ABSTRACT
We urgently need an analytic definition that can identify parties as dominant independently from their tenure of office. I suggest three criteria must be met simultaneously: the party is perceived as exceptionally effective by voters, in a way that sets it apart from all other parties; it consequently has an extensive ‘core’ or protected area of the ideological space, within which no other party can compete effectively for voters’ support; and at the basic minimum level of effectiveness that voters use to judge whether to participate or not, the lead party has a wider potential appeal to more voters than its rivals. This approach means that we can identify a party as dominant immediately it establishes a higher level of effectiveness. It also generates some key hypotheses that are well supported in the existing literature on dominant party systems and could be more precisely tested in future.
