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Opposing Power Over Time: Learning to Build Opposition Coalitions in Electoral Autocracies Elvin Ong University of British Columbia National University of Singapore This version: 29 November 2018 quote Prepared for SEAREG-in-Asia 2018 at Yale-NUS not PLEASE DO NOTE CITE OR QUOTE WITHOUT PERMISSIONDo | Abstract Opposition parties competing against electoral autocrats are oftentimes divided by ideological differences in terms of their orientation towards ethnicity,citation religion, geography, and the economy. Why, how, and when do ideologically disparate opposition parties cooperate to form pre- electoral coalitions to challenge dominant incumbents?for This paper proposes that opposition parties learn to build alliances over time to solve two distinct coordination problems. Iterated elections provide information and opportunities for opposition party leaders to learn the expected utility of coordination, and learn to findNot effective ways to mitigate the transaction and substantive costs to coordination. The| objective is to develop agreements to reduce the number of opposition candidates to avoid vote splitting, and to forge joint electoral campaigns as focal points to coordinate anti-regime voters. A comparative historical analysis of two most similar electoral autocracies – Singaporecopy and Malaysia – reveal that opposition party leaders encounter varying pressures and incentives to learn over time. Key words: Electoral authoritarianism, opposition coalition, time, cooperation theory, Singapore, Malaysia Reading Word count: 11,935 (including all footnotes, tables, figures, and references) 1 1. Introduction Autocrats fear opposition collective action. When opposition parties contesting in autocratic elections cooperate with each other to build pre-electoral coalitions1, they have almost an even chance of defeating the incumbent regime.2 In contrast, opposition parties competing on their own only have a one in ten chance of prevailing against the autocrat. A united opposition can also raise the costs of repression and force the autocrat to concede liberalizing reforms, even if the opposition fails to win.3 Consequently, autocrats frequently deploy their coercivequote and 4 institutional powers to divide the opposition and to forestall collective action.not Elect oral rules are manipulated. Media freedoms are curtailed. Selective groups of opposition elites are co-opted, Do even as other opposition elites bear the brunt of repression. | Moving beyond the autocrat’s attempts at divide-and-rule, moreover, opposition parties themselves are oftentimes divided by ideological5 differences in terms of their respective orientations towards ethnicity, religion, geography, citationand the economy. In Mexico, the conservative National Action Party (PAN) andfor the social democratic Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) occupied opposing ends of an ideological spectrum against the centrist, Not dominant Institutional Revolutionary| Party (PRI).6 In the Middle East and North Africa, secular opposition parties opposed Islamic opposition parties, even as they both compete against the same dominant autocraticcopy incumbent. 7 Similarly, ethnic-based opposition parties in sub-saharan Africa hemmed in within their core support areas at the periphery of their countries struggle to compete against well-resourced, nationalized dominant ruling parties.8 These ideological Reading 1 Throughout this article, I use the terms “opposition coalition” and “opposition alliance” interchangeably. 2 Donno 2013; Bunce and Wolchik 2009; Bunce and Wolchik 2011; Wahman 2013; Ziegfeld and Tudor 2017; Teorell and Wahman 2018 3 Eisenstadt 2000; Eisenstadt 2004; Schedler 2002; Howard and Roessler 2006; Magaloni 2010; Lindberg 2006; Lindberg 2009; Tucker 2007; E. Ong 2018; Teorell and Wahman 2018 4 Lust 2004; Lust 2005; Buttorff 2015; Acemoglu, Verdier, and Robinson 2004; Shen-Bayh 2018 5 Throughout this article, I use an inclusive understanding of the term “ideological” to imply variation in policy preferences across a range of issues, rather than a narrow definition that denotes variation along an economic left-right spectrum. 6 Greene 2002; Greene 2007; Magaloni 2006 7 Kraetzschmar 2013; Shehata 2010; Haugbølle and Cavatorta 2011; Wegner and Pellicer 2011; Albrecht 2010; Albrecht 2013 8 van de Walle 2003; Rakner and van de Walle 2009; Wahman 2017 2 differences among opposition parties has been postulated as the primary reason why they fail to cooperate, and why authoritarianism persists.9 Yet, the empirical record frequently tells a different story. It suggests that ideological differences is not destiny. Across multiple countries, the puzzling phenomena of opposition coalitions with strange ideological bedfellows regularly emerges. In Kenya, for instance, Mwai Kibaki, backed by a multiethnic Rainbow opposition coalition, defeated the incumbent regime’s Uhuru Kenyatta in 2002, ending nearly 40 years of dominant party rule.10 Similar multi-ethnicquote opposition coalitions are also commonly found in Uganda.11 Secular and Islamicnot opposition alliances materialized repeatedly in Egypt in 1984, 1987, and 2005, in Yemen in 2002 and 2005, Do in Morocco in 2009, and in Turkey in 2018.12 In Venezuela, the amalgamation| of left-right opposition forces into a single coalition in late 2015 was credited for the opposition winning a majority of seats in the legislature.13 Why, how, and when can such ideologically divergent opposition parties cooperate to develop pre-electoralcitation alliances to compete against a dominant autocratic incumbent? for This article proposes a novel theory of opposition coalition formation under electoral Not authoritarianism. I argue that opposition| parties build pre-electoral alliances by learning over time. Cooperation between ideologically different opposition parties entail significant transaction and substantive costs, suchcopy as information about their relative popularities and the threat of internal party revolt from upset part members. Opposition party leaders need time to learn to mitigate these costs. Iterated elections under authoritarianism provides information and opportunitiesReading for opposition party leaders to (a) learn the expected utility of cooperation, (b) learn the efficacies of rules to reduce the transaction costs of cooperation, and (c) learn the 9 Riker 1976; Golder 2006; Rakner and van de Walle 2009; Wahman 2011; Ziegfeld and Tudor 2017 10 Arriola 2013a; Arriola 2013b 11 Beardsworth 2016 12 Shehata 2010, 83–115; Browers 2007; Durac 2011; Wegner and Pellicer 2011; Shaheen 2018 13 Morales 2017; Carey 2015 3 effectiveness of different methods to reduce the substantive costs of cooperating with their ideological rivals. The goal of building pre-electoral coalitions is to solve the coordination problems that opposition parties encounter in autocratic elections. Opposition coalitions are two-tiered solutions to two distinct coordination problems. First, opposition parties must develop an agreement to coordinate candidate selection or to allocate electoral districts. By reducing the number of opposition candidates through these agreements, opposition parties minimizequote vote splitting, thereby maximizing their vote share and their chances of winning.14not Second, opposition parties must also engage in joint electoral campaigns. Joint campaigns through opposition Do coalitions help opposition parties signal their anti-regime unity, which| is a focal point to mobilize and coordinate anti-regime voters.15 Any evaluation about the origins and substantive effects of opposition coalitions must disaggregate inter-party cooperation to these twin components. citation To be sure, learning among obstinate foropposition elites does not always occur. Opposition leaders are particularly motivated to learn to change their electoral strategies typically when they Not obtain exceptionally disastrous or |surprisingly poor electoral results. Every cycle of autocratic elections, even if unfree and unfair, produces a best-available if imperfect measure of the popularity of the incumbentcopy and the corresponding approval of the opposition.16 When opposition parties perform worse than their already-low expectations, party leaders are forced to reconsider their existing strategies and experiment with new strategies to maximize their vote and seat sharesReading in the next electoral cycle. Failure to improve risks intra-party challenges to their own leadership positions and perpetual irrelevance among the electorate. Conversely, when the 14 Cox 1997, 151–78; Duverger 1954 15 Gandhi and Ong 2018 16 Schedler 2006; Schedler 2013; Levitsky and Way 2010; Miller 2015; Pop-Eleches and Robertson 2015 4 opposition parties perform in line with or better than expected, other considerations, such as preserving internal party unity and support, take priority. This theory of opposition coalition building via learning makes at least three key contributions to the literature on democratization by elections and opposition coalition formation under authoritarianism. First, illuminating how opposition parties learn to cooperate over time illustrates one key pathway along which democratization through elections can occur.17 Although many researchers stress the importance of opposition collective action in challengingquote the autocratic regime, they oftentimes stay silent on how opposition parties actuallynot go about engaging in cooperation and to exactly what ends. Unpacking the content of opposition Do coalitions provides a firmer theoretical foundation

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