Ruling Parties and Regime Persistence: Explaining Durable Authoritarianism in the Third Wave Era

Abstract

The field of authoritarian subtypes has usefully described the third wave's undercurrent, an international trend toward plebiscitarian politics among persistent dictatorships. Yet classification does not replace explanation and the proliferation of "authoritarianism with adjectives" risks diverting attention from the core question of comparative regime change studies: Under what conditions do authoritarian regimes become democracies? This paper attempts to reorient the study of contemporary authoritarianism with a theory of ruling parties and coalition management. Whether electoral or exclusionary, authoritarian regimes with ruling parties prove more robust than other nondemocratic systems. Statistical analysis of 135 regimes during the period 1975-2000 shows that the presence or absence of multiparty elections, the key feature of the brand new authoritarianism, has no significant impact on regime survival while party institutionalization remains a strong predictor of regime longevity. Process tracing in four cases with limited multiparty politics details the causal relationship between ruling parties and regime persistence. Egypt and Malaysia evince a pattern of durability in which the dominant party resolves intra-elite conflict and prevents the defection of influential leaders. Iran and the Philippines show that the decline of ruling party institutions generates elite polarization and public rifts, a necessary but insufficient condition for successful opposition mobilization and regime change. Contrary to widespread expectations, elections do not destabilize authoritarian regimes. Authoritarian regimes that have neglected the institutions of coalition maintenance destabilize elections.

Full text

Ruling Parties and Regime Persistence:
Explaining Durable Authoritarianism in the Third Wave Era
Jason Brownlee
Department of Government
The University of Texas at Austin
brownlee@gov.utexas.edu
© Copyright by Jason Brownlee, 2005.
Abstract: The field of authoritarian subtypes has usefully described the third wave’s
undercurrent, an international trend toward plebiscitarian politics among persistent
dictatorships. Yet classification does not replace explanation and the proliferation of
“authoritarianism with adjectives” risks diverting attention from the core question of
comparative regime change studies: Under what conditions do authoritarian regimes
become democracies? This paper attempts to reorient the study of contemporary
authoritarianism with a theory of ruling parties and coalition management. Whether
electoral or exclusionary, authoritarian regimes with ruling parties prove more robust
than other nondemocratic systems. Statistical analysis of 135 regimes during the period
1975-2000 shows that the presence or absence of multiparty elections, the key feature of
the brand new authoritarianism, has no significant impact on regime survival while party
institutionalization remains a strong predictor of regime longevity. Process tracing in
four cases with limited multiparty politics details the causal relationship between ruling
parties and regime persistence. Egypt and Malaysia evince a pattern of durability in
which the dominant party resolves intra-elite conflict and prevents the defection of
influential leaders. Iran and the Philippines show that the decline of ruling party
institutions generates elite polarization and public rifts, a necessary but insufficient
condition for successful opposition mobilization and regime change. Contrary to
widespread expectations, elections do not destabilize authoritarian regimes.
Authoritarian regimes that have neglected the institutions of coalition maintenance
destabilize elections.

Introduction
Over the past thirty years the international shift toward authoritarianism wrapped in
plebiscitarian politics has outpaced the spread of competitive democratic institutions
known as the “third wave” (Schedler 2000: 6; Diamond 2002: 26-27). Huntington
counted thirty-five countries as democratizing (Huntington 1991: 14-15), while, during
the period 1975-2000, forty-four states, many of them in sub-Saharan Africa, introduced
limited multiparty elections under conditions of continued authoritarianism. The result is
that a third of the world’s governments permit constrained pluralistic competition, but
prevent the regular rotation of elites, the criterion of a procedural standard for electoral
democracy (Schumpeter 1947: 269). As shown in Table 1, this kind of authoritarian rule
is the modal form of autocracy today, more than twice as common as fully closed
exclusionary authoritarianism without any pretext of pluralism.
Table 1: Political Regimes in the Developing World
World Regions /
Regime Types
Liberal
Democracy
Electoral
Democracy
Electoral
Authoritarian
Closed
Authoritarian
Sum
Eastern Europe 11 3 5 0 19
Central Asia &
Caucasus
0 0 7 1 8
Latin America &
Caribbean
17 11 4 1 33
N.Africa &
Middle East
1 0 10 8 19
Sub-Saharan
Africa
5 10 26 7 48
South, SE, &
East Asia
2 8 6 8 24
World 36 32 58 25 151
Source: (Schedler 2002: 47)
1

The proliferation of so-called hybrid regimes has drawn increasing attention from
scholars in comparative politics (in addition to over a dozen papers at the 2004 APSA
Annual Meeting, see Carothers 2002; Diamond 2002; Levitsky and Way 2002; Schedler
2002; Ottaway 2003).Yet the utility of shifting focus from authoritarian breakdown and
democratization to intra-regime type differentiation has not been systematically assessed.
Authoritarian sub-types may usefully describe the diverse characteristics of non-
democratic politics in what has otherwise been a catchall residual category. However,
their explanatory value for the question of regime change remains unsubstaniated. As
shown below, the characteristic of being “electoral” does not have a significant effect on
authoritarian regime longevity. Rather, the potential for ending authoritarianism
depends more on the core institutions through which unelected rulers manage their
coalitions. Ruling parties prove especially influential in maintaining dictatorship, both of
the exclusionary variety and the brand new authoritarianism in its electoral incarnation.
Consequently, comparativists’ understanding of regime change will be better served by
debating rival explanations for the variation between persistence and change, rather than
subdividing the non-democratic world further at the risk of unnecessary, if not costly,
fragmentation in scholarship.
Parties vs. Elections in Explaining Regime Outcomes
From the Estates General in 1789 to the Polish Communists’ elections two centuries
later, non-democratic regimes have used participatory institutions to appease opponents
and entrench incumbents (Markoff 1996: 101). Following the “stunning” defeats dealt to
dictators in the 1970s and ‘80s, Huntington treated inclusionary politics as a fatal
2

misstep for dictatorships, arguing that “liberalized authoritarianism is not a stable
equilibrium. The halfway house does not stand” (Huntington 1991: 137: 185). His
expectation echoes O’Donnell and Schmitter’s contention that post-World War II
autocrats “can justify themselves in political terms only as transitional powers” (1986:
15), DiPalma’s claim “that dictatorships do not endure” (1990: 33), and Przeworski’s
idea that “liberalization is inherently unstable” (1991: 58). Meanwhile, an array of
research has supported an alternative view, mainly that manipulated elections may
reinforce the position of autocratic incumbents (Linz 1975: 236; Hermet 1978: 14; Joseph
1997: 375; Chehabi and Linz 1998: 18; Przeworski and Gandhi 2001: 15-16). How does
one reconcile these arguments with those of the first camp?
For the issue of regime change, cross-national statistical analysis indicates the
institutions of rule matter more than the absence or presence of elections. Tests of
regime survival that incorporate a variable for the presence of absence of limited
multiparty elections -the halfway house characteristic that so many regimes exhibited
during the period of democratization treated by Huntington- show no significant
destabilizing effect in so-called liberalized authoritarianism. Rather, as in an earlier study
of authoritarian breakdown (Geddes 1999a), regime endurance continues to depend upon
the nature of a country’s political institutions. Single-party regimes remain the most
robust type of regime regardless of whether multi-party elections were introduced. For
information of regime duration this project utilized Geddes’s dataset, expanding it with
the inclusion of eleven monarchies (Bahrain, Egypt, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco,
Nepal, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) and nine post-Soviet states
(Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Ukraine,
3

Uzkekistan). Economic figures were taken from the Penn World Tables 6.1 Finally, the
World Bank Database of Political Indicators (DPI) provided information for the creation
of a dummy variable for authoritarianism with elections (Beck, Clarke et al. 2001).
1
The Database, which covers countries from 1975 to 2000, includes a 7-point scale
of legislative and executive electoral competitiveness. The scale for legislative electoral
competitiveness is as follows:
1 - No legislature
2 - Unelected legislature
3 - Elected, 1 candidate
4 - 1 party, multiple candidates
5 - Multiple parties are legal but only one party won seats
6 - Multiple parties did win seats but the largest party received more than 75% of the
seats
7- Largest party got less than 75% (Keefer 2002).
1
It is common to use Polity or Freedom House data to track the political opening of an
authoritarian regime. Such studies can reveal much about gradual political changes over time
Munck, Gerardo L. and Jay Verkuilen (2002). "Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy:
Evaluating Alternative Indices." Comparative Political Studies 35(1): 5-24, Mainwaring, Scott and
Anibal Perez-Linan (2003). "Level of Development and Democracy: Latin American
Exceptionalism." Comparative Political Studies 11(9): 1031-1067.. However, they do not capture
well discrete changes within regimes, such as from single- or no-party authoritarianism to multi-
party authoritarianism. For the purposes of evaluating Huntington’s hypothesis and the general
claim that political opening weakens dictatorship, their measures do not match well with the
theory being evaluated. A replicable standard is needed for distinguishing exclusionary
authoritarian regimes, those that make no pretext of pluralism, from inclusionary authoritarian
systems that may or may not behave as halfway houses. The Database of Political Institutions
provides more traction on this problem.
4

Joined to the expanded Geddes dataset, the DPI allows comparativists to sort
authoritarian regimes based on the degree of participation permitted to the opposition.
This is a significant advance beyond Polity or Freedom House because it better
disaggregates theorized causes, the array of political institutions, from outcomes that
may be conflated with levels of political and civic freedom. Used in tandem with
Geddes’s measurement of regime breakdown, it allows comparativists to assess claims
regarding the dichotomous dependent variable of regime continuity or collapse. As shown
in Table 2, no significant relationship obtained between the holding of multiparty
elections under authoritarianism and regime breakdown. Rather, military regimes showed
a significant destabilizing effect and single-party regimes were found to have a significant
bolstering influence on regime survival. Additionally, variables measuring economic
performance proved highly significant.
These results merit further investigation, but their initial message for the study
of authoritarian durability is compelling and, for the halfway house argument,
disconfirming. Elections provide an arena for political contestation. But they are
primarily as indicator of regime change, rather than an explanatory variable with an
independent causal impact. The effect of elections on authoritarian regime duration
depends on other factors, such as the management of intra-elite conflict through parties,
which determine whether elections become sufficiently competitive to threaten
incumbents. Functioning as they are intended, rigged ballot boxes provide domestic and
international benefits to autocrats. It is the unintended capacity of elections to remove
incumbents from office that makes “electoral authoritarian” regimes vulnerable to
5

Table 2: Test of Elections and Authoritarian Regime Endurance
Variable
Coefficient
(s.e.)
Limited Elections
.006
(.013)
Military regime
.10
(.04)
Mil.-personal regime
.03
(.029)
Personal regime -
Party hybrid regime
-.002
(.018)
Single-party regime
-.045
(.014)
Military-personal-party
hybrid regime
-.03
(.016)
Monarchy
-.013
(.033)
Ln gdp/cap
-.017
(.008)
Lagged growth
-.127
(.06)
n = 1299 country-years during 1975-2000 (135 regimes)
Results are from dprobit. Dependent variable is regime breakdown (mean = .057).
Limited elections dummy variable constructed from the World Bank Database of
Political Institutions index of legislative and executive competitiveness. Scores of 5-7
were coded as 1 (presence of multiparty elections).
Regional dummy variables and time variables not statistically significant. Full results
and datasets on monarchies and Soviet successor states available from author.
6

societal protest. In sum, elections do not destabilize regimes. Regimes with few or no
institutions for managing elite conflict destabilize elections. The test of elections and
political duration reaffirms the significance of political institutions even as it directs our
attention to explanations for this link between ruling parties and regime persistence.
Parties provide a site for political negotiation within the ruling elite that
represents more than reliable patronage distribution. By offering a long-term system for
members to resolve differences and advance in influence, parties generate and maintain a
cohesive leadership cadre. It follows that the actions of those inside the regime must be
situated within the party, extending purely institutional accounts with recognition of
individual agency. At the same time otherwise voluntaristic explanations can be further
developed through an investigation of the party organization’s influence on political
preferences and actions.
Ruling Parties and Regime Persistence
In the closing chapter of Political Order in Changing Societies, Huntington wrote the
“
development of… party institutions is the prerequisite for political stability in modernizing
countries” (1968: 412)
. He observed that parties help regimes to organize emergent social
forces during periods of rapid socioeconomic change while constituting a new political
class for distributing national-level influence. These arguments echo in recent works that
treat parties as the ballasts of political regimes
(Knight 1992; Craig and Cornelius 1995: 260;
Haggard and Kaufman 1995: 305-306; Geddes 1999b: 11).
Attention to the role of parties in
shaping the actions of political elites holds the potential for substantially advancing
purely voluntarist accounts. Discussions of “soft-liners,” those political elites who reach
out to moderate opposition movements, tend to leave open the question of what factors
7

distinguish defection from reaffiliation (O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986: 19; Przeworski
1986: 56). Is the decision purely contingent or can it be theorized in terms of general
causes? Since the translation of elite conflict into national politics outcomes occurs
within the regime’s institutions, elite behavior must be embedded within ruling parties
thereby showing the interaction of institutional influence and individual agency.
The ruling party’s capacity for intra-elite mediation is particularly important in
non-democratic settings where the maintenance of domination depends on regime
cohesion. In a context where individuals seek political influence and material gain, party
institutions sustain those preferences while providing a site, the party organization, to
pursue them. Diffusion of opportunity through the party’s ranks satisfies individual
ambitions and ameliorates conflict between competing factions. Debates can be revisited
and loyalty is the salve for today’s losses just as it is the currency for future gains. A
contrasting scenario occurs when organizational influence narrows to an impermeable
clique. Leaders then pursue a similar goal, career advancement, via a significantly
different path, the reordering of the political regime. Hence, preferences in their most
immediate sense for the individual do not change, but actors’ political intentions and
actions shift dramatically. Once leaders have dismantled the party to insulate their
closest confederates, fears of exclusion spread in the wider circle of elites. Distance breeds
distrust and, ultimately, dissent. No mechanisms exist to mediate inter-factional conflict
and debates escalate into battles for political life or death. Erstwhile defenders of the
status quo then campaign for reform, rather than waste away in a hierarchy that offers
no opportunity for success.
8

For authoritarian regimes ruling parties bring elite cohesion, electoral control,
and political durability. The centripetal influence accorded to parties is best theorized
not simply in terms of members’ individual preferences, but rather in the way
institutions encourage continued loyalty over defection. So long as the organization
manages its members’ ambitions, individual pursuits can be the root of continued
allegiance. In contrast, the lack of a party regulating elite interaction tends to heighten
the allure of working from the outside. Intra-elite rivalry feeds into inter-factional
competition, exposing the regime to challenges from previously marginalized foes. The
same pattern may obtain in parties systems that have abandoned their interest
management function through organizational decay. When mechanisms of reward and
sanction weaken, organizational solidarity suffers. Loss of privileges alienates the party’s
membership and inclines regime supporters toward the societal opposition (Kalyvas 1999:
337; Herbst 2001: 361; Solinger 2001: 37). Similarly, when parties are deliberately
dismantled or left to disintegrate, elite defections brings intra-organizational conflicts
into public view. The struggle shifts from direct, but regulated, conflict in the circles of
authority to an indirect battle in which leaders turn to the electorate for additional
support (Sartori 1976: 49). In this way unsatisfied regimists align with those activists
pushing for change. Figure 1 illustrates the relationship of ruling parties to regime
persistence and the contrast path in which party decline exacerbates elite conflict. The
diagram bounds the argument from institutional origins at one end and the foreclosure
or opening of opportunities for regime change at the other, subjects I treat elsewhere
(Brownlee 2004).
2
2
The segment of elite defections and electoral defeats depicts a process that normally takes
9

Regime
Continuity
Regime
Change
Necessary but insuf
f
icient
Incumbent
Victory
Incumbent
Defeat
Figure 1: Ruling Parties and Durable Authoritarianism
Maintenance
of Electoral
Controls
Loss of
Electoral
Controls
Elite
Defections
Elite
Cohesion
Deactivation
of Ruling
Party
Maintenance
of Ruling
Party
Introducti
o
n of Limited
Multiparty Elections
(“Third Wave” Politics)
Necessary and sufficient
several years. Hence, the explanation differs in both cause and pace from accounts of mass
mobilization bandwagoning, as occurred in the Eastern Europe’s later transitions in 1989 Kuran,
Timur (1991). Now out of Never - the Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of
1989. World Politics. 44: 7-48, Karklins, Rasma and Roger Petersen (1993). "Decision Calculus of
Protesters and Regimes - Eastern-Europe 1989." Journal of Politics 55(3): 588-614..
10

The maintenance of ruling coalitions through party institutions is a sufficient
condition for regime endurance. The logical implication is that the breakdown of elite
cohesion is necessary but insufficient for regime change. Dictatorships that lose their own
elections have experienced a kind of regime deconsolidation, a “crisis of governance” for
autocratic rule (Kohli 1990: 400) and a “democratizing moment”(Yashar 1997: 17). This
disorder, to the extent that it represents the erosion of anti-democratic incumbents’
positions, is a permissive condition for the development of alternate centers of power. It
creates an opportunity from which elite defectors and oppositionists may press for
change (Kitschelt 1986: 66-67; McAdam 1996: 35; Meyer 2004: 137). Elite defections and
electoral defeats can then ouster incumbents when they are followed by a popular
alternative faction willing to confront the regime. Whether or not opposition victories at
the polls bring a change of regime depends upon public contests to subordinate
prevailing leaders in elected and unelected institutions to the challengers’ campaign for a
new system.
The corollary to this argument is that the absence of ruling parties is necessary
for regime collapse but, on its own, not sufficient for that outcome to obtain. Party
institutionalization accounts for the presence or absence of opportunities for regime
change. Understanding what activists make of such opportunities necessitates an
attention to the strategy and capacity of the groups involved. These limits follow
Stinchcombe’s admonition against overextending comparative research into realms for
which it is ill-suited:
[A] sociological theory of revolution ought not expect to be able to tell who will win in
a revolutionary situation, but to tell that there will be a fight with unlimited means, a
11

fight not conducted under defined norms for deciding political battles. Explaining who
won, and why, is primarily a problem of military science, not of social science (1965:
170).
The theory linking institutions to political stability thus explains both regime endurance
and the absence of endurance, conceived as the opening for regime collapse. By
connecting political structures and political agents, the explanation shows when
structural opportunities for effective action are opened and how, even in the cases of
regime durability, structures influence actors’ preferences, such as the incentive to
remain loyal to the regime rather than challenge it publicly.
Case Studies
The theory of durable authoritarianism through ruling parties is supported by a cross-
regional comparison of incumbents’ electoral victory in Egypt and Malaysia and electoral
defeat in Iran and the Philippines (Figure 2). These regimes share in common
authoritarian systems that allow opposition groups to participate in national elections.
Yet their durability varies in ways not covered by regional attributes of the Middle East
or Southeast Asia. Close analysis of their experiences, drawn from field research in all
four countries, including the collection of written materials and the conducting of elite
interviews, provides causal narratives tracing the political process by which parties bring
regime durability.
12

Figure 2: The Cases of Ruling Parties and Regime Durability
The capacity of ruling parties for maintaining elite unity in the face of opposition
explains regime durability in Egypt and Malaysia and election defeats in Iran and the
Philippines that represented opportunities for regime change. Figure 3 shows the
LOW
Egypt: NDP
(1954-present)
Malaysia: UMNO
(1957-present)
Iran: IRP until 1987
(1981-2000*)
Philippines: NP until 1972
(1972-1986)
HIGH
Regime Durability
LOW HIGH
Ruling Party Institutionalization
* In the year 2000 Iran entered a phase of dual sovereignty from which reformists
could press for a transformation of the system. The reasons for their subsequent
failure to oust regime hard-liners, and accomplish regime change as occurred in the
Philippines, are explored in Chapter 5.
H
13

variations in electoral performance across the four regimes. Since the early 1970s Egypt’s
National Democratic Party (NDP) and Malaysia’s United Malaya National Organization
(UMNO) have each survived over a half dozen parliamentary elections, always achieving
a super majority of more than two-thirds the available seats. Party organizations have
mediated intra-elite conflict and perpetuated a phenomenon of no elite defections and no
electoral defeat. In contrast, the Iranian and Philippine regimes failed to maintain ruling
parties (the Islamic Republic Party and Nationalist Party, respectively) and
subsequently lost both elite cohesion and electoral control within two to three election
cycles.
Figure 3: Regime Electoral Performance in
Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and the Philippines
Khatami Victory
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
Egypt
Malaysia
Philippines
Iran
Aquino Victory
Unido Victories
Reformist Victories
Incumbent Share (%) of Presidential Vote or
Elected Seats in Parliament
Year
This set enables a combined application of most similar research design within
regions (Egypt and Iran, Malaysia and Philippines) and most different case design across
14

Table 3: Rival Explanations for Regime Durability and Regime Instability
Rival Explanations
D indicates theorized support for durability
I indicates theorized support for instability
Egypt
(1954-2000+)
Malaysia
(1957-1999+)
Iran
(1981-2000)
Philippines
(1972-1986)
Party institutions supporting elite cohesion D D I I
Political-Cultural Explanations
Predominantly Muslim population (Huntington 1991) D D
Extensive prior experience with democracy (Linz and
Stepan 1996)
I I
Political Economic Explanations
Mid-high economic development (Lipset 1959) I I
Rentier state (Mahdavy 1970) D D
Economic crisis (Haggard and Kaufman 1997) I I I I
State Strength Explanations
Support from foreign superpower (US) (Snyder 1992) D D
Strong repressive apparatus (Stepan 1988) D D
Elite Level Explanations
Elite cleavages (O'Donnell and Schmitter 1986) I I I I
Elite settlements (Burton, Higley et al. 1991) D D D D
Societal Explanations
Viable partner outside ruling coalition (Tsebelis 1988) I I
Active civil society, freedom to associate
(Linz and Stepan 1996)
I I
Mass-based Opposition (Bratton and van de Walle 1997) I I
Institutional Explanations
Rule of law, significant independence of judiciary
(Linz and Stepan 1996)
I I
Plurality voting (Lust-Okar and Jamal 2002) D D D D
Outcome
Durability
Durability
Instability
Instability
15

regions (Egypt and Malaysia, Iran and the Philippines). The intra-regional comparisons
reveal political contrasts amid shared characteristics. The cross-regional comparisons
bring commonalities to the foreground in pairs of otherwise dissimilar countries (Skocpol
1979: 36). Therefore, the cases address a number of prominent explanatory variables.
Comparing the causal processes in Iran-Philippines with Egypt-Malaysia enables
evaluation of a historical and institutional argument where competing monocausal
hypotheses fail to explain the observed variation in outcomes (Tarrow 1999: 10;
Lieberman 2001: 1015-1016). (See Table 3 above.) In addition, a comparative study of
Egypt, Iran, Malaysia, and the Philippines provides an empirical contribution. While
encompassing well over two hundred million people, these “crucial swing states for
democracy” (Diamond 2000: 96) have received minimal coverage in recent literature
(Hull 1999: 120).
Party Dominance in Egypt and Malaysia
Ruling parties provide forums for the diffusion of disagreements and the amelioration of
conflicting ambitions over the long-term. The party becomes the site for national-level
agenda setting, as well as a distribution network for political and material patronage,
reassuring members that unsatisfactory outcomes are impermanent. Egyptian and
Malaysian political elites, like their peers in Iran and the Philippines, have disagreed
sharply over personal and policy matters. But they have benefited from an
organizational infrastructure that accommodates elite interests and alleviates fears that a
loss in the short-term will translate into permanent exclusion from the ruling clique.
When disagreements threatened to splinter these regimes, leaders reached out to their
16

discontent partisans and mended fences through the reallocation of influential positions
in government. Ruling parties enabled interpersonal reconciliation. Intra-elite conflicts
were ultimately positive-sum rather than polarizing because dissatisfied leaders could
renegotiate issues of significance (e.g., management of the economy, corruption). While
such discussions are far from democratic and the head of the party looms large as the
ultimate (and sometimes arbitrary) mediator of debate, they are sufficiently diffuse that
continued work within the system remains preferable to a campaign for reform from the
outside.
Egypt and Malaysia’s ruling parties have brought elite cohesion among leaders
and electoral control against their foes. By regulating leadership politics, the NDP and
UMNO have held together a dominant cadre and repeatedly blocked opposition forces
from winning control of government. Moments of tension within the NDP and UMNO
show how parties structure conflict in times of difficulty and provide regimes a
stabilizing ballast of political membership. The cancellation of the Future Party in Egypt
and the dissolution of Semangat ’46 in Malaysia reveal how Egyptian and Malaysian
ruling parties structured elite relations, reducing the stakes of conflict and encouraging
reaffiliation over rebellion. Subsequently, this fractious unity through ruling parties
protected the leadership against threats from outside its ranks. Elite cohesion bolstered
electoral control and excluded the opposition through three decades of limited
multipartyism. Table 4 shows the NDP and UMNO’s electoral performance over seven
election cycles. The opposition failed to make breakthroughs in Egypt (2000) and
Malaysia (1990).
17

Table 4: Results of Parliamentary Elections in Egypt and Malaysia
Year 1976 1979 1984 1987 1990 1995 2000
Egypt (NDP) 82% 84% 87% 78% 81% 94% 87%*
Year 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1995 1999
Malaysia (UMNO-led NF) 88% 85% 86% 84% 71% 84% 77%
* includes the 41% of seats taken by “NDP-independents”
Sources: Ries, M. (1999). Egypt. Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook. D. Nohlen, M.
Krennerich and B. Thibaut. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 329-350. Tan, K. Y. (2001).
Malaysia. Elections in Asia and the Pacific: a data handbook. D. Nohlen, F. Grotz and C.
Hartmann. Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press: 143-183.
Rather than addressing the typical authoritarian-dominated elections that are
unshaded in the table, the focus here is on the resolution of intra-elite clashes and
elections that followed in Egypt (2000) and Malaysia (1990), experiences that shook both
regimes but did not remove them from power. Political concessions, offered through the
party, enticed discontented leaders to rejoin rather than breakaway and compete against
the ruling party. The object of explanation is the period of continuous authoritarian rule
(Egypt 1976-present, Malaysia 1974-present). “Regime durability” means the ruling
elite’s survival of successive limited elections without loss of control of government (i.e.,
for these cases, maintenance of a two-thirds majority in parliament). However, this
macro-level correlation is incomplete without attention to the mechanisms of regime
durability through elite cohesion and electoral control. While extended stretches of time
provide the trend of regime survival, “crises survived” offer corroborating counterfactual
support for an explanation of regime change and regime endurance (Brownlee 2002: 39).
18

Elections that nearly brought the regime’s loss of control over government highlight the
causally relevant factors that differed systematically from the conditions of incumbent
electoral defeat. Hence, it is the most challenging episodes for regime continuity that
reveal moments of tension and strain upon prevailing power arrangements.
Egypt: The Future Party and NDP-Independents
While Egypt’s presidents and ruling party have controlled the political system for fifty
years, arguably the most influential criticisms have originated within the regime’s own
ranks. Cleavages in the ruling National Democratic Party, along overlapping lines of
generational and policy differences, have caused tension. The impact of these intra-elite
clashes on public political contestation rose during the elections of 1990 and 1995. A shift
in electoral law from party lists to individual candidacies in 1990 brought higher
parliamentary majorities for the NDP, but also created new opportunities for junior
party members to advance. Since seats were no longer reserved for competition between
official party standard bearers, ambitious politicians not nominated by the NDP could
run as independent candidates. If successful, they had the option of reaffiliating with the
party in place of its defeated representatives. The regime’s parliamentary bloc soon
included a large number of these “NDP-independents.” In 1990, an estimated 95 (22%)
elected MPs had this profile and in 1995 the number was around 100 (23%) (Zaki 1995:
96; Mustafa 1997: 45). NDP-independents were often new business elites who had
benefited from Sadat’s economic liberalization and possessed the wealth to challenge the
ruling party’s traditional nominees. Status as an MP offered both legal immunity and
influence over government policy (Zaki 1995: 97). The new class businessmen-politicians
19

gained influence during the 1990s as the government embarked on a program of IMF-
prescribed structural adjustment and privatization. Yet growing importance for Egypt’s
political economy did not translate automatically into greater recognition from the ruling
party’s traditional elite. Long-time power holders were slow to cede organizational
influence to the up-and-coming capitalists.
Apparently responding to the senior leadership’s intransigence, the NDP’s
younger and business-oriented wing circulated a proposal in summer 1999 to form a
second ruling party. The “Future Party,” as it was to be called, would compete with the
NDP and provide a platform for the ascendant faction.
3
Some leaders of the opposition
saw the proposal as an opportunity in which a “small space for democracy” could lead to
broader changes.
4
Unfortunately for those anticipating a crack in the regime, the planned
party soon disappeared from print or official discussion. One NDP member of the
Consultative Assembly (Upper House) recounted that the idea was never formally
pursued:
It’s a party created by some people whose intention is reforming the top of the party.
This was a big question among everybody. I don’t know what happened. I don’t know
if this was real [or] if it was not true. There wasn’t a decision.
5
The proposal was not publicized and the party never emerged.
6
3
"'Future Party' Enters the Battle Against the National [Democratic] Party," Al-Ahali. 16 June
1999 [Arabic]: 1, 4, "The New Party Begins Its Activities in September," Al-Ahali. 23 June 1999
[Arabic]: 1, 4, "Government Leaders Called for Deliberation and Warned of the Dangers of
'Escaping' from the Customs," Al-Ahali. 30 June 1999 [Arabic]: 1, 4, "Egypt Votes 'Yes'," The
Middle East. 1 November, "The Future Party," Al-Ahram Al-Mulhaq [Arabic]. July 17, 1999: 8.
4
Al-Said, Rifaat (1999). Interview with author. Cairo, Egypt. 22 June.
5
Waly, Sherif (2002). Cairo, Egypt. Interview with author. April 25.
20

Instead room was made within the NDP to promote Gamal Mubarak, the
president’s son, and his allies in the business community, such as ceramics tycoon
Mohammed Abul Einein and steel magnate Ahmed Ezz. A political correspondent for
Egypt’s leading English weekly described the Future Party as a proposal whose goal of
business interest promotion was pursued through other means:
[T]his was an idea. I think it was suggested for the first time by Gamal Mubarak, but
they let the leftist party newspaper publish this and see what the reaction of the people
will be to it. The [old guard] group of Yusef Waly, Kemal Al-Shazli and Safwat Sharif
began to react quickly and to find out what’s going on, if there’s any attempt to get rid
of them or not... But at the end the idea was cancelled by the president and his son,
who found that it is better to join the party’s ranks to take a leading position in the
party and to play a stronger role in reforming the party. They found [that] it is not
good to establish a new party, but it is better to remain in the party and to exercise an
influence over the party to move it into more a democratic way of doing things.
7
As the idea of an alternate party faded attention turned to the existing Future
Foundation, led by Gamal Mubarak since 1998 to provide affordable housing for young
Egyptians, and the Future Generation Foundation, also headed by Gamal Mubarak and
focused on training Egypt’s youth for entering the job market.
8
“When [President Hosni]
Mubarak was asked about the Future Party he said, ‘The Future? This is the name of a
non-governmental organization led by Gamal Mubarak’”.
9
6
"Mubarak shrugs off pressure for immediate political change," Agence France-Presse. 19
September 1999.
7
El-Din, Gamal Essam (2002). Interview with author. Cairo, Egypt. April 17.
8
Hammouda, Dahlia (1998). "Mobilising Charity." Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line(408), (2003).
Future Generation Foundation, Future Generation Foundation. 2003.
9
El-Din, Gamal Essam (2002). Interview with author. Cairo, Egypt. April 17.
21

The Future Party had been aborted, but an upwardly mobile “young guard”
moved to the National Democratic Party’s fore. The NDP’s General Secretariat brought
Gamal Mubarak aboard in fall 1999. Ezz, Abul Einein, and another prominent business
leader, Ibrahim Kamel, joined the party’s political committee the following February, a
decision one member of the General Secretariat said reflected the party’s recognition of
the business community as “part of the country's social forces.”
10
The changes sought by
the proponents of the Future Party had been accommodated within the ruling party,
although differences persisted along the cleavage of Future Party-traditional NDP (new
guard vs. old guard). By incorporating not only the president’s son but also a broader
set of politically ambitious business leaders, the NDP had created a new coalition that
reflected generational shifts in the country’s economy. The long-term viability of this
merger was soon tested and proven robust.
The 2000 races for seats in parliament spurred debate at the party’s highest
ranks about developing a more meritocratic system of membership promotion. At issue
was how far the NDP should go to incorporate the new capitalist cadres into its official
party lists. The stakes were raised by the country’s Supreme Constitutional Court’s
decision that the judiciary should monitor the election process across all polling stations.
The NDP and its agents could still be expected to influence the elections, but the SCC’s
decision put a premium on NDP candidacy. Thousands sought the party’s imprimatur
and the flood of applications forced the party’s leadership to reject many potential
candidates. When the NDP completed candidate selections, its choices showed 42%
turnover from previous choices, a transformation in the proposed standard bearers that
10
Abdel-Latif, Omayma (2000). "A younger NDP?" Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line(468).
22

revealed the tension brewing within the new coalition. As one analysis of the 2000 polls
reported:
The changes in names reflected strong internal disagreement on the selection of
candidates, as this percentage change was the largest in the history of the NDP… This
change was the result of undisclosed disputes inside the party between young members
under the leadership of Gamal Mubarak and traditional leaders represented by the
secretary general, Dr. Yousef Waly, and the organizational secretary, Kamal El-Shazly.
The dispute regarded the criteria for selecting candidates. Gamal Mubarak preferred
selecting younger candidates who gave a new image to the party. This was rejected by
the party’s traditional leadership that had always controlled the selection process.
11
In fact, the young Mubarak’s allies were not fully rebuffed. The NDP put forward a mix
of traditional and fresh candidates that reflected the organization’s agreement to
disagree. Youth comprised a substantial portion of this compromise roster as Kamal El-
Shazli stated that one hundred of the candidates were between thirty and forty years
old.
12
Rather than splitting into two organizations, along the lines of traditionalists
versus technocrats, the NDP accommodated the programs of a younger business-oriented
corps, gradually released older figures from their hold on the party’s center, and
preserved its effective hegemony over the opposition. Subsequently, about 1400 party
members who were not chosen tried their luck outside the party as “NDP-independent”
candidates, an average of six candidates per contested seat. These party renegades
11
Ouda, Jihad, Negad El-Borai, et al. (2001). A Door Onto the Desert: The Egyptian
Parliamentary Elections of 2000, Course, Dilemmas, and Recommendations for the Future. Cairo,
Egypt, United Group.
12
(2000). "NDP goes for youth in election lists." Middle East Economic Digest: 5.
23

benefited from the judiciary’s involvement and dealt the NDP an embarrassing, but non-
fatal blow.
The SCC’s ruling meant elections were spaced over a month, in three stages that
enabled judges to cover polling stations country-wide. When the elections began, the
NDP faced challengers on two fronts, the official opposition (especially the Muslim
Brotherhood and the Wafd Party, which ran candidates all 222 districts) and the wave
of disgruntled “NDP-independents.” Hoping they could still rig the process, ruling party
candidates were frustrated to find judiciary members would not let unregistered voters
cast ballots, nor would they turn over ballot boxes to policemen offering to “help”
transport them to the tallying stations. Still, with an average lag time of six days
between the three stages of voting, the NDP found ways to manipulate the outcomes of
later races: intervening where the judiciary’s mandate did not reach, beyond the voting
room.
13
One judge, puzzled why no voters had shown up by midday, went outside to see
why. He found state security forces blocking all voters who tried to approach. When he
questioned a nearby soldier, he was told, “Your responsibility ends at the door of the
school [the polling station]. Once you step outside you are not a judge and I do not
recognize you.”
14
The elections grew more fraudulent as time passed, with candidates and voters in
later races facing obstruction by state security forces as they tried to enter the polling
stations. State security forces were directed to concentrate on pro-Muslim Brotherhood
13
Amin, Nasser (2002). Interview with author. Cairo, Arab Center for the Independence of the
Judiciary. 2 June.
14
Amin, N. (2000). Interview with author. Cairo. Arab Center for the Independence of the
Judiciary.
24

voters, particularly in the last third of polling, contested by several of the organization’s
senior leaders. One NDP leader explained candidly:
Waly: When I was saying 80% [clean] I meant it, because it was not all clean elections.
Sometimes we had to stop the Muslim Brothers from emerging.
Interviewer: ‘Had to stop them from getting too many seats?
Waly: Yes. Especially a lot in the third stage, because in the first stage not a lot of
people entered. In the second stage they entered and they found themselves successful.
So in the third stage they didn’t believe it, so they began. They were moving like hell!
15
Despite these obstacles, the Muslim Brotherhood won seventeen of the sixty-three races
in which it ran candidates, a marked improvement over their weak showing in 1995 and
a sign of the judicial monitors’ efforts at improving the process.
16
Nevertheless, overall
opposition performance fell far short of the 1987 results. Aside from the MB, the official
opposition parties took a modest twenty-one seats, including several independents
informally affiliated with particular opposition movements.
17
The flood of NDP-independents did not help the opposition, but it brought heavy
turnover within the National Democratic Party’s parliamentary roster. Eight People’s
Assembly committee chairs, including founding NDP and General-Secretariat member
Mohamed Abdellah, lost.
18
Only 172 (39%) of the NDP’s official candidates were
successful. Another 181 NDP-independents, who had not publicized their affiliation
15
Waly, Sherif (2002). Cairo, Egypt. Interview with author. April 25.
16
Mustafa, Hala (2001). The 2000 Elections: General Indicators. The 2000 People's Assembly
Elections. H. Mustafa. Cairo, Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies [Arabic]: 7-14.
17
Rabei, Amro Hashem Ibid.Political Participation: Qualitative and Quantitative Indicators: 163-
208.
18
Reshad, Abdel Ghefar (2000). The 2000 People's Assembly: Analysis of the General
FrameworkIbid. M. Alawi, Cairo University Faculty of Economics and Political Science [Arabic].
25

despite their unofficial status, were elected and rejoined the party.
19
Thirty-five genuine
independents also entered the ruling party’s bloc, giving it 388 (87%) of the contested
seats, a comfortable margin above the two-thirds needed to pass legislation and rubber
stamp the president’s decisions.
20
Thus, unanticipated levels of competition at the
district level troubled the NDP leadership but did not produce an alternative
government (Table 5 below). The traditional and new wings of the party had reached a
crucial accommodation and scattered electoral defeats did not aggregate into national
change.
Table 5: Results of Egypt’s 2000 Parliamentary Elections by Party
Official NDP
“NDP-
independents”
Total NDP
(including
newcomers)
Opposition Parties
& Muslim
Brotherhood
Independents
Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won
175
(39%)
181
(41%)
388
(87%)
38*
(9%)
16
(4%)
*Bloc includes five independents nominally affiliated with the opposition.
Source: Rabei, Amro Hashem (2001). Political Participation: Qualitative and Quantitative
Indicators. The 2000 People's Assembly Elections. H. Mustafa. Cairo, Al-Ahram Center for
Political and Strategic Studies [Arabic]: 195.
Renewal of the NDP’s mandate further strengthened its leverage against the
opposition. The newly consolidated ruling cadre exerted electoral control in later contests
that effectively negated the SCC ruling of judicial supervision. Despite the judiciary’s
19
Magid, Wahid Abdel (2001). "The Independents: The Most Important Phenomenon of the 2000
Elections." Al-Dimuqratiya 1(Arabic).
20
Rida, Mohammed Abu Ibid."The Political and Social Makeup of the 2000 People's Assembly."
26

prominent effort to guarantee meaningful polls, contestation in Egypt’s elections
returned to levels that proved unthreatening for the regime.
Malaysia: The Johore Malay Unity Forum and Semangat ‘46
Despite differences across the two countries in terms of leadership politics and the
techniques of electoral manipulation, Malaysia’s experience with a ruling party bringing
elite cohesion and electoral victory resembles the Egyptian experience in significant
ways. When Musa Hitam distanced himself from UMNO and seemed poised to take the
critical constituency of the state of Johore away from the party, a series of overtures
restored him and his supporters to their positions in the organization. Consequently,
UMNO accomplished another dramatic victory after verging on the brink of defeat.
After the ruling National Front coalition’s substantial victory over the opposition
Democratic Action Party (DAP) and Islamic Party of Malaysia (PAS) in 1986 elections,
Prime Minister Mahathir faced a leadership challenge from within UMNO’s ranks.
Tension surfaced when Deputy Prime Minister Musa left the cabinet after feeling
Mahathir was targeting him personally. He describes the decision as follows:
When I resigned I claimed that it was just genuinely on democratic principles. When
the prime minister accused me of attempting many times to kill him politically I said,
“I cannot be your deputy. We’ve got a system. I have to be your backup. I will not be
comfortable… I will not be able to do my job well when my boss says I’m trying to kill
him [politically]…” So I resigned and people said, “Oh, he must be trying to undermine
Mahathir.”
21
21
Musa Hitam (2003). Interview with author. Kuala Lumpur. June 11.
27

Further evidence points to a desire by Mahathir to insulate himself from potential
challengers. After Musa’s resignation the prime minister filled the position with a less
threatening figure, Ghafar Baba, and shifted several older figures out of the cabinet.
Regarding the rift between Musa and Mahathir, other accounts indicate Musa and his
allies disagreed with Mahathir over several large government projects (Crouch 1996:
118).
Trade and Industry Minister Tengku Razaleigh, a long-time aspirant to the
prime ministership, and Musa, who was still UMNO deputy president, jointly challenged
Mahathir and Ghafar in the party’s internal elections. Razaleigh contested the party
presidency in the 1987 triennial elections while Musa ran to retain the organization’s
vice-presidency, despite being replaced as Deputy Prime Minister by Ghafar. The race
fractured the party’s rank and file into two factions: Team A, Mahathir and Ghafar,
against Team B, Razaleigh and Musa (Ramanathan and Adnan 1988: 70). Particularly
damaging to Mahathir’s “team” was his vow to defy party conventions and remain in
the premiership even if he lost his post as head of party. This threat against the
organization’s traditional practices irked many UMNO members who saw Mahathir as
“flouting the laws of the tribe… [and] acting un-Malay by saying he might not accept
the wishes of the party” (Duthie 1987).
In contrast to the rhetoric of self-promotion, Mahathir’s more skillful use of
party-based incentives helped him win the day. Through the strategic distribution of
cabinet and party positions to undecided delegation leaders, the Prime Minister
prevailed (Shamsul Amri Baharuddin 1988: 185). Mahathir took a narrow majority of
votes in the race for party president (761 to 718). Ghafar also won, although by an even
28

slimmer margin (739 to 699) (Ramanathan and Adnan 1988: 71). Team A candidates
performed similarly well in the races for UMNO’s governing board, the Supreme Council,
winning seventeen of the available twenty-five seats (Ramanathan and Adnan 1988: 72).
The battle could have ended then, but Razaleigh and newly appointed Minister of
Foreign Affairs Rais Yatim resigned their posts the following week, on 29 April. For the
top contestants, the election’s aftermath was initially a “winner-takes-all” standoff
(Shamsul Amri Baharuddin 1988: 181). Mahathir purged the cabinet of seven remaining
Team B affiliates. The resulting escalation of discord threatened to rip UMNO apart.
One news story reported, “The Razaleigh-Musa faction… now claims to represent almost
half of the nearly 1,500 most important UMNO activists.”
22
The lines drawn between
Mahathir and Razaleigh’s factions held at first, although Team A gained an early
advantage in the battle for support of UMNO elites. The alliance between Razaleigh and
Musa weakened as Razaleigh drifted further outside of UMNO. As Crouch writes,
“While Razaleigh remained adamantly opposed to compromise with Mahathir, some of
Musa’s supporters were inclined to look for a modus vivendi” (1996: 119). Similarly
Milne and Mauzy recount, “There were noteworthy exceptions of people who were
identified in the press as belonging to Team B, who ended up in Team A. Suggestively,
no top Team A politicians switched to the other side” (Milne and Mauzy 1999: 43).
The process of reconciliation extended over many months, as Mahathir and the
remaining UMNO leadership gradually realized the need to reincorporate Musa and his
constituency before new national elections against the opposition. An initial signal of the
threat posed by the rift was UMNO’s loss of an unusual by-election in its traditional
22
"Two South-East Asian Transitions," The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 April 1987.
29

stronghold, the state of Johore Baru, Musa’s home state. Musa ally Shahrir Ahmad had
resigned his UMNO seat in parliament and called a new election in defiance of Team A.
23
Shahrir won handily and his victory margin of over 12,000 votes boded poorly for
UMNO in a state sending 18 representatives to the next parliament (1990). The upset
victory by Shahrir pointed to Johore’s loyalty to its native sons and Musa carried even
greater local prestige. Having served previously as Minister of Education, Musa also had
national support among teachers, a core UMNO constituency. A shift by Musa to the
opposition bore the potential for country-wide repercussions among the electorate. By
early October 1988 the disagreement had not been resolved and Musa physically
distanced himself from UMNO, shifting to sit with the independent bloc in parliament.
24
Soon afterwards Mahathir reached out publicly to both Musa and Razaleigh,
announcing:
I would like to invite Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and Datuk Musa Hitam to be
members of my Cabinet as Ministers without portfolio. This is a sincere invitation…
it’s a step towards mending the rift among the Malays and Umno members… [F]or the
sake of unity, we are prepared to accept these two leaders into the Cabinet.
25
Initially, Musa declined the offer. However, the following month a group called the
Johore Malay Unity Forum, which Musa and Shahrir led, issued a six-point proposal for
reconciling Mahathir’s offer with the claims upon UMNO of Musa supporters in Johore.
26
23
"Mahathir's New Political Party Loses By-Election," Japan Economic Newswire. 26 August
1988.
24
"Musa wants to sit with Independents," New Straits Times. 3 October 1988: 2.
25
"Cabinet post offer to Musa, Razaleigh," New Straits Times. 31 October 1988: 1.
26
"Musa rejects Cabinet post," New Straits Times. 1 November 1988: 1, "Six-point unity formula,"
New Straits Times. 19 December 1988: 2.
30

The program provided for the reinstatement of former UMNO officials to their posts as
branch and divisional heads. It also included “the automatic acceptance of former
UMNO members” into the party.
27
UMNO’s supreme council responded by accepting the
unity forum’s proposal, conditional on recognition of the party leadership elected in
1987.
28
A flood of 1300 Johoreans rejoined UMNO the following month and Musa
publicly returned to the party on 31 January 1989.
29
Musa stated his reasons were that
Mahathir had “given in to quite a lot of suggestions and demands that have been put
forward” (Lai Kwok Kin 1989). “Slowly but surely,” he reflected, “the (UMNO)
leadership had taken a softer and softer line.”
30
Through negotiations from afar between himself and his estranged former deputy,
Mahathir had succeeded in attracting Musa and his supporters back into the party, well
before the next national parliamentary elections could threaten UMNO’s position.
Although his hold on the party’s top post appeared vulnerable at points, Mahathir had
accomplished a personnel shift he had sought since the 1986 parliamentary elections. His
primary rivals were weakened while the party’s general cadre remained loyal. This
significant level of elite solidarity, along with the return of Musa’s camp to the party,
would prove critical to UMNO’s performance in the approaching elections. While UMNO
was regrouping a broad set of political forces had joined together to challenge the ruling
party.
27
"Six-point unity formula," New Straits Times. 19 December 1988: 2.
28
"Umno supreme council accepts unity resolutions," New Straits Times. 14 January 1988: 1.
29
"Back in the fold," New Straits Times. 21 January 1989: 1-2. "Musa and 4 others rejoin
UMNO," New Straits Times. 1 February 1989: 1-2.
30
"Ex-Deputy Premier Musa Rejoins Malaysia's UMNO," Reuters News. 31 January 1989.
31

Denied the UMNO title, Razaleigh and his partisans, formed a new party called
Semangat ’46 (Sprit of ’46), a name that recalled UMNO’s explicitly pro-Malay origins.
Despite losing those who had reaffiliated with UMNO, Razaleigh’s group still mounted
the stiffest electoral challenge UMNO has faced since 1969. By cooperating with PAS
and the DAP, Semangat ’46 built two electoral alliances against the UMNO-led National
Front (NF), a rare convergence of opposition factions:
With the prospect of power dangling before their eyes, Malay and non-Malay leaders
who had never worked together before found it possible to make compromises-albeit
very limited ones-in the interest of defeating the NF…[Despite tensions between them,]
the parties were still able to nominate common candidates in all but one of the
peninsular parliamentary seats [which comprise 132 of 180 seats in parliament] (Crouch
1996: 128).
Seeking Malay votes, PAS was glad to work with the more secularist Semangat, since
the campaign provided the Islamist organization a chance to retailor its radical image
from 1986, when PAS had advocated the creation of an Islamic state. Frustrated by
their poor performance in that election, PAS leaders regarded an alliance with Semangat
as the only logical alternative to a potential split of anti-establishment Malay votes
between the two parties (Khong 1991b: 9). Calling their partnership the Muslim Unity
Movement (Angkatan Perpaduan Ummah) Semangat and PAS together sought votes
among the country’s Malay majority, UMNO’s primary constituency. In addition,
Semangat curried the support of other ethnic communities by cooperating with the DAP.
Semangat also allied with the DAP, and several smaller opposition parties, to
form the People’s Concept (Gagasan Rakyat), which opened a second front against
UMNO and the NF. The DAP and the other participating parties accepted a
32

subordinate position to Semangat, the representative of Malay interests. In this way,
People’s Concept resembled the NF as a Malay dominant interethnic alliance with the
pragmatic goal of breaking the National Front’s two-thirds majority and establishing a
two-coalition system (Khong 1991b: 11). “An opposition front offered not just the
prospect of more opposition seats in parliament but even the glittering possibility of
winning control of government” (Crouch 1992: 34). Covering the spectrum of UMNO’s
political opponents, Semangat’s multiethnic coalition promised to succeed where less
coordinated efforts had foundered. If ever there was a viable challenge to the decades of
control by the dominant party and its partners, this was it. “Ever since the debacle in
the 1969 elections, the ruling coalition had seemed quite unshakeable. However, in 1990,
the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition appeared vulnerable” (Khong 1991a)
On 5 October 1990 Mahathir dissolved parliament and called new elections for
the 20th and 21st of that month, allowing only a nine-day period for campaigning
between the end of candidate registration and voting, an even briefer time span for the
opposition to prepare than in 1986 (Khong 1991a: 178). “The short campaign period was
again a tremendous advantage to the ruling coalition, given the fact that the leaders had
already been on the campaign trail for months, and accorded wide publicity in the course
of their ‘official’ duties” (Khong 1991b: 21). In contrast, the opposition was confined to
indoor meetings for publicizing their program.
31
The National Front first focused upon
broad cross-ethnic issues such as improving the general welfare of the country, but when
one of the coalition’s constituent parties, largely supported by Christian Kadazans in the
state of Sabah, withdrew from the NF, Mahathir’s team changed its approach. The
31
"Malaysia Sets Election Date as Opposition Accusations Fly," Ibid. 5 October.
33

Front then stressed ethnic and religious issues, portraying the opposition’s alliance as
sympathetic to Christian interests over Muslim (Malay) goals. “In particular, the leader
of Semangat ’46, Tengku [Prince] Razaleigh was projected as having ‘sold out’ the
interests of the Muslim community in this bid for power by allowing himself to be used
by the Christians” (Khong 1991b: 6).
UMNO’s control over the country’s media allowed the party to make extensive
use of this “religious card,” discrediting Razaleigh on television and in print (Khong
1991b: 7). The media’s pro-government bias was one of the principal irregularities cited
by a Commonwealth election observation team (Lai Kwok Kin 1990a). UMNO leaders
also employed civil servants as campaign workers and offered farm subsidies and other
state supports to key constituencies (Khong 1991b: 21-22). Finally, where indirect
intervention failed, the regime could rely upon vote buying to win key races, a method
unavailable to Semangat because of its relative lack of access to state resources (Khong
1991b: 42).
Against the political machine of UMNO and the NF, the opposition’s challenge
proved weaker than expected (Crouch 1996: 127). While Mahathir appealed to his critics
to return, the potential of Razaleigh’s movement to rival UMNO faded. “By winning
back supporters of the Semangat 46,” Crouch points out, “UMNO was able to weaken
the key component of the opposition front” (1992: 40). Although Semangat’s supporters
still included “two surviving Prime Ministers, former chief ministers, and members of the
royal households” the movement’s drain upon current UMNO elites had waned since the
breakaway group’s inception. The overwhelming share of Razaleigh and Musa’s factions
had reaffiliated, foremost among them Musa himself (Crouch 1996: 121). Further
34

boosting UMNO’s position was the government’s recovery from its earlier economic
woes. In 1990 Malaysia’s GDP growth reached a dynamic 9.4% (Khong 1991a: 179).
Semangat fielded candidates in sixty-one of the 180 single-member districts, more
than any other opposition party but significantly less than UMNO, which ran eighty-six
candidates. Final results gave Semangat only eight victories while UMNO took seventy-
one seats (83% of those it contested). That outcome nearly halved Semangat’s modest
parliamentary bloc of fifteen former UMNO members who had broken away after 1987
(Lai Kwok Kin 1990b). Because of Musa’s popularity in his home state of Johore Baru
and his national stature as a former minister of education, there is reason to expect that
his continued separation from UMNO would have shifted more races into the
opposition’s bloc.
32
The by-election victory of Shahrir and the Johore Unity forum attest
to the area’s distaste for Mahathir and support for the dissidents. Indeed, even after
Musa and his followers rejoined the party, campaign flyers with Mahathir’s picture were
strategically taken down during the election so as to minimize the damage of Mahathir’s
unpopularity among Johoreans.
33
Instead of dealing electoral defeat for UMNO, Musa –
by reaffiliating after the Johore Unity resolution and the restoration of political status to
his assembled followers- enabled UMNO to reassert its electoral dominance. The NF won
a 71% majority, maintaining the desired two-thirds majority, although below previous
levels (Table 6 below) (Khong 1991a: 164).
32
Gomez, Edmund Terence (2003). Interview with author. Kuala Lumpur. 6 June.
33
Musa Hitam (2003). Interview with author. Kuala Lumpur. June 11.
35

Table 6: Results of Malaysia’s 1990 Parliamentary Elections by Party
UMNO-led
National
Front
Semangat ‘46 PAS DAP PBS Independents
Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won Seats Won
127
(71%)
8
(4.4%)
7
(3.9%)
20
(11%)
14
(7.8%)
4
(2.2%)
Source: Tan, K. Y. (2001). Malaysia. Elections in Asia and the Pacific: a data handbook. D.
Nohlen, F. Grotz and C. Hartmann. Oxford ; New York, Oxford University Press: 175
The defeat of many top Semangat figures, including its deputy president and a
number of sitting MPs, reduced the breakaway faction’s chances of enduring
independently (Khong 1991b: 41). Had Musa and his affiliates not rejoined the party, the
evidence of politics in Johore during the 1987-1990 period indicates that state, and
perhaps other parts of the country as well, would have gone against UMNO, bringing a
national level shift in political influence. The party’s institutions for resolving conflict
through the renewal of elite political status had proven critical to the survival of
Mahathir’s regime.
Party Decay in Iran and the Philippines
During their first years of rule, the coalitions of Leader Ali Khamenei in Iran and
President Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines were cohesive and helped deny opposition
candidates success in the elections held. They excluded challengers and the opposition
posed little threat in the elections that followed. Without influential allies inside the
regime, the opposition Militant Clerics Association (MRM) in Iran and People Power
36

Party (LABAN) in the Philippines were unable to compete effectively. Parliamentary
elections, in Iran in 1992 and in the Philippines in 1978, gave large majorities to the
partisans of the ruling elite. Yet neither Khamenei nor Marcos provided robust
institutional mechanisms for sealing their partisans’ allegiance through the protection of
long-term elite status. In fact they had overseen the dismantlement of existing ruling
parties, the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) and the Nationalist Party (NP), meaning their
cohorts were bound by personal and informal ties rather than an overarching
organizational structure.
When policy and personal disagreements emerged, political elites grew dissatisfied
with the top leadership, ultimately defecting and promoting change publicly. Without
assurance of their influence over national politics, prominent political figures feared
exclusion by their peers. As the prospect of long-term marginalization grew, they began
to promote an alternative agenda publicly. Elites unhappy with the direction of the
political system and economy then defected to challenger movements, publicly criticized
the leadership they had previously backed, and advocated change through the ballot
box. Hashemi Rafsanjani led a cohort of pragmatic conservatives known as the
Executives of Construction (Kargozoran-e Sazendegi) and Salvador Laurel brought
former Nacionalistas into the United Nationalist Democratic Organization (Unido).
These organizations benefited from the status and resources their founders carried and
could contest the system of electoral controls. The Executives of Construction allied with
the leftist Combatant Clerics Association to form the 23
rd
of May Front. Unido’s effort
fueled a reinvigorated People Power Party. These movements then took over the
presidency and parliament, transforming the shape of national politics so popular figures
37

had a voice in government. Although these changes did not replace dictatorship with
democracy, they broke the authoritarian regimes’ hold on elected institutions and offered
an opportunity for further reforms. In Iran reformists won control of the presidency
(1997) and parliament (2000), ushering in a new era of debate over the regime’s future, a
political conflict between the (still-unelected) clerical bodies and the popularly supported
sections of government. The Philippine opposition ousted Marcos from the presidency
(1986) and then fought to regain civilian control of the military while establishing
greater checks on the abuse of political power.
When dissatisfied elites defected from the coalition, spoke out publicly for reform,
competed in elections, and aided marginalized opposition activists, the results were
stunning. Their legacy was more ambiguous. The electoral defeat of autocratic
incumbents did not bring regime change. It enabled a process of meaningful contestation
from within a system that had been much more restrictive, an opportunity for promoting
further pluralism. From that point the opposition’s newly elected representatives could
work to expand their influence over other state actors if they were willing to directly
confront the remaining elements of the regime (Bermeo 1997: 318-319). In contrast, the
result of opposition reticence was likely to be a tense equilibrium of split sovereignty
between a popularly elected government and an autocratic assemblage of regular and
paramilitary forces. Such was the situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran after the 2000
elections. Still, even after victorious coalitions of defectors and oppositionists subdue the
security institutions, they may face repeated rebellions by disgruntled loyalists, as
occurred seven times in the administration of Corazon Aquino (Thompson 1995: 169).
Hence, the challenges for instituting polyarchy do not end with victory at the ballot box.
38

The defeat of incumbents, often a major focus of democratization campaigns, can mark a
substantial phase in “extrication from the authoritarian regime” (Przeworski 1991: 67),
but does not in itself terminate autocratic rule.
Conclusion
As the field of authoritarian subtypes continues to grow, comparativits will be well-
served by revisiting the core problem that occupied earlier democratization studies: Why
do some governments remain autocratic while others develop more pluralist and more
accountable systems? The au courant use of democratic forms to obscure authoritarian
practices adds an interesting dimension to this old question, but the formulation of new
typologies is not innately explanatory. Moreover, the above evidence indicates that a
regime’s internal institutions (still) matter more for political durability than the
adoption of multiparty elections and other externally-directed survival strategies.
Quantitative analysis of 135 regimes during the third wave era found no significant
impact of multiparty elections on the survival of authoritarianism. Rather, statistical
tests pointed to the continued relevance of the institutions for managing ruling
coalitions. Close inspection of four regimes illuminated the causal process by which
ruling parties bring regime persistence. Egypt and Malaysia show that parties provide a
site for the negotiation of competing elite interests and the long-term provision of
agenda-setting influence. The National Democratic Party and United Malays National
Organization mended internal rifts that would otherwise have exposed the regime to
societal opposition challenges. In Iran and the Philippines conflict escalated, rather than
subsiding, because leaders had abandoned party institutions. In the absence of regular
39

mechanisms for diffusing losses across factions and over time, disputes threatened not
only both leaders’ material interests, but also their influence in national level agenda
setting. The choice for dissenters was stark: accept marginalization within the regime or
bid for influence from the outside. The subsequent collaboration of reluctant reformers
and embattled oppositionists created a viable counter coalition and an opportunity for
regime change that has not emerged in the ruling party regimes.
40

References
"Two South-East Asian Transitions," The Sydney Morning Herald. 28 April 1987.
"Cabinet post offer to Musa, Razaleigh," New Straits Times. 31 October 1988: 1.
"Mahathir's New Political Party Loses By-Election," Japan Economic Newswire. 26
August 1988.
"Musa rejects Cabinet post," New Straits Times. 1 November 1988: 1.
"Musa wants to sit with Independents," New Straits Times. 3 October 1988: 2.
"Six-point unity formula," New Straits Times. 19 December 1988: 2.
"Umno supreme council accepts unity resolutions," New Straits Times. 14 January 1988:
1.
"Back in the fold," New Straits Times. 21 January 1989: 1-2.
"Ex-Deputy Premier Musa Rejoins Malaysia's UMNO," Reuters News. 31 January 1989.
"Musa and 4 others rejoin UMNO," New Straits Times. 1 February 1989: 1-2.
(1990). Semangat 46 Party Hopes to Win National Elections - But Recent Economic
Growth May Help Government. Economist. 13 October 1990.
"'Future Party' Enters the Battle Against the National [Democratic] Party," Al-Ahali. 16
June 1999 [Arabic]: 1, 4.
"Government Leaders Called for Deliberation and Warned of the Dangers of 'Escaping'
from the Customs," Al-Ahali. 30 June 1999 [Arabic]: 1, 4.
"Mubarak shrugs off pressure for immediate political change," Agence France-Presse. 19
September 1999.
"The New Party Begins Its Activities in September," Al-Ahali. 23 June 1999 [Arabic]: 1,
4.
(2000). "NDP goes for youth in election lists." Middle East Economic Digest: 5.
(2003). Future Generation Foundation, Future Generation Foundation. 2003.
Abdel-Latif, Omayma (2000). "A younger NDP?" Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line(468).
Al-Said, Rifaat (1999). Interview with author. Cairo, Egypt. 22 June.
Amin, Nasser (2002). Interview with author. Cairo, Arab Center for the Independence of
the Judiciary. 2 June.
Beck, Thorsten, George Clarke, et al. (2001). "New tools in comparative political
economy: The database of political institutions." World Bank Economic Review
15(1): 165-176.
41

Bermeo, Nancy (1997). "Myths of Moderation: Confrontation and Conflict During
Democratic Transitions." Comparative Politics 29(3): 305-322.
Brownlee, Jason (2002). "... And yet they persist: Explaining survival and transition in
neopatrimonial regimes." Studies in Comparative International Development
37(3): 35-63.
Brownlee, Jason (2004). Durable Authoritarianism in an Age of Democracy. Dissertation.
Princeton, NJ, Princeton University.
Burton, Michael, John Higley, et al. (1991). Elites and democratic consolidation in Latin
America and Southern Europe: an overview. Elites and Democratic Consolidation
in Latin America and Southern Europe. J. Higley and R. Gunther. Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins University Press: 323-348.
Carothers, Thomas (2002). "The end of the transition paradigm." Journal of Democracy
13(1): 5-21.
Chehabi, H.E. and Juan J. Linz (1998). A Theory of Sultanism 1: A Type of
Nondemocratic Rule. Sultanistic Regimes. H. E. Chehabi and J. J. Linz.
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press: 3-25.
Craig, Ann L. and Wayne A. Cornelius (1995). Houses Divided: Parties and Political
Reform in Mexico. Building Democratic Institutions: Party Systems in Latin
America. S. Mainwaring and T. R. Scully. Stanford, Stanford University Press:
249-297.
Crouch, Harold (1992). Authoritarian Trends, the UMNO Split and the Limits of State
Power. Fragmented Vision: Culture and Politics in Contemporary Malaysia. J. S.
Kahn and F. L. K. Wah. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press: 21-43.
Crouch, Harold A. (1996). Government and society in Malaysia. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell
University Press.
Di Palma, Giuseppe (1990). To craft democracies: an essay on democratic transitions.
Berkeley, University of California Press.
Diamond, Larry (2000). "Is Pakistan the (reverse) wave of the future?" Journal of
Democracy 11(3): 91-106.
Diamond, Larry (2002). "Thinking about hybrid regimes." Journal of Democracy 13(2):
21-35.
"Malay Premier Fights to Keep Top Party Post," Wall Street Journal. 22 April.
El-Din, Gamal Essam (2002). Interview with author. Cairo, Egypt. April 17.
Geddes, Barbara (1999a). Authoritarian Breakdown: Empirical Test of a Game Theoretic
Argument. American Political Science Association, Atlanta.
42

Geddes, Barbara (1999b). "What do we know about democratization after twenty years?"
Annual Review of Political Science 2: 115-144.
Gomez, Edmund Terence (2003). Interview with author. Kuala Lumpur. 6 June.
Haggard, Stephan and Robert R. Kaufman (1997). The political economy of democratic
transitions. Comparative Politics. 29: 263-283.
Haggard, Stephan and Robert R. Kaufman (1995). The Political economy of democratic
transitions. Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.
"Egypt Votes 'Yes'," The Middle East. 1 November.
Hammouda, Dahlia (1998). "Mobilising Charity." Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line(408).
Herbst, Jeffrey (2001). "Political liberalization in Africa after ten years." Comparative
Politics 33(3): 357-375.
Hermet, Guy (1978). State-Controlled Elections: a Framework. Elections Without
Choice. G. Hermet, R. Rose and A. Rouquié. New York, John Wiley & Sons: 1-
18.
"Malaysia Sets Election Date as Opposition Accusations Fly," Reuters News. 5 October.
Hull, Adrian Prentice (1999). Comparative political science: An inventory and
assessment since the 1980's. Ps-Political Science & Politics. 32: 117-124.
Huntington, Samuel P. (1991). The third wave: democratization in the late twentieth
century. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press.
Joseph, Richard (1997). Democratization in Africa after 1989 - Comparative and
theoretical perspectives. Comparative Politics. 29: 363-&.
Kalyvas, Stathis N. (1999). "The decay and breakdown of communist one-party
systems." Annual Review of Political Science 2: 323-343.
Karklins, Rasma and Roger Petersen (1993). "Decision Calculus of Protesters and
Regimes - Eastern-Europe 1989." Journal of Politics 55(3): 588-614.
Keefer, Philip (2002). DPI 2000 Database of Political Institutions: Changes and Variable
Definitions, The World Bank: 27. March.
Khong, Kim Hoong (1991a). Malaysia 1990: The Election Show-down. Southeast Asian
Affairs, 1991. Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies: 161-179.
Khong, Kim Hoong (1991b). Malaysia's general election 1990 : continuity, change, and
ethnic politics. Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Kitschelt, Herbert P. (1986). "Political Opportunity Structures and Political Protest -
Antinuclear Movements in 4 Democracies." British Journal of Political Science
16: 57-85.
43

Knight, Alan (1992). Mexico's elite settlement: conjuncture and consequences. Elites and
Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe. J. Higley and
R. Gunther. New York, NY, Cambridge University Press: 354.
Kohli, Atul (1990). Democracy and discontent: India's growing crisis of governability.
Cambridge ; New York, Cambridge University Press.
Kuran, Timur (1991). Now out of Never - the Element of Surprise in the East European
Revolution of 1989. World Politics. 44: 7-48.
"Ex-Deputy Premier's Return to Malaysian Party Boosts Mahathir," Reuters News. 31
January.
"'Imperfections' in Malaysia Polls - Commonwealth Group," Reuters News. 23 October.
"Malaysia's Mahathir Clobbers Rivals but Faces New Foes," Reuters News. 22 October.
Levitsky, Steven and Lucan A. Way (2002). "The rise of competitive authoritarianism."
Journal of Democracy 13(2): 51-65.
Lieberman, E. S. (2001). "Causal inference in historical institutional analysis - A
specification of periodization strategies." Comparative Political Studies 34(9):
1011-1035.
Linz, Juan (1975). Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes. Handbook of Political
Science. N. Polsby and F. Greenstein. Reading, Pennsylvania, Addison Wesley.
3: 175-357.
Linz, Juan J. and Alfred C. Stepan (1996). Problems of democratic transition and
consolidation : southern Europe, South America, and post-communist Europe.
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lipset, Seymour Martin (1959). Some Social Requisites of Democracy - Economic-
Development and Political Legitimacy. American Political Science Review. 53:
69-105.
Lust-Okar, Ellen and Amaney Jamal (2002). "Rulers and rules - Reassessing the
influence of regime type on electoral law formation." Comparative Political
Studies 35(3): 337-366.
Magid, Wahid Abdel (2001). "The Independents: The Most Important Phenomenon of
the 2000 Elections." Al-Dimuqratiya 1(Arabic).
Mahdavy, H. (1970). The Patterns and Problems of Economic Development in Rentier
States : The Case of Iran. Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East
from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day. M. A. Cook. Oxford, Oxford
University Press: 428-467.
44

Mainwaring, Scott and Anibal Perez-Linan (2003). "Level of Development and
Democracy: Latin American Exceptionalism." Comparative Political Studies
11(9): 1031-1067.
Markoff, John (1996). Waves of democracy : social movements and political change.
Thousand Oaks, Calif., Pine Forge Press.
McAdam, Doug (1996). Conceptual origins, current problems, future directions.
Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing
structures, and cultural framings. D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy and M. N. Zald.
New York, Cambridge University Press: 23-40.
Meyer, David S. (2004). "Protest and Political Opportunities." Annual Review of
Sociology 30: 125-145.
Milne, R. S. and Diane K. Mauzy (1999). Malaysian politics under Mahathir. London ;
New York, Routledge.
Munck, Gerardo L. and Jay Verkuilen (2002). "Conceptualizing and Measuring
Democracy: Evaluating Alternative Indices." Comparative Political Studies 35(1):
5-24.
Musa Hitam (2003). Interview with author. Kuala Lumpur. June 11.
Mustafa, Hala (1997). Indicators and Results of the 1995 Elections. The Parliamentary
Elections in Egypt 1995. H. Mustafa. Cairo, Al-Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies [Arabic]: 35-51.
Mustafa, Hala (2001). The 2000 Elections: General Indicators. The 2000 People's
Assembly Elections. H. Mustafa. Cairo, Al-Ahram Center for Political and
Strategic Studies [Arabic]: 7-14.
O'Donnell, Guillermo A. and Philippe C. Schmitter (1986). Transitions from
authoritarian rule: Tentative Conclusions about Uncertain Democracies.
Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ottaway, Marina (2003). Democracy challenged: the rise of semi-authoritarianism.
Washington, D.C., Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Ouda, Jihad, Negad El-Borai, et al. (2001). A Door Onto the Desert: The Egyptian
Parliamentary Elections of 2000, Course, Dilemmas, and Recommendations for
the Future. Cairo, Egypt, United Group.
Przeworski, Adam (1986). Some Problems in the Study of the Transition to Democracy.
Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives. G. O'Donnell, P.
Schmitter and L. Whitehead. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press: 47-63.
45

Przeworski, Adam (1991). Democracy and the market: political and economic reforms in
Eastern Europe and Latin America. Cambridge ; New York, Cambridge
University Press.
Przeworski, Adam and Jennifer Gandhi (2001). Dictatorial Institutions and the Survival
of Dictators. The Annual Meetings of the American Political Science Association,
San Francisco, CA.
Rabei, Amro Hashem (2001). Political Participation: Qualitative and Quantitative
Indicators. The 2000 People's Assembly Elections. H. Mustafa. Cairo, Al-Ahram
Center for Political and Strategic Studies [Arabic]: 163-208.
Ramanathan, Sankaran and Mohd. Hamdan Adnan (1988). Malaysia's 1986 general
election: the urban-rural dichotomy. Singapore, Institute of Southeast Asian
Studies.
Reshad, Abdel Ghefar (2000). The 2000 People's Assembly: Analysis of the General
Framework. The 2000 People's Assembly Elections. M. Alawi. Cairo, Cairo
University Faculty of Economics and Political Science [Arabic].
Rida, Mohammed Abu (2001). "The Political and Social Makeup of the 2000 People's
Assembly." Al-Dimuqratiya 1(Arabic).
"The Future Party," Al-Ahram Al-Mulhaq [Arabic]. July 17, 1999: 8.
Sartori, Giovanni (1976). Parties and party systems: a framework for analysis. New
York, Cambridge University Press.
Schedler, Andreas (2000). "The democratic revelation." Journal of Democracy 11(4): 5-
19.
Schedler, Andreas (2002). "The menu of manipulation." Journal of Democracy 13(2): 36-
50.
Schumpeter, Joseph Alois (1947). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. New York,
London,, Harper & brothers.
Shamsul Amri Baharuddin (1988). The "Battle Royal": The UMNO Elections of 1987.
Southeast Asian Affairs, 1988. M. Ayoob and N. C. Yuen. Singapore, Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies: 170-188.
Skocpol, Theda (1979). States and social revolutions: a comparative analysis of France,
Russia, and China. Cambridge ; New York, Cambridge University Press.
Snyder, Richard (1992). "Explaining Transitions from Neopatrimonial Dictatorships."
Comparative Politics 24(4): 379-399.
Solinger, Dorothy J. (2001). "Ending one-party dominance: Korea, Taiwan, Mexico."
Journal of Democracy 12(1): 30-42.
46

Stepan, Alfred C. (1988). Rethinking military politics: Brazil and the Southern cone.
Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press.
Stinchcombe, Arthur (1965). Social Structure and Organizations. Handbook of
Organizations. J. G. March. Chicago, Rand McNally and Company.
Tarrow, Sidney (1999). "Expanding Paired Comparison: A Modest Proposal." American
Political Science Association: Comparative Politics Newsletter 10(2): 9-12.
Thompson, Mark R. (1995). The anti-Marcos struggle: personalistic rule and democratic
transition in the Philippines. New Haven, Yale University Press.
Tsebelis, George (1988). "Nested Games: The Cohesion of French Electoral Coalitions."
British Journal of Political Science 18(2): 145-170.
Waly, Sherif (2002). Cairo, Egypt. Interview with author. April 25.
Yashar, Deborah J. (1997). Demanding democracy: reform and reaction in Costa Rica
and Guatemala, 1870s-1950s. Stanford, Calif., Stanford University Press.
Zaki, Moheb (1995). Civil society & democratization in Egypt, 1981-1994. [Cairo],
Konrad Adenauer Stiftung : Ibn Khaldoun Center.
47