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ABSTRACT
Between the 1980s and 2006 Nicaragua was a competitive democracy where parties of the left and right won national presidential elections and relinquished power when their terms ended. More recently the quality of Nicaragua’s democracy has deteriorated. This change is due partly to autocratic behaviour by the elected leftist president, Daniel Ortega. But democratic decline is also the result of factional divisions and vague, outmoded policy commitments on the right that have crippled its electoral competitiveness, enabling Ortega’s behaviour. Utilizing an experimental research design, this article identifies two modernized policy platforms that could significantly broaden rightist electoral support in presidential campaigns, aiding democratic resurgence in Nicaragua. At a point when opposition parties are struggling to retain strength and coherence in many other democracies, the study presents a research strategy that could help clarify the ways such parties might reinvigorate their electoral competitiveness.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1 Anderson and Dodd, Learning Democracy. On democracy in Nicaragua in the 1980s see Ruchwarger, People in Power; Booth, “The End and the Beginning”; and Walker, Nicaragua. On the competitive nature of the 1984 election see Latin American Studies Association, Electoral Process in Nicaragua.
2 Perez, “The Slow ‘Auto-Grope’ in Nicaragua”; and The Economist, “From Comrade to Caudillio.” Ortega’s victory also fits with an electoral turn towards the left more generally in Latin America. See Queirolo, The Success of the Left in Latin America. Jou, “Ideological Radicalism and Democratic Experience in New Democracies,” finds that the electorate in new democracies more generally is more leftist than the electorate in many older democracies.
3 Nicaragua’s municipalities constitute democratic enclaves where competitive elections still take place and candidates appeal for popular support. Anderson and Park, “International Contributions to Nicaraguan Democracy.”
4 Contrary to the United States, in Nicaragua the liberals stand to the right of the conservatives. See Anderson and Dodd, Learning Democracy, esp. Chap 2.
5 On the 2006 election see Anderson and Dodd, “Nicaragua: Progress Amid Regress?” Interviews in Managua with legislators were carried out as follows: Agustin Jarquín, FSLN (5/3/06); Alba Palacios, FSLN (5/2/06); Gustavo Porras, FSLN (4/28/06); Walmaro Gutierrez, FSLN (5/5/06); Delia Arellano, Camino Cristino (rightist splinter party, 5/3/06); Castillo Ramirez, Conservative (5/2/06); Maria Eugenia Seguida, National Liberal Alliance (5/9/06).
6 Lyons, “From Victorious Rebels to Strong Authoritarian Parties,” argues that previously rebel parties often become authoritarian after the revolution when their origins are military rather than electoral, an observation which fits with the Sandinista Party in Nicaragua.
7 Similarly, election officials in the southern United States used multiple tactics to deny blacks and poor whites the opportunity to vote. Mickey, Paths Out of Dixie, esp. 43, 55, 56, 96–101.
8 Scholars studying similar trends elsewhere have called this democratic decline “backsliding.” See Dresden and Howard, “Authoritarian Backsliding and the Concentration of Political Power”; Bogaards, “How to Classify Hybrid Regimes?”; and Merket, “Embedded and Defective Democracies.” Relatedly, Veenendaal, “Democracy in Microstates,” finds that democracy may be more difficult in small nations because of a disparity between formal institutional structure and a very different, more autocratic political reality. This contrast describes Nicaragua. Finally, Tilly, Democracy, points to the possibility of long-term processes of democratization, de-democratization, and re-democratization.
9 Anderson, “Poverty and Political Empowerment.”
10 Bolivia has also experienced a significant democratization process at the local level, Faguet, Decentralization and Popular Democracy.
11 It is not unusual for democratization to proceed at different paces at the national and subnational levels. For example, see Gibson, Boundary Control; Mickey, Paths Out of Dixie; and Gilley “Democratic Enclaves in Authoritarian Regimes.”
12 Interview with Edgar Matamoros, Managua, 16 July 2013.
13 See La Prensa, throughout November 2012.
14 Anderson, The Political Ecology of the Modern Peasant.
15 We are currently conducting similar experimental research in Managua.
16 Anderson, “The Problem of Single-party Predominance in an Unconsolidated Democracy.”
17 On the decline of Venezuela’s party system see Coppedge, Strong Parties and Lame Ducks. On Chavez’ contribution to the decline of Venezuelan democracy see Corrales and Penfold, Dragon the Tropics.
18 On Mexican elections see Dominguez and McCann, Democratizing Mexico; and Camp, Politics in Mexico.
19 Dodd, “Political Learning and Political Change.”
20 “Britain’s One Party State,” The Economist, 17 September 2016.
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Notes on contributors
Leslie E. Anderson
Leslie E. Anderson is Research Foundation Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on democracy and democratization, with special attention to Latin America. Her books include The Political Ecology of the Modern Peasant (Johns Hopkins, 1994), Learning Democracy, with Lawrence Dodd (University of Chicago Press, 2005), Social Capital in Developing Democracies (Cambridge University Press, 2010), and Democratization by Institutions (Michigan, 2016). Her journal publications include articles in the American Journal of Political Science, Polity, Journal of Theoretical Politics, Latin American Research Review, Perspectives on Politics, Journal of Democracy, and Journal of Latin American Studies.
Lawrence C. Dodd
Lawrence C. Dodd is Manning J. Dauer Eminent Scholar in Political Science at the University of Florida. Dodd began his career focused on European politics (Coalitions in Parliamentary Government, Princeton University Press, 1976), shifted thereafter to a career-long focus on the US Congress (Thinking about Congress, Routledge, 2012), and joined with Leslie Anderson in 1994 in sustained study of democratization in Nicaragua. His research focuses on the roles that voters, parties, elections, governing institutions, and political ambitions play in fostering nation-state adaptation to new societal conditions. His most recent work in this vein is “Congress in a Downsian World: Polarization Cycles and Regime Change,” Journal of Politics (2015).
Won-ho Park
Won-ho Park is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Seoul National University and is Secretary of Research for the Korean Political Science Association. His research interests include quantitative methods, voting behaviour, comparative elections, and public opinion. His research has appeared in Electoral Studies, Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, Korean Political Science Review, and Peace Studies, some written in Korean.