政党与政权的生命

The Life of Party and Power

本文提出了一套关于一党制下的政权巩固理论,并试图利用该理论来解释一党制国家政权寿命长短不一的原因。文章作者认为,在政党建设过程中,政治精英们思忖如何建立强有力的政治支柱时,不得不考虑的两个因素就是反对派势力的强弱和寻租的难易程度。如果反对派势力越弱小,且寻租越容易,那么政权建设的成本就越低,但同时这又将不利于建立一个强大的政党联盟或政党组织,并最终导致一党制政权脆弱而不堪一击,一遇危机就陷入分崩离析的境地。相反,如果执政精英起初就面临强大的反对势力并且寻租的可能性很小,那么他们就会给潜在的盟友提供话语权和决策权,从而推动政党建设。事实也证明诸如此类的执政党在危机来临的时候有更强的柔韧性和生命力。为了证实该理论,作者以几内亚比绍和坦桑尼亚,印尼和菲律宾这两对国家为例进行了详细的阐述。

This article develops a theory of single-party regime consolidation to explain the dramatic variation in longevity among these regimes. The strength of the opposition and rent scarcity during party consolidation, it argues, structure the choices available to elites as they decide how to build a support base. A weak opposition and ready access to rents makes a low-cost consolidation possible, but these conditions provide little incentive to build a robust coalition or strong party organization; this trajectory generates weak single-party rule that is likely to collapse in a crisis. Conversely, elites who face a powerful opposition and scarce rents have no choice but to offer potential allies access to policy-making and have powerful incentives to build a strong and broad-based party organization. Ruling parties that emerge from initial conditions like these prove more resilient during later crises. The author conducts an initial test of the argument against paired comparisons of Guinea-Bissau and Tanzania and of Indonesia and the Philippines.