Regulation of political participation score

Indicator name: parreg

Regulation of Participation: Participation is regulated to the extent that there are binding rules on when, whether, and how political preferences are expressed. One-party states and Western democracies both regulate participation but they do so in different ways, the former by channeling participation through a single party structure, with sharp limits on diversity of opinion; the latter by allowing relatively stable and enduring groups to compete nonviolently for political influence. The polar opposite is unregulated participation, in which there are no enduring national political organizations and no effective regime controls on political activity. In such situations political competition is fluid and often characterized by recurring coercion among shifting coalitions of partisan groups. A five-category scale is used to code this dimension:

(1) Unregulated: Political participation is fluid; there are no enduring national political organizations and no systematic regime controls on political activity. Political groupings tend to form around particular leaders, regional interests, religious or ethnic or clan groups, etc.; but the number and relative importance of such groups in national political life varies substantially over time.

(2) Multiple Identity: There are relatively stable and enduring political groups which compete for political influence at the national level–parties, regional groups, or ethnic groups, not necessarily elected–but there are few, recognized overlapping (common) interests.

(3) Sectarian: Political demands are characterized by incompatible interests and intransigent posturing among multiple identity groups and oscillate more or less regularly between intense factionalism and government favoritism, that is, when one identity group secures central power it favors group members in central allocations and restricts competing groups' political activities, until it is displaced in turn (i.e., active factionalism). Also coded here are polities in which political groups are based on restricted membership and significant portions of the population historically have been excluded from access to positions of power (latent factionalism, e.g., indigenous peoples in some South American countries).

(4) Restricted: Some organized political participation is permitted without intense factionalism but significant groups, issues, and/or types of conventional participation are regularly excluded from the political process.

(5) Regulated: Relatively stable and enduring political groups regularly compete for political influence and positions with little use of coercion. No significant groups, issues, or types of conventional political action are regularly excluded from the political process.