International Development ISSN 1470-2320 Working paper Series 2013 No.13-144 Disentangling the fall of a ‘Dominant- Hegemonic Party Rule’: The case of Paraguay and its transition to a competitive electoral democracy Dominica Zavala Zubizarreta Published: January 2013 Development Studies Institute London School of Economics and Political Science Houghton Street Tel: +44 (020) 7955 7425/6252 London Fax: +44 (020) 7955-6844 WC2A 2AE UK Email:
[email protected] Web site: www.lse.ac.uk/depts/ID Page 2 of 48 ABSTRACT After a prolonged transition to democracy, Paraguay finally put a culmination to one of the world’s longest-serving party in power. In the presidential elections of 2008, Paraguay had the first-ever peaceful democratic turnover after sixty-one years of one- party rule. This study’s task will be to examine under what conditions do dominant hegemonic-party systems fall and loose their power-grip on presidential elections. Accordingly, it will analyse the conditions that led to the demise of hegemonic-rule in Paraguay by focusing on elite divisions and fragmentation within the dominant party. This paper will employ a historical institutionalism approach to trace the variable of elite fragmentation and splits within the dominant party, in order to underscore the sequence of institutional changes that fostered more fragmentation and weakened its hegemony. Moreover, this study will hold that throughout the stages of democratic transition, dissent between intra-party elites and rupture was critical in making future organizing efforts to close impossible and allowing the first alternation in executive power by another party in 2008.