“Evaluate the functioning of political parties in the democracies of the Third World.” (1993)
Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (Political Parties and Political Development, 1966) argued that parties in post-colonial states were expected to do far more than their Western counterparts. They had to build nations, integrate diverse groups, recruit new elites and legitimise fragile states, often before industrialisation or mass literacy. Judged against these tasks, their record is mixed.
Achievements
- Nation-building and integration. Nationalist parties such as the Indian National Congress and Tanzania’s TANU carried anti-colonial legitimacy into government. Rajni Kothari’s “Congress system” (1964) showed how one dominant party absorbed caste, regional and class factions and kept competition inside a consensus.
- Political order. Samuel P. Huntington (Political Order in Changing Societies, 1968) held that where mobilisation outruns institutions, strong parties are the main safeguard against praetorian instability. India’s continuous electoral democracy, set against repeated coups in Pakistan, fits his argument.
- Widening participation. Yogendra Yadav described a “second democratic upsurge” in India in the 1990s. Turnout among lower castes, Dalits and the rural poor came to match or exceed that of privileged groups. Parties such as the Bahujan Samaj Party brought excluded groups into office.
- Peaceful renewal. Parties can still channel change through the ballot. In Sri Lanka, after the 2022 economic crisis, the National People’s Power won 159 of 225 parliamentary seats in November 2024, displacing established dynasties.
Failures
- Dominance sliding into authoritarianism. Julius Nyerere justified a one-party state in Tanzania (1965) as “one-party democracy”. Mexico’s PRI governed for 71 years until 2000. Frantz Fanon (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961) had warned that the post-colonial single party becomes a vehicle for the enrichment of the national bourgeoisie.
- Clientelism in place of programmes. James C. Scott (1972) showed that patron–client exchange organised politics in Southeast Asia. Kanchan Chandra (Why Ethnic Parties Succeed, 2004) described India as a “patronage democracy”, where voters back co-ethnic parties to secure access to state benefits.
- Oligarchy and dynasty. Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy is sharper in personality- and family-run parties with no regular internal elections.
- Criminalisation and money. The Association for Democratic Reforms found that 251 of the 543 Lok Sabha members elected in 2024 (46%) had declared criminal cases, the highest share so far.
- Loss of trust. Youth-led uprisings that bypassed parties altogether toppled governments in Bangladesh (August 2024) and Nepal (September 2025). Established parties had stopped channelling a new generation’s demands.
Evaluation
The weaknesses are structural rather than cultural. Scarcity makes the state the main source of jobs and rents. Deep ethnic and caste cleavages reward identity mobilisation, and weak rule of law lets money and muscle substitute for organisation. Where parties institutionalised early and faced real competition, as in India, they sustained democracy despite clientelism. Where they fused with the state, as in single-party regimes, they undermined it.
Conclusion
Third World parties have been indispensable but imperfect. They made mass democracy possible in unlikely conditions, yet often reduced it to patronage and personal rule. Their future depends on internal democracy, transparent funding and programmatic competition, without which citizens increasingly look for voice through the street instead of the ballot.