My research interests include political competition, democratization and democratic consolidation in the developing world. I use a variety of methods and evidence-gathering techniques to explore these topics, including in-depth interviewing, archival research, statistical analysis, and process tracing.
Book project
Pathways to Power: Building Opposition Parties and Coalitions in Multiethnic Malaysia
Peer-reviewed publications
Dettman, Sebastian. 2020. “Authoritarian Innovations and Democratic Reform in the ‘New Malaysia.’” Democratization Vol 27(6): 1037-1052.
Dettman, Sebastian and Edmund Terence Gomez. 2020. “Political Financing Reform: Politics, Policies, and Patronage in Malaysia.” Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol 50(1).
Dettman, Sebastian and Meredith Weiss. 2018. “Has Patronage Lost its Punch in Malaysia?” The Round Table (107):739-754.
Dettman, Sebastian, Thomas Pepinsky, and Jan Pierskalla. 2017. “Incumbency Advantage and Candidate Characteristics in Open-List Proportional Representation Systems: Evidence from Indonesia.” Electoral Studies Vol. 48:111-120.
Aspinall, Edward, Sebastian Dettman and Eve Warburton. 2011. “When Religion Trumps Ethnicity: A Regional Election Case Study from Indonesia.” South East Asia Research 19(1):27-58.
Selected works in progress
“A (Partial) Exit out of Ethnic Politics? Local Government and the Prospect of Local Elections in Malaysia.” (Book chapter submitted for inclusion in edited volume)
Understanding Opposition Strategies in Authoritarian Legislatures
Despite heavy constraints on their policymaking power and autonomy, legislatures in competitive authoritarian regimes still provide important platforms both for opposition legislators to pursue policy and constituency-related issues. To what extent do opposition legislators and parties cultivate distinct role orientations within authoritarian legislatures? In what ways do authoritarian legislatures seek to limit the impact of opposition legislators? This paper examines these questions by drawing from an original dataset of over 39,000 parliamentary questions submitted by legislators to Malaysia’s House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat), combined with information about the personal backgrounds of legislators and the characteristics of the constituencies in which they win. The paper finds that the opposition-regime divide, as well as the characteristics of where the opposition parties win, are strongly correlated with the types of questions legislators submit to the government. Opposition legislators are more likely to ask constituency- and state-focused questions; yet are also more likely to ask questions about controversial practices of the government. While institutional design puts clear limits on the powers of the legislature as a whole, opposition parties are specifically disadvantaged by a variety of informal norms surrounding parliamentary questions. The findings contribute to a growing literature on authoritarian legislatures by examining partisan variation in how such authoritarian institutions are used.
Growth without Moderation? Building Opposition Parties and Coalitions in Authoritarian Regimes
Opposition parties in competitive authoritarian regimes face a key electoral challenge: making persuasive appeals to the broader electorate, often across ethnic, religious, and territorial lines. How do these parties strategize to win over support among new audiences, and what are the tradeoffs that parties face in doing so? In this paper, I focus on two strategies: party broadening, where parties try to change party brand and organization to become more broadly appealing, and coalition building, when opposition parties collectively build an anti-regime identity to harness voter discontent with the regime. When regime support wanes, parties built around demographically limited core audiences are more likely to pursue party broadening to expand their base of support. However, weak regimes also encourage formation of anti-regime coalitions to appeal to a broad audience of discontented regime supporters. Coalition building reduces incentives for party broadening, since coalitions encourage parties to appeal to new voters on the basis of a collective opposition identity while sticking to existing party brands. This helps explain why opposition parties often fail to transform into broad-based parties even in the face of crumbling incumbent support. I use the theory to explain divergent party behavior in Malaysia, until recently the world’s longest-running dominant party authoritarian regime. I compare the country’s three main opposition parties, which have vacillated between strategies aimed at shoring up core support and attempts to transform party brands and construct coalitions. The findings provide insight into processes of party building and political contestation in competitive authoritarian regimes.
Governing from the Margins: Subnational Office and Opposition Control in Authoritarian Regimes
In competitive authoritarian regimes, opposition parties frequently contest and win subnational offices even while failing to gain national office. Yet governing at the local level introduces dilemmas for opposition parties in using limited fiscal and policymaking power in service of their broader goals. How do opposition parties use local office to advance party goals? When does gaining subnational power strengthen or undermine the national ambitions of opposition parties? To answer these questions, this paper focuses on two sources of variation: the resources and responsibilities that authoritarian regimes allocate to local governments and their strategic response to opposition wins, and the identities and cleavages which opposition parties use to mobilize support. Since regimes must devolve at least some authority to local offices, opposition parties benefit from even limited control over resources to strengthen organizations and ties with voters. Subnational office can be problematic for parties, however, in reconciling local and national political competition. Parties with national ambitions face difficulties in implementing their platform at the local level; alternately, parties may satisfy core voters at the local level but end up limiting their broader appeal by implementing divisive policy in office. To show that opposition party characteristics are important to explaining variation in success across party, I compare three distinct opposition parties in office in Malaysia’s long-running dominant party authoritarian system. All three parties have used state-level governments to build up party organizations and material ties with voters, but provoked conflict within and between parties over core policy objectives. This paper contributes new perspectives and findings on the undertheorized phenomenon of subnational control by opposition parties in competitive authoritarian regimes.
Book project
Pathways to Power: Building Opposition Parties and Coalitions in Multiethnic Malaysia
Peer-reviewed publications
Dettman, Sebastian. 2020. “Authoritarian Innovations and Democratic Reform in the ‘New Malaysia.’” Democratization Vol 27(6): 1037-1052.
Dettman, Sebastian and Edmund Terence Gomez. 2020. “Political Financing Reform: Politics, Policies, and Patronage in Malaysia.” Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol 50(1).
Dettman, Sebastian and Meredith Weiss. 2018. “Has Patronage Lost its Punch in Malaysia?” The Round Table (107):739-754.
Dettman, Sebastian, Thomas Pepinsky, and Jan Pierskalla. 2017. “Incumbency Advantage and Candidate Characteristics in Open-List Proportional Representation Systems: Evidence from Indonesia.” Electoral Studies Vol. 48:111-120.
Aspinall, Edward, Sebastian Dettman and Eve Warburton. 2011. “When Religion Trumps Ethnicity: A Regional Election Case Study from Indonesia.” South East Asia Research 19(1):27-58.
Selected works in progress
“A (Partial) Exit out of Ethnic Politics? Local Government and the Prospect of Local Elections in Malaysia.” (Book chapter submitted for inclusion in edited volume)
Understanding Opposition Strategies in Authoritarian Legislatures
Despite heavy constraints on their policymaking power and autonomy, legislatures in competitive authoritarian regimes still provide important platforms both for opposition legislators to pursue policy and constituency-related issues. To what extent do opposition legislators and parties cultivate distinct role orientations within authoritarian legislatures? In what ways do authoritarian legislatures seek to limit the impact of opposition legislators? This paper examines these questions by drawing from an original dataset of over 39,000 parliamentary questions submitted by legislators to Malaysia’s House of Representatives (Dewan Rakyat), combined with information about the personal backgrounds of legislators and the characteristics of the constituencies in which they win. The paper finds that the opposition-regime divide, as well as the characteristics of where the opposition parties win, are strongly correlated with the types of questions legislators submit to the government. Opposition legislators are more likely to ask constituency- and state-focused questions; yet are also more likely to ask questions about controversial practices of the government. While institutional design puts clear limits on the powers of the legislature as a whole, opposition parties are specifically disadvantaged by a variety of informal norms surrounding parliamentary questions. The findings contribute to a growing literature on authoritarian legislatures by examining partisan variation in how such authoritarian institutions are used.
Growth without Moderation? Building Opposition Parties and Coalitions in Authoritarian Regimes
Opposition parties in competitive authoritarian regimes face a key electoral challenge: making persuasive appeals to the broader electorate, often across ethnic, religious, and territorial lines. How do these parties strategize to win over support among new audiences, and what are the tradeoffs that parties face in doing so? In this paper, I focus on two strategies: party broadening, where parties try to change party brand and organization to become more broadly appealing, and coalition building, when opposition parties collectively build an anti-regime identity to harness voter discontent with the regime. When regime support wanes, parties built around demographically limited core audiences are more likely to pursue party broadening to expand their base of support. However, weak regimes also encourage formation of anti-regime coalitions to appeal to a broad audience of discontented regime supporters. Coalition building reduces incentives for party broadening, since coalitions encourage parties to appeal to new voters on the basis of a collective opposition identity while sticking to existing party brands. This helps explain why opposition parties often fail to transform into broad-based parties even in the face of crumbling incumbent support. I use the theory to explain divergent party behavior in Malaysia, until recently the world’s longest-running dominant party authoritarian regime. I compare the country’s three main opposition parties, which have vacillated between strategies aimed at shoring up core support and attempts to transform party brands and construct coalitions. The findings provide insight into processes of party building and political contestation in competitive authoritarian regimes.
Governing from the Margins: Subnational Office and Opposition Control in Authoritarian Regimes
In competitive authoritarian regimes, opposition parties frequently contest and win subnational offices even while failing to gain national office. Yet governing at the local level introduces dilemmas for opposition parties in using limited fiscal and policymaking power in service of their broader goals. How do opposition parties use local office to advance party goals? When does gaining subnational power strengthen or undermine the national ambitions of opposition parties? To answer these questions, this paper focuses on two sources of variation: the resources and responsibilities that authoritarian regimes allocate to local governments and their strategic response to opposition wins, and the identities and cleavages which opposition parties use to mobilize support. Since regimes must devolve at least some authority to local offices, opposition parties benefit from even limited control over resources to strengthen organizations and ties with voters. Subnational office can be problematic for parties, however, in reconciling local and national political competition. Parties with national ambitions face difficulties in implementing their platform at the local level; alternately, parties may satisfy core voters at the local level but end up limiting their broader appeal by implementing divisive policy in office. To show that opposition party characteristics are important to explaining variation in success across party, I compare three distinct opposition parties in office in Malaysia’s long-running dominant party authoritarian system. All three parties have used state-level governments to build up party organizations and material ties with voters, but provoked conflict within and between parties over core policy objectives. This paper contributes new perspectives and findings on the undertheorized phenomenon of subnational control by opposition parties in competitive authoritarian regimes.