Political parties have different roles and motives, making some functions more important than others. For a political party to be elected, they must have their philosophies which they are aiming to implement when they ascend into power; however, for them to implement these philosophies, they must have the majority of elected members compared to their position. The more elected members a party has, the more they are likely to legislate the constitution to favor their philosophies. Therefore, political parties must prioritize some functions in ascending, controlling, and managing power.
Autocratic parties include single-party countries like Vietnam and China and dominant party regimes that provide the freedom to have more than one party in the country. However, they do not allow the switching of political power. Autocracy has been more effective in keeping power for a longer period than dictatorship because it provides a false image of democracy (Eder, Jenny, and Müller, 2017, p. 83). There are two main functions that autocratic parties have to do to maintain power for an extended period, including bargaining with elites and seeking mass support. Therefore autocratic parties have to prioritize the bargaining function with the elites, enabling them to reduce the threat to the ruling party’s regime (Magaloni and Kricheli, 2010, p. 124). Autocrats have to ensure that they balance the rent given to the elites and the mass to ensure their stability. These two functions are more important because they help them stay in power without major events such as a coup and being voted out. Therefore, if autocratic leaders notice simultaneous threats from the elite class, they do not only supply rent to them but to the mass (Eder, Jenny, and Müller, 2017, p. 83). The main challenge they experience is creating a balance in the distribution of resources between the elites and the mass because they need both. If they put too much rent on the elites, such as the military, they lose stability on the voter’s side, and therefore, they have to look for mass mobilization to neutralize the threat. On the other hand, if the leader puts too much rent on the mass, they risk electoral defeat and, therefore, must ensure that the military is on their side to enhance their survival (Eder, Jenny, and Müller, 2017, p. 85). Therefore in autocratic parties, the functions of bargaining with the elites and seeking mass support are more important to ensure the stability of their rule.
Static parties operate in an environment of complex social structures. Therefore, due to the complexity of social structures, political parties have to act as intervening variables by reflecting social issues in their manifesto to differentiate themselves. In countries such as the USA, Canada, Austria, and Norway, there are no obvious methods of dividing the parties; therefore, parties use functions such as promising economic benefit, diversity, and creating a personality of importance (Rose and Urwin, 1970 p. 309). The economic benefit is whereby the party promises to make the economy more viable to the people. This method has been severally prioritized by Christian Democratic Union in Germany and has helped them to be successful for two decades. However, this component is losing significance in the long-term party dominance due to international economic cycles (Rose and Urwin, 1970, p. 310). Other parties have been using social interests and diversity to look for votes. This system has been well implemented in countries such as America, where their leaders promise to provide an inclusive environment for diverse social groups. Canada has adopted a similar method to use diversity’s social issues to seek political identity. The third method uses an individual’s personality in countries such as France (Rose and Urwin, 1970, p.310). The personality of individuals in French politics plays a significant role in determining whether they will win or lose in the elections.
Different political parties have different functionalities with different importance levels. The functionalities depend on the country and the type of challenges they experience. Some countries prioritize the rents given to the elites and masses to ensure that their regime is safe. Others rely heavily on economic functionality, social interests such as diversity, and personality. However, the priorities are chosen according to the geographical location of each country and the economic and social issues affecting the respective countries. These functions are important because they help the parties to ascend and maintain power.
What are the Major Differences Between Elections in Democracies and Non-Democracies?
Democracy relies not only on the elections and electoral process to be achieved but on a systematic process that includes the freedom and independence of other bodies such as the legislature and judiciary. This is because these bodies help facilitate a free and fair election. For instance, the judiciary is highly involved in the election process because it handles all the allegations of election fraud and swearing in the incoming president. Therefore, without independence and freedom, it is bound to compromise the results of an election by not providing fair judgments on cases brought to them by opposition leaders. Besides, the legislature, which is the government’s law-making arm, is responsible for creating laws that ensure fair and free elections in a democratic country (Morse, 2012, p. 174). This shows that when the government interferes with the legislature’s function, they influence them to make rules and laws that may not favour the opposing parties, such as denying candidates the ability to run for various elective seats, slashing opposition budge, and much more. This hinders a country’s democratic rule, causes fraud in elections, and is mainly used by authoritarian governments. A democratic country must have a civilized military that does not lean on one side of the government; instead, it should be neutral to facilitate a free and fair election. The military’s rule in elections is evident by ensuring they pass overpower and take orders from the democratically appointed leader. When these factors are intertwined with a natural selection based on competitive, free and fair elections, it becomes a democratic election. Therefore, a democratic election should have no interference from other arms of the government such as the judiciary, legislature, or even the elites such as the military.
One of the main characteristics of non-democratic elections is that they involve some form of an unfair process, such as opposition behavior and fraud. The ruling regime uses the tools at its disposal to buy votes, restrict civil liberties, ballot stuffing, repression, and count rigging (Morse, 2012, p. 175). However, to avoid distraction, the levels of fraud do match the margins of victory. If the fraud is widely detected, it can provide a significant oppositional capacity to reject the outcome. In autocratic leadership, the regime proposes a democratic election whereby the leaders are allowed to campaign and vote, and then during the electoral process, irregularities such as fraud occur.
The other difference is that in non-democratic elections, the opposition is subject to manipulation, repression, and co-optation by the national government. For the election process to be democratic, the opposition must face an equal battleground with the ruling regime or other contestants. However, in non-democratic governments, the opposition faces an uphill in the election process from the ruling party (Howard and Roessler, 2006, p. 372). This case is common in developing countries where most of the wealth of the country is bestowed in the hands of the government. Therefore, the government limits the resources that the opposition can get to form a countrywide political impact. The challenge is more intense if the opposition is divided; in this case, the government has more ability to manipulate and deny them the basic resources. This bias affects how the opposition can sell their party’s agenda, leading to an unfair election process.
Finally, non-democracies have strategic ways of manipulating elections. Non-democracies have been known for strategic manipulation of elections to show their followers that they were elected fairly, while on the other hand, they used biased methods to ascend to power (Bermeo, 2016, p. 13). Strategic manipulation is whereby the ruling party conducts various activities to disadvantage the opposition; however, these actions are done indirectly such that the average citizens cannot notice it (Bermeo, 2016, p. 13). Non-democratic elections violate the law by carrying out election fraud long before Election Day. This method has been adopted by democracies experiencing high levels of international electioneering monitoring; therefore, they have to ensure that they rig the elections before Election Day (Egorov and Sonin, 2020, p. 22). For example, the government can use the constitution to increase their term. This is election rigging which is done way before the election day because when the leader increases their term, they are likely to win the elections, which shows they have pre-arranged way of rigging the elections before the actual election date.
Democratic elections are those whereby there is no government interference in the stakeholders such as the judiciary, legislature, and other elite groups such as the army. Additionally, it is conducted free and fair to ensure everyone’s vote is accounted for. However, non-democracies must be involved in some election fraud, manipulate the opposition, and manipulate elections long before the actual elections. They use these methods to ensure that they do not get out of power or their preferred candidates are chosen to power. This shows that there is a major significant distinction between democracies and non-democracies.
Reference List
Bermeo, N. (2016). On democratic backsliding. Journal of Democracy, [online] 27(1), pp.5–19. Web.
Eder, N., Jenny, M. and Müller, W.C. (2017). Manifesto functions: How party candidates view and use their party’s central policy document.Electoral Studies, [online] 45, pp.75–87. Web.
Egorov, G. and Sonin, K. (2020). Elections in non-democracies. The Economic Journal, pp.1–28.
Howard, M.M. and Roessler, P.G. (2006). Liberalizing electoral outcomes in competitive authoritarian regimes. American Journal of Political Science, [online] 50(2), pp.365–381. Web.
Li Donni, P. and Marino, M. (2020). The role of collective action for the emergence and consolidation of democracy. Journal of Institutional Economics, 16(6), pp.831–862.
Magaloni, B. and Kricheli, R. (2010). Political order and one-party rule. Annual Review of Political Science, 13(1), pp.123–143.
Morse, Y.L. (2012). The era of electoral authoritarianism. World Politics, [online] 64(1), pp.161–198. Web.
Nohrstedt, D. and Bodin, Ö. (2019). Collective action problem characteristics and partner uncertainty as drivers of social tie formation in collaborative networks. Policy Studies Journal, 0(0), pp.1–24.
Rose, R. and Urwin, D.W. (1970). Persistence and change in western party systems since 1945. Political Studies, 18(3), pp.287–319.
Umpierrez de Reguero, S.A., Yener-Roderburg, I.Ö. and Cartagena, V. (2021). Political regimes and external voting rights: A cross-national comparison. Frontiers in Political Science, 3.