CHALLENGERS IN A PANDEMIC: COVID-19 STATES OF EXCEPTION, OPPOSITION PARTIES, AND OUTCOMES IN SOUTHERN AFRICA

What the paper says

In early 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many governments imposed states of emergency rule to streamline budgeting, impose mitigation protocols, and increase health ­sector capacity. These rules fundamentally changed executive–legislative relations while in place, accruing extraordinary power to executives and sidelining legislatures. In Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa—all dominant or hegemonic party regimes where executives and their legislative majorities faced few meaningful national political challenges—this meant that opposition parties were deprived of many institutionalized mechanisms for articulating dissent. This article details how opposition parties under states of exception resorted to extra-institutional means to express dissent. In doing so, this article contributes to the growing literature exploring democratic backsliding by arguing that states of exception involve significant tradeoffs for the supply of democracy, which are thrown into sharp relief in the context of dominant party regimes. Yet, this article also contends that in the wake of the pandemic, there are signs of democratic consolidation in Southern African democratic dominant party regimes, while authoritarian states show signs of entrenching backsliding.