ABSTRACT
The purpose of this background study is to locate democracies with dominant parties in semi-developed countries in the context of social, economic and political conditions more generally. Dominant parties in advanced industrial countries have been studied by T.J.Pempel1, who described them as “uncommon democracies” against the background of competitive democratic systems. It will be seen that dominant party democracies are uncommon in semi-developed countries as well, but that the background is different and more diverse.
