the conceptualization of African single-party regimes and in Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes with regard to the adoption of “mentalities” rather than ideologies as a dimension of authoritarianism.
9. A good sample of this literature would include Geddes, “Authoritarian Breakdown”; Smith, “Life of the Party”; Brownlee, Authoritarianism in the Age; Magaloni, “Credible Power-Sharing”; Gehlbach and Keefer, “Investment without Democracy”; and Magaloni and Kricheli, “Political Order and One-Party Rule”; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.
10. Magaloni, Voting for Autocracy; Greene, Why Dominant Parties Lose; Levitsky and Way, Competitive Authoritarianism.
11. See for instance the use of the term in Huntington, Political Order; Mainwaring and Scully, Building Democratic Institutions; Levitsky, “Institutionalization and Peronism”; Kuenzi and Lambright, “Party System Institutionalization”; and Randal and Svasand, “Party Institutionalization.”
12. The role of social incorporation has recently been integrated into theories of authoritarian state building and durability. Urban bias has been used to explain patterns of authoritarian rule in sub-Saharan Africa and refers to the taxation of rural farmers in order to subsidize food in urban settings with the aim of generating political support. See Bates, Markets and States; Heydemann, Authoritarianism in Syria; Waldner, State Building.
13. One needs only look to neighbouring Kenya where the ruling Kenyan African Union (KANU) party was infamously poorly institutionalized, centred on the prominence of the executive, lacked formal mobilization organs, and was clearly dominated by the logic of ethnic coalitions.
14. Glickman, “One-Party System,” 139; Bienen, Tanzania, 191.
15. Bienen, Tanzania, 363–81.
16. Barkan, “Legislators, Elections.” In neighbouring Kenya the legislature was notably much more vociferous and President Jomo Kenyatta utilized his control over the provincial administration as well as the stronger position of the presidency to govern. See Barkan, Politics and Public Policy; Barkan, Beyond Capitalism vs. Socialism.
17. Miti, Party and Politics in Tanzania.
18. Tanzanian Constitution 1977, 40.
19. In Jackson and Rosberg, Personal Rule, they consider Nyerere as following a prophet-like model of leadership (alongside Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and Sekou Touré in Guinea), and exhibiting strong moral leadership.
20. Okumu and Holmquist, “Party and Party State Relations,” 54–5.
21. McHenry, Limited Choices, 37. By contrast, in Kenya efforts to establish party schools were a point of immense contention in the mid 1960s and helped lead to the formation of the KPU faction that split from KANU.
22. Mwansasu, “The Changing Role,” 180 .
23. Maro and Mlay, “Decentralization of Organizational Space.”
24. Mwansasu, “The Changing Role,” 180.
25. Barkan, “Legislators, Elections”; van Donge and Liviga, “The 1985 Tanzanian Parliamentary Elections,” 51.
26. See Hyden and Leys, “Elections and Politics,” for a detailed discussion of the nature of parliamentary election in Tanzania.
27. van Donge and Liviga, “Tanzanian Political Culture,” 626.
28. Tripp, Changing the Rules.
29. McHenry, Limited Choices, 53.
30. Ingle, From Village to State. Cell leaders were also considered prominent members of their community and often engaged in local property or marital disputes within their villages.
31. A position most infamously noted in Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa. The socialist experiment was undoubtedly an economic failure, as there were persistent food shortages and Tanzania failed to generate any growth in its agricultural production. Moreover, Hyden argues that ujamaa failed at transforming subsistence rural farmers into socialist crop producers. Instead, rural peasants abided by an “economy of affection” and either found subtle ways at resisting the state or withdrew from production.
32. McHenry, Tanzania's Ujamaa Villages, 127–33.
33. Lofchie, “The Politics of Agricultural Policy,” 153–4.
34. Kaiser, “Structural Adjustment.”
35. Baregu, “The Rise and Fall.”
36. Mmuya and Chaligha, Political Parties and Democracy.
37. In 1995 consumer price indexes in Tanzania shot up 27.8%. That rate subsided greatly over the next decade, but was up to a high rate of 12.1% again in 2009. World Bank, “World Bank Indicators,” http://data.worldbank.org/indicator.
38. TEMCO, The 1995 General Election; “Election Guide.” Tanzanian Affairs, September 1995, 52.
39. TEMCO, The 2000 General Election.
40. TEMCO, The 2005 General Election, 31; TEMCO, The 2000 General Election, 64.
41. “Election Guide.” Tanzanian Affairs, September 1995, 52.
42. The Citizen, March 31, 2010; The Citizen, April 8, 2010.
43. Daily News, August 2, 2010; Daily News, August 10, 2010.
44. John Mnyika (Temporary National Chair, Chadema), 2010, Interview by author, Transcript, Dar es Salaam.
45. Joran Bashange (Deputy-Secretary General, CUF), 2010, Interview by author, Transcript, Dar es Salaam; Zitto Kabwe (MP Kigoma), 2010, Interview by author, Transcript, Dar es Salaam.
46. Wilibrod Slaa (Secretary-General, Chadema), 2010, Interview by author, Transcript, Dar es Salaam.
47. Mwesiga Baregu (Campaign Chair, Chadema), 2010, Interview by author, Transcript, Dar es Salaam.
48. Freemon Mbowe (National Chair, Chadema), 2010, Interview by author, Transcript, Dar es Salaam.
49. Calculating the average across years helps to reduce the risk of endogenous causation.
50. During the preliminary data analysis a number of outliers were identified – the districts of Karatu, Hai, and Moshi Vijijini. These districts have persistently been strongholds for Chadema, perhaps due to ethnic reasons, and are therefore excluded.
51. See Hyden, “Top Down Democratization”; Tripp, “Political Reform”; Hoffman and Robinson, “Tanzania's Missing Opposition”; and Liviga, “Tanzania: A Bumpy Road.”
52. Party institutionalization (as opposed to party system institutionalization) most often refers to a party's coherence, social roots, autonomy, and organizational capacity. See Randall and Svasand, “Party Institutionalization.”
53. This is a form of Bayesian updating often used in qualitative research in the case study and process tracing tradition. See Bennett, “Process Tracing.”
54. Mmuya and Chaligha, Political Parties and Democracy; Mmuya, Political Reform; Baregu, “State of Political Parties.”
55. In the 2010 election alone over 100 opposition party members defected to CCM. Daily News, September 12, 2010.
56. By contrast, note the Kenyan experience in early 2002 when Raila Odinga took his entire National Development Party (NDP) party and temporarily joined the ruling KANU.
57. Bashange Interview.
58. Mbowe Interview.