Abstract
Party system institutionalization has been a key concept for analyzing the politics of new democracies ever since Mainwaring and Scully (1995) published their seminal framework in the mid-1990s. Yet, scholars have mainly been using the concept as an independent variable, academic work that treats party system institutionalization as the dependent variable has been relatively sparse. In other words, we know very little about why some new democracies feature institutionalized party systems while others suffer from inchoate systems.
Hicken and Kuhonta argue that differences in party system institutionalization across democratizing polities can be explained by the nature of the pre-transition regime: party system institutionalization will be higher where autocratic rulers had invested in political parties as vehicles of mass mobilization and elite co-optation. This argument is underpinned by the compelling assumption that an institutionalized party system can help dictators stabilize their rule—or, put differently, strongly institutionalized party systems are not necessarily conducive to democratization.
First developed through a small-N comparative analysis (Hicken and Kuhonta, 2011), Hicken and Kuhonta now seek to further strengthen their argument through a more in-depth investigation. More specifically, in their edited volume, they ask leading scholars of Asian politics to apply their “nature of the prior regime” argument to qualitative single-case studies. The 12 country chapters—covering party systems in Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia—are bookended by an introductory chapter that introduces the reader to the analytical framework and a highly readable concluding discussion by Mainwaring.
In principle, this multiple-case study design is a valid strategy of inquiry. In particular, it helps Hicken and Kuhonta uncover the processes through which party system institutionalization reproduces itself over time. Moreover, the design rests on a methodologically sound selection of cases, as Asian party systems display a great deal of variation on the dependent variable: we find strongly institutionalized party systems (e.g. Taiwan) next to party systems that are as unpredictable as they come (e.g. the Philippines).
However, the analysis is not without weaknesses. First, to operationalize party system institutionalization, Hicken and Kuhonta rely exclusively on the stability of inter-party competition, measured in terms of electoral volatility. This is problematic because party system institutionalization is a multidimensional concept and the different dimensions, as various authors have pointed out (Hellmann, 2014; Luna and Altman, 2011), are not connected in a linear fashion. The case of Japan illustrates this perfectly: electoral volatility is low, but parties lack formally institutionalized membership structures (party organization is one of Mainwaring and Scully’s main indicators of party system institutionalization). Second, the “nature of the prior regime” argument is—strictly speaking—only applicable to cases where it is possible to identify a prior “electoral authoritarian or semi-democratic” (p. 8) regime. The application is somewhat awkward when it comes to nondemocratic regimes (e.g. China, Vietnam) and cases that have been democratic since decolonization (e.g. India). Third, and related to the previous point, Hicken and Kuhonta never explain why party systems become institutionalized in the first place. Arguing that the previous regime matters merely shifts the burden of explanation back in time. Some of the country chapters (e.g. Cheng and Hsu’s excellent chapter on Taiwan) provide explanatory accounts for why autocratic rulers sank (or did not sink) resources into party system institutionalization; however, these accounts are never combined into a generalizable argument that would apply beyond particular historical cases.
Nevertheless, despite these weaknesses, Hicken and Kuhonta’s edited volume boasts a number of strengths, which makes it a highly recommended read for scholars and students interested in issues of party politics, democratization, and autocratic government. To begin with, to my knowledge, Hicken and Kuhonta provide the first systematic, detailed study exploring the drivers of party system institutionalization. This will doubtlessly invigorate the academic debate and motivate more work using party system institutionalization as the dependent variable. Moreover, Hicken and Kuhonta’s volume highlights the usefulness of the concept of party system institutionalization for the study of non-democratic regimes. In particular, ideas developed in the relevant country chapters (China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia) will find a receptive audience in the burgeoning literature on electoral authoritarianism. Third, while party systems in other parts of the world have been the subject of much scholarly attention, party systems in Asia have been relatively neglected by the field of comparative politics. Hicken and Kuhonta’s volume fills this significant gap by providing a uniquely comprehensive overview of party politics across Northeast, Southeast, and South Asia. Without question, the volume will be the authoritative source of reference on the topic of Asian party politics for years to come.