Political Party Development in Conflict-Prone Societies: Does Political Engineering Work?

IMGXYZ923IMGZYX In response to political parties that are institutionally weak, sectarian, poorly inclusive, and ideologically incoherent, new democracies are increasingly attempting to use institutional incentives and constraints to stimulate the development of cohesive and inclusive parties. This worldwide trend among new democracies, however, has received little scholarly attention. To better understand this trend, the Carnegie Endowment hosted Ben Reilly, Director of the Centre for Democratic Institutions at Australian National University, and Per Nordlund of the Swedish International Development Agency to discuss the major findings of their new book documenting and assessing this development, Political Parties in Conflict-Prone Societies: Regulation, Engineering, and Democratic Development (United Nations University).

A Mixed Record
In comparing experiences of party system regulation, Reilly explained, their major finding is that the results are mixed. “Clear successes”—such as Indonesia’s experiment with spatial registration requirements that successfully decreased party fragmentation—are found as frequently as “abysmal failures”—such as Russia’s adoption of similar rules that effectively wiped out the opposition. As these two cases illustrate, the same devices can prove beneficial to democratic development in some countries yet detrimental in others.

Reilly stressed that regardless of whether the consequences are positive or negative, these efforts have far greater impact than international assistance. A particularly robust finding, Reilly concluded, is that bans on mobilization along regional, ethnic, or religious lines have generally had a limited effect on conflict management and may impair party system consolidation. Rather than occurring in the inter-party arena, conflict and division around these political issues has simply been driven within parties by these regulations.

Potential Risks and Benefits
Nordlund focused on the potential benefits and risks of party engineering and regulation. These devices, Nordlund began, can entail infringement on constitutionally-protected rights. Although a minimal level of regulation is necessary, the challenge is to find the right balance beyond this point. This is particularly relevant for the issue of minority parties, which—in contrast to Europe—have generally not been accommodated in new democracies. A second major issue is ensuring that regulations are sufficiently flexible to deal with the unintended consequences they frequently produce. Thus, the current trend towards constitutional entrenchment of engineering should be reconsidered.

Once regulations are in place, Nordlund continued, enforcement becomes imperative if the intended benefits are to occur. All too often, however, it is selective and infrequent, which can generate new problems. A final consideration is the financial cost of complying with the regulations, which if high may favor wealthy individuals and parties. Nordlund concluded by stressing the importance of moving beyond formalistic engineering and regulation strategies to consider incentive-based approaches, such as voluntary quotas for women.

The Issue of Internal Legitimacy
Audience members asked whether there is a tradeoff between pushing for the development of centrist, aggregated parties and creating parties that are rooted in their societies. Reilly agreed, pointing out that while the former are linked to better development outcomes, in divided societies this may de-link parties from the real issues—“identity politics.” There is a similar tradeoff, Reilly explained, between creating centrist, aggregated parties and allowing for the free mobilization and formation of parties. As a result, Nordlund advocated for a shift away from a “better safe than sorry” approach to adopting regulation with a lighter touch that considers the relevance of a mechanism to the specific country.

Implications for International Actors
Audience members also asked the authors to comment on the implications of their findings for future international party assistance to such countries.Reilly argued that party assistance programs need to take the institutional environment—which includes both the electoral system and these party system engineering devices—into account in developing their programs since they do have such a large impact on party development. Nordlund agreed, and further argued that international actors have a role to play in being a “vector of comparative experience.” International actors should push local actors to consider the consequences of proposed incentives or constraints before adopting them, especially because incumbents often adopt such devices as a means to stay in power with little thought for their broader impact. Given that the impacts of these devices are context-specific, however, Nordlund cautioned that international actors should not attempt to be prescriptive about which rules to adopt.

Copies of the book can be purchased here