In competitive authoritarian regimes, the executive often comes to power through elections tightly controlled by a dominant party. This electoral dependence on the party limits the power the authoritarian leader can independently exercise. We argue that the executive can reduce this constraint by expanding the electoral influence of the opposition. This opposition empowerment leads to an influx of new elected officials with whom the incumbent can negotiate to achieve his policy and tenure goals, thereby bypassing traditional, dominant party power-brokers. Employing archival data from Peru, we demonstrate that weakening the Civil Party's monopoly over the administration of legislative elections--by granting more electoral oversight to the independent opposition--strengthened Civil Party President Augusto Leguía (1908–1912). In areas with opposition electoral administrators, new legislators were elected who were more likely to join Leguía's coalition and to support his policy and tenure goals against the preferences of the Civil Party. Opposition-administered areas were also more likely to electorally support Leguía in his subsequent bid for the presidency against a Civil Party candidate. Our findings illustrate how authoritarian incumbents can weaken the parties that brought them to power and personalize their rule.
This project is co-authored with Anna F. Callis.
This event is presented in collaboration with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.