When Things Get Personal: How Informal and Personalized Politics Produce Regime Stability in Small States (original) (raw)

Democracy in Microstates: Why Smallness Does Not Produce a Democratic Political System

Democratization

In recent decades, several scholars have pointed to a statistical correlation between population size and democracy. Whereas these studies have thus far failed to provide a satisfactory explanation of this link, more case-oriented and qualitative publications have primarily highlighted the democracy-undermining effects of smallness. According to such studies, the proclivity of microstates to democratic rule should be explained on the basis of other factors, which coincide with smallness. In the current article, the nature and quality of politics and democracy in the four microstates of San Marino, St Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles, and Palau is analysed on the basis of interviews with local respondents. The results indicate that microstate politics is characterized by a disparity between formally democratic institutions and a more antidemocratic political reality, and that size therefore does not directly generate a democratic political system. Instead, for the four analysed microstates the variables of colonial history, geographical location, and international relations appear to have greater explanatory value. Precisely because microstate politics is all about interpersonal relations and informal dynamics, this article contends that qualitative research is the preferable approach for studying politics and democracy in microstates.

Making Informal Politics Work: A Case of Local-Direct Election In

—The existence of informal actors like local strongman and the like is another consequent of localizing democracy in Indonesia nationwide. This research-based paper aims to analyze the existence of informal actors in influencing and shaping electoral process namely local election in Bangka Selatan, Sumatra, Indonesia. To acknowledge the local-informal actor in this case, researchers employ some theoretical frameworks like informal politics, elites, and Bourdieu's theory of capitals, in concerning the post-authoritarian state and transitional democracy in Indonesia which is signed by informal actors, process and also patronage model. It is obvious then, that money is not always a central actor within electoral process but another factor like informal networks is quite effective and significant ones. This finding will be very contributive to get better and factual understanding in seeing local politics dynamic in the contemporary democratic regime in Indonesia.

How clientelism varies: comparing patronage democracies

Democratization

Clientelistic vote mobilization is a prominent electoral strategy in many of the world's democracies and electoral authoritarian regimes. Yet the comparative study of this practice, which involves exchanging personal favours for electoral support, remains strikingly underdeveloped. This special issue makes the case that clientelistic politics takes different forms in different countries, and that this variation matters for understanding democracy, elections, and governance. By comparing clientelistic vote mobilization in several countries -Mexico, Ghana, Sudan to Turkey, Indonesia, the Philippines, Caribbean and Pacific Islands states, and Malaysiawe unpack the concept of political clientelism and show that it is possible to identify different types of patronage democracies. In this introductory essay, we develop a comparative framework for this endeavour, showing that clientelism can be fruitfully compared in terms of the character of the networks that facilitate clientelistic exchange, the benefits that politicians offer in exchange for votes, and the degree to which politicians, and especially parties, control the distribution of state resources. These comparisons lead to the identification of different types of patronage democracies, notably community-centred and party-centred varieties. Building on this framework, this special issue shows that the comparative study of clientelistic politics offers analytical promise for scholars of democracy and democratization.

Size and Personalistic Politics: Characteristics of Political Competition in Four Microstates

The Round Table

Statistics demonstrate that small states are more likely to have democratic systems of government, which—based on Dahl’s conceptualisation of polyarchy—entails the presence of contestation for public office in these countries. In the absence of comparative, qualitative in-depth research on microstate politics, it is, however, largely unclear how size affects the more practical nature of political competition. In this article, the characteristics of political contestation in four microstates around the globe (two of them within the Commonwealth) are examined and compared. The results indicate that whereas the studied microstates of San Marino, St Kitts and Nevis, Seychelles, and Palau have markedly diverging political institutions (e.g. electoral systems and party systems), owing to their small size, in all four of them political contestation is essentially personalistic in nature.

Reckoning Informal Politics: Expands the Logic of Survival and Failure of Regional Heads

The qualitative research addresses the political logic of why and how the incumbents succeed and fail in direct election for regional heads (pilkada) in emerging democratic Indonesia. De Mesquita et al. (2003) believe that, to survive in office, a leader needs to offer a benefit at least equal to the greatest possible benefit offered by a potential challenger. Particular to the pilkada cases in Indonesia, Erb and Sulistiyanto (2009) elaborate several factors connected to " reward and punishment " logic that may lead to the incumbents' survival and failure in re-election bids. This study expands the logic by revealing that populism, rivalry, and tangibility are the core strategies for the successful incumbents in retaining their offices in four rural and urban regions in East Java. Particularly, the survival of an incumbent hinges on his capacity to manage rivalry risks, namely the capability to manage support and opposition both from formal and informal actors through fair or unfair means. These strategies, then, foster the success of patronage-based winning tactics to retain public office in the pilkada. To better assessment, it calls for the importance of democratic accountability as a complementary perspective (to consolidology) in measuring the progress of democracy in the country.

Informal governance in world politics

The Review of International Organizations, 2020

Informal modes of cooperation are a central element of the complex institutional architecture of contemporary global governance. Collectively and individually, the contributions to this special issue broaden the emerging research on informal governance in world politics and provide novel empirical analyses based on unique data. In this introduction, we outline the research questions and puzzles that the special issue addresses. We then sketch three types of informality in world politics: Informality of institutions, within institutions, and around institutions. We discuss each type and provide examples from the contributions to the special issue and the existing literature. We consider how differentiating among these types of informality provides novel insights into the causes of informal global governance. We also identify candidate independent variables which, individually and in combination, should allow researchers to explain the striking variation in the growth and distribution of informal governance in world affairs. We summarize the main findings of the contributions and conclude by outlining an agenda for future research on informal governance in world politics.

Political competition in weak states

2003

In less developed societies, states are weak, possessing no monopoly over violence, and political competition is not constrained by the rules of election. The paper presents and analyzes a simple model of political competition in such settings. Citizens are viewed as occupying fixed locations; they cannot choose whether to participate, i.e. to pay taxes, but can choose which politician to support. Politicians are viewed as seeking wealth, which they pursue by recruiting political followers. They campaign for supporters by providing local public goods, by recruiting armed followers, and by playing upon cultural identities. Within this framework, we ask: Choosing optimally, how will politicians behave? What factors yield political advantages? How do cultural identities shape political competition and political violence? What are the implications for peace keeping in developing nations?

Political Dynasticism: Networks, Trust, Risk

Studies in Indian Politics, 2018

Political dynasticism is a persuasive phenomenon in South Asia. Yet, while political dynasticism has received ample attention at the national level, it has been almost systematically overlooked at the regional and local levels. In this article, we argue that political dynasticism at the local level is driven by conditions that are in crucial ways different from those that animate national politics. We use case studies and insights from the available literature both within and beyond South Asia to argue that, in a comparative light, three main elements stand out: reciprocity, trust, and failure. By zooming in on these elements we seek to explain political dynasticism as a political phenomenon that is enabled by particular conditions in the polity, and especially the nature of the state. These, we argue, help foment a dynamic within which political dynasticism is an understandable outcome.

Political parties, state resources and electoral clientelism

Acta Politica

Contemporary political parties often use state resources to win elections. In this context, electoral clientelism evolved from the straightforward vote buying to sophisticated exchanges in which the relationship between patrons (parties or candidates) and clients (voters) is sometimes difficult to grasp. We address the question how do the distributive politics and electoral clientelism interact, how these forms of interactions differ across various context, and what implications they bring for the functioning of political systems. The special issue provides theoretical, methodological and empirical contributions to the burgeoning literature about the multi-faceted feature of electoral clientelism. It unfolds the complex relationship between distributive politics and clientelism, and conceptualizes electoral clientelism as a dynamic process that occurs through different sequences. It enriches the methodological tools aimed at investigating electoral clientelism. Finally, the special issue approaches clientelism from several perspectives and brings together substantive empirical evidence about the varieties of clientelism around the world.