A one-party state, single-party state, one-party system or single-party system is a governance structure in which only a single
political party
A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...
controls the ruling system. In a one-party state, all opposition parties are either outlawed or enjoy limited and
controlled participation in
election
An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office.
Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...
s. The term "''de facto'' one-party state" is sometimes used to describe a
dominant-party system that, unlike a one-party state, allows (at least nominally) multiparty elections, but the existing practices or balance of political power effectively prevent the opposition from winning power.
Membership in the ruling party tends to be relatively small compared to the population. Rather, they give out private goods to fellow elites to ensure continued support. One-party, compared to dominant-party dictatorships, structure themselves unlike democracies. They also turn into multi-party democracies at a lower rate than dominant-party dictatorships.
While one-party states prohibit opposition parties, some allow for independent candidates to stand for election in competition with party candidates. Therefore, they place elites and sympathetic candidates in key administrative races.
For example, the Chinese Communist Party exercises political control by infiltrating village administrations. They view these positions as crucial for gathering information on the population and maintaining a presence in the far reaches of their borders.
One-party states recognize the trade-off between election victory and gathering valuable data. To account for this, the regimes have been observed placing local nobility in easy-to-win races. One-party states have also been observed using elections to ensure that only the most popular elites get chosen to office.
They also gather data from elections to indicate if a local official is performing poorly in the eyes of the residents.
This gives locals the opportunity to monitor local officials and communicate satisfaction with the local government.
Throughout the country, members of the one party hold key political positions.
In doing so, the party avoids committing outright fraud and rather sustains their power at the local level with strategic appointment of elites.
Data on one-party regimes can be difficult to gather given their lack of transparency.
Current one-party states
As of , the following countries are legally constituted as one-party states:
''De facto'' one-party states
A ''de facto'' one-party system is one that, while not officially linking a single political party to governmental power, utilizes some means of political manipulation to ensure only one party stays in power. Many different countries have been claimed to be ''de facto'' one-party states, with differing levels of agreement between scholars, although most agree that the African continent is marked by this political system.
Below are just a few examples of governments that have been claimed to have single party rule due to political manipulation.
Former one-party states
See also
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Dominant-party system
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Ban on factions in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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Multi-party system
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Outline of democracy
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Political factionalism
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Political organisation
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Two-party system
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Uniparty
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Unitary parliamentary republic
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Landslide victory
Notes
References
{{Portal bar, Politics
Authoritarianism
Totalitarianism
Political systems
Political party systems
Unitary state