Party matters: the institutional origins of competitive hegemony in Tanzania

Electoral authoritarianism has emerged as a primary mode of authoritarian rule in the post-Cold War era. It is also a notably heterogeneous phenomenon, in terms of both its impact upon incumbents and the quality of contestation. This article investigates a specific type of electoral authoritarian outcome, a competitive hegemony. In competitive hegemonies regimes are able to dominate elections by large vote margins, but with comparatively much lower levels of electoral fraud and coercion. Using a case study of Tanzania and its ruling party Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM), this article argues that distinct investments made under single-party rule into party institutionalization and the incorporation of subsistence-based peasants provided CCM with additional sources of elite cohesion, strong mobilization capacity, and therefore greater stability. The article shows how during multiparty elections elite defection has in fact been minimal, and voting patterns largely coincide with infrastructural investments made as part of Tanzania's socialist development programme, ujamaa. Moreover, while Tanzania's opposition parties have made important strides in recent years in terms of institutionalization, they are still precluded from competing effectively in large portions of the country where demand for new parties is low.