This book examines the nature of party competition in hybrid regimes, focusing on Georgia, a post-Soviet hybrid regime. It explores the coexistence of programmatic and clientelistic forms of party competition, offering a nuanced understanding of electoral dynamics in non-democratic contexts.
Guided by three research questions, the book investigates the extent of programmatic party competition, its emergence, and its coexistence with clientelistic practices. Using a multi-method research design and a range of primary data, it integrates programmatic and clientelistic frameworks to analyse party competition in democratic and non-democratic contexts. The book applies process tracing methodology to demonstrate how intra-party competition influences pre-election manifestos and expands an established behavioural model to better suit non-democratic settings. Readers gain a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of party competition in hybrid regimes.
This book is intended for researchers and students studying electoral politics, party competition, coalition politics, and area studies, particularly those focusing on post-Soviet societies and the Caucasus. It is also valuable for scholars interested in hybrid regimes and non-democratic political systems.
1. Introduction: What is puzzling about party competition in hybrid
regimes?
2. Theorizing party competition beyond democracies: How do parties
compete in hybrid regimes?
3. Research design, methods, and data
4. Supply
and demand: Do parties offer meaningfully differentiable programmes and are
voters aware of the differences?
5. Building a theory for hybrid regimes: How
did programmatic party competition emerge in Georgia?
6. Electoral
clientelism in Georgia: How does clientelism work and intersect programmatic
competition?
7. Conclusion: Party competition beyond Georgia and post-Soviet
hybrid regimes
Levan Kakhishvili is a political scientist specializing in party competition, European politics, and foreign policy analysis. He earned his doctorate from the University of Bamberg and is currently a post- doctoral researcher at European Politics Research Group at ETH Zurich. His work examines programmatic and clientelistic forms of party competition, legislative politics in the European Parliament, domestic determinants of foreign policy behaviour, and EU enlargement.
