Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School June 2019 Political Parties for Protection and Profit: Explaining Opposition Party Competition under Electoral Authoritarianism Michael David Toje Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Comparative Politics Commons Recommended Citation Toje, Michael David, "Political Parties for Protection and Profit: Explaining Opposition Party Competition under Electoral Authoritarianism" (2019). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4936. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4936 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. POLITICAL PARTIES FOR PROTECTION AND PROFIT: EXPLAINING OPPOSITION PARTY COMPETITION UNDER ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIANISM A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Michael David Toje B.A., Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, 2009 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2014 August 2019 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Working on this dissertation has been quite the journey for me, but fortunately, I did not have to travel it alone. First and foremost, my advisor, Len Ray, who worked with me from my first day at Louisiana State University. He pushed me to become a better scholar over the years. I would also like to thank Kate Bratton, Wayne Parent, David Sobek, Harry Mokeba, Joe Clare, Wonik Kim, Bill Clark, Yann Kerevel, and Jim Stoner for their guidance and instruction: through you all,. I would also like to thank Katherine Surek, Lezlie Haynes, and Judy Roberts for being the movers behind the scenes: our department runs on your work, and you have rescued me countless times from the machinery of the bureaucracy. The many friends I made while completing my graduate studies greatly enriched my time in Louisiana. Nathan Price, Tabatha Cale, Sam Rohrer, and James Gilley took me under their wings and helped me transition into grad life. Friends I made gave me a social circle and a place to share all of our trials and tribulations as well as our moments of joy and accomplishment, so thank you Cory Sukala, Gabi Vitela, Nick Davis, Jacob Ball and Tom Varacalli, Nile Patterson, Trey Bickham, Trent Parker, Mikaela Allen, and Joseph Ducet. My friends back home, Matt and Trecia Winte, Sam Evans, Elliot Slack, John Myrick, Joel and Stacy Vidakovich, Tyler and Jackie Kabbes, and Jeff Hubbard knew I was destined for great thing in graduate school, and I am thankful for their emotional support even though I was away for most of the year. My journey to Albuquerque provided a much-needed reset, and to help me center myself and put my time in graduate school in a broader context. I wish to thank Elizabeth Archuleta, Dina Washington, Bradd, Scott and Jahmar for being my companions, even if only for a week. ii Our contact with one another may have been brief, but it was exactly what I needed at that time. Good luck to you all, wherever you may be. Above all else, I wish to thank my parents Matthew and Cindy, my sister Jenny, and my grandfather Clarence, for the immense support and love thy have given me, and for always en- couraging me to do my best. Finally, I wish to thank Cameron, for coming into my life as a new traveling companion: wherever life may take us, I am thrilled to travel it with you. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...............................................................................................................ii ABSTRACT..................................................................................................................................vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................1 2 THEORY...............................................................................................................................16 3 RESEARCH DESIGN...........................................................................................................43 4 RESULTS..............................................................................................................................60 5 AZERBAIJAN.......................................................................................................................73 6 MOZAMBIQUE....................................................................................................................87 7 MALAYSIA........................................................................................................................103 8 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................................118 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................................................................................................128 APPENDIX A LIST OF ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIAN CASES (67%)...........................................157 B LIST OF ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIAN CASES (55%)...........................................158 C LIST OF ELECTORAL AUTHORITARIAN CASES (75%)...........................................160 D DATA ANALYSIS AND ALTERNATE MODELS.........................................................162 VITA............................................................................................................................................169 iv LIST OF TABLES 2.1 Conceptualizations and Definitions of Hybrid Regimes...................................................13 4.1 OLS Regression Predicting Net FDI and Opposition Party Seat Share.............................62 4.2 Case Study Selection..........................................................................................................70 5.1 Clans in Azerbaijan............................................................................................................85 7.1 Electoral Returns for DAP, Keadilan, and PAS..............................................................116 D.1 Descriptive Statistics........................................................................................................162 D.2 Opposition without Lagged Variables.............................................................................165 D.3 Opposition with 1-Year Lead...........................................................................................166 D.4 Hegemony Threshold Set at 55%....................................................................................167 D.5 Hegemony Threshold Set at 75%....................................................................................168 v LIST OF FIGURES 1.1 Conceptual Relationships among Regime Types................................................................6 2.1 Graphical Depiction of Electoral Authoritarian Political Space........................................36 2.2 Causal Relationship between FDI and Opposition Party Sustenance................................38 D.1. Distribution of FDI and Opposition Control of Seats......................................................163 D.2. Histogram of GDP Per Capita PPP..................................................................................164 D.3. Histogram of Population..................................................................................................164 vi ABSTRACT Despite the presence of open elections and contestable political offices, opposition parties in electoral authoritarian regimes face barriers – formal and informal – that prevent them from attaining de facto power. Yet, these parties still decide to spend the time, money, and effort to run candidates in unfair elections. This dissertation seeks to uncover the reasons that opposition parties decide to compete in such an uncompetitive environment, and what sustains opposition parties though cycles of defeat. It proposes that opposition parties compete not for the purposes of unseating the ruling party, but rather for controlling their own local affairs away from interfer- ence on the part of an autocratic regime. Opposition parties have a natural affinity with foreign investors, who also wish to do business without dealing with arbitrary government taxes and regulations. However, while the dissertation does find a relation between foreign direct investment and opposition party strength in the parliament, this relationship runs in the opposite direction than what the theory proposes. Case studies of three countries reveal that opposition parties re- flect ethnic divisions within each country and that these ethnic parties serve as mechanisms for distributing patronage goods to their co-ethnics. A transition away from one-party rule did not bring democracy or even a recalcitrant elite reluctantly getting away with as little liberalization as possible while still holding power, but instead, a protracted conflict fought in the electoral arena over limited patronage opportunities, with ethnicity used to form the division between in- and out-groups. The dissertation concludes that one possible way out of ethnic competition is by increasing economic opportunities for