A rainbow in the dark? The electoral impact of elite divisions within the ruling party in dictatorships

Dictators often rule through political parties. While they might bolster regime survival, ruling parties can also provide a means for party members to defy the ruler. This article investigates the electoral consequences of elite divisions within ruling parties. Using cross-national analyses and a battery of robustness tests, we show that major party divisions can provide a powerful signal that weakens electoral support for ruling parties, but are weakly correlated with opposition-led executive turnover. Even if the regime prevails, divisions correlate with internal changes that improve prospects for democratisation. Additional analyses explore the mechanisms and are consistent with the interpretation that larger intra-party divisions can provide an alternative narrative to the government’s propaganda, increase societal discontent, and increase the coordination costs of electoral manipulation. Our findings provide the first cross-national, systematic link between party divisions and tangible electoral costs, suggesting opportunities and limitations to generate changes within the regime and regime change.