Assessing the Impact of Political Regimes on Party System Continuity

Political parties are key actors in democratic politics and play an important role in many authoritarian regimes. For particular regions of the world, we have a good understanding about the mutual effects of regimes and party systems. Recent research has shown how parties use programmatic, clientelistic and charismatic linkage strategies to mobilize support to succeed in democratic elections or to provide support for authoritarian regimes. New comparative datasets such as V-Dem have prepared ground for analyses of parties and linkage strategies across time and space. Yet, most studies about political parties are either confined to particular regions of the world or to one regime type only. As of today, there is still a lack of global-historical research on parties, party system dynamics and regime types. In this paper, we assess the impact of regime changes on party systems in democratic and authoritarian regimes. We ask how linkage strategies and party system institutionalization differ between democracies and autocracies. Specifically, we look at the impact of regime changes on the evolution and stability of party systems. We assess key findings of region studies and move to a global-historical assessment of party systems and regime types. Our study is based on a new data set of all relevant political parties in the world covering more than 2000 parties in 190 countries since 1900. This way, we are able to evaluate the reciprocity of political institutions and political representation through parties in a global perspective.