Opposition Oversight and Local Governance in Autocracy: Evidence from Cambodia

• In Event: Understanding Local Dynamics in Democracies and Autocracies

Abstract

The proliferation of “competitive authoritarian” regimes has rendered the participation of legal opposition parties commonplace in authoritarian legislatures and subnational offices, yet we know little about how the opposition's participation in these institutions affects governance. Building on theories of oversight and pluralism from the democratic literature, I theorize that in spite of the legal and extra-legal constraints imposed on opposition parties by the autocrat, opposition politicians’ participation in political institutions can improve governance by increasing oversight of ruling party actors. Looking particularly at the case of local political institutions, I hypothesize that even when the opposition’s responsibilities and influence in elected local positions is circumscribed, the presence of opposition actors in political institutions can reduce corruption and financial mismanagement by monitoring, exposing, and correcting rent-seeking behaviors of local ruling party politicians. In doing so, I argue, the election of opposition politicians to local office not only leads to better governance, but also co-opts the opposition into inadvertently performing an important service for the ruling party – reducing the excesses of difficult-to-monitor local ruling party elites.

I study the dynamics of opposition participation in local authoritarian institutions using the case of Cambodia’s elected commune councils. To test my hypothesis, I draw on an original dataset of over 16,000 contracts for commune infrastructure projects implemented by commune councils between 2012 and 2017. Using a novel close-elections regression discontinuity design, I estimate the effect of a single additional opposition-held seat on corruption in local procurement, holding the degree of local political competition constant. In support of my hypothesis, I find that an additional opposition-held seat in the commune council corresponds to significant increases in the number of bidders in competitive procurement and decreases in the price at which contracts are secured.

While the quantitative evidence suggests a clear link between opposition oversight and local governance, such evidence is insufficient to explain how the opposition manages to perform such oversight despite the constraints imposed on opposition actors by the ruling party. Drawing on over 60 interviews with commune councilors from the ruling party and opposition party in Cambodia, I conclude with a discussion of how the opposition performs oversight in practice and how this oversight can directly benefit the ruling party. Together, the findings suggest that opposition parties' participation in local political institutions has important effects on authoritarian governance, even where the prospects for an outright opposition victory remain low.

Author

• Lucille E Right, Duke University