What are we voting for? Opposition alliance joint campaigns in electoral autocracies

Abstract

Existing analyses of opposition pre-electoral alliance formation in electoral autocracies neglect their coordinated election campaigns against incumbent autocrats. This paper argues that opposition alliance joint campaigns can increase the salience of the anti-regime cleavage, signal mutual compromise, and highlight the positive material and policy gains voters will reap following regime defeat. Together, they persuade ideologically and ethnically disparate opposition supporters to engage in the cross-party strategic voting necessary to maximize opposition vote share and their chances of winning. Empirical findings from Malaysia’s historic 2018 general elections support the theory’s propositions. A pre-electoral survey experiment estimates that an opposition alliance’s joint campaigns increases cross-party strategic voting by about 10 percentage points among opposition voters. Field interviews and ethnographic observation during the election campaigning revealed the diverse methods and mechanisms of joint campaigns. Malaysia’s Pakatan Harapan opposition alliance eventually prevailed through a combination of joint campaigning against a flailing incumbent.

Opposing Power

“…Even more, survey experiments embedded within public opinion surveys can be especially useful tools for test-bedding new opposition rhetoric or campaign strategies. My own survey experiment conducted in Malaysia suggests that a joint manifesto is likely to substantially improve voter support for the opposition, contrary to common misperceptions of its marginal utility (E. Ong 2019).…”

A new regime divide? Partisan affect and attitudes towards democratic backsliding

“…We focus our argument as well as our empirical analysis primarily on partisan affect among opposition supporters: while governments engaging in democratic backsliding have in many cases consisted of or at least been dominated by a single party, the opposition is often more heterogeneous. In fact, failure to coalesce among the opposition has frequently been identified as a central stumbling block for the defense of democracy (Selçuk and Hekimci, 2020;Ong, 2021).…”

La ausencia de alianza antihegemónica en la gubernatura del Estado de México

“…Gandhi y Reuter (2013) encuentran en la coerción electoral oficialista y cierta permanencia partidista opositora los detonantes para la concreción de alianzas opositoras. Se constituyen para sumar los votos de la oposición con sustento en los beneficios materiales y políticos que se obtendrían con la derrota del régimen (Ong, 2022).…”