short period of time, roughly two to three years, following the Free Officers’ coup and the
Islamic Revolution. In the Philippines and Malaysia negotiated independence from colonial
powers extended over decades. The case studies begin with political mobilization for
independence, 1901 in the Philippines and 1946 in Malaya. The Philippines presents an
additional classification challenge because the country shifted from patrimonial democracy to
patrimonial dictatorship in 1972. Whether President Ferdinand Marcos’s declaration of martial
law was a change of regime or a change in regime, one observes a similar pattern of party
weakness and elite defection before and after he took power. An explanation of party
development should account for this trend across both periods and I consider the years from
independence through Marcos’s initiation of authoritarian rule.
The Origins of Ruling Party Institutions
Distilling a long line of research on the subject, Barbara Geddes’s study of authoritarian regime
breakdown has shown autocratic regimes with ruling parties are substantially more robust than
military-led or personalistic systems.
Ruling party regimes outlast their peers because they
provide an organization for sustaining elite coalitions. 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.
While comparativists continue to explore this phenomenon, and other
reasons why ruling parties matter, the question of under what conditions ruling parties originate
remains largely unexplored.
Not all regimes build parties or maintain them once they have been
created: What explains intra-regime variation between ruling party dictatorships and their less
institutionalized counterparts?
4
Convention