Party Bans.

The power to forbid political parties from running for office is an important instrument in the arsenal of both democracies and electoral autocracies. Although party bans can significantly affect electoral outcomes--whether by increasing the likelihood of an authoritarian incumbent's reelection or by decreasing the threat of an authoritarian opposition party's dismantling of democracy--which parties are targeted for bans, and when, remains unclear. In this paper, I address these questions using a game theoretic model. I show that different kinds of opposition party extremism have different, and often surprising, implications for the possibility of a ban. While an opposition party's "insider status" decreases the probability of a ban, so does its militarism; and a party's ideological extremism has an ambiguous, potentially non-monotone effect on the likelihood that it is banned. In addition to these results, I demonstrate that the involvement of a court in the banning decision has surprising effects: While the court may function as a "veto player" in situations when the court prefers the opposition party to be in office, banning is not automatic if the court shares the incumbent party's interests. Lastly, the unavailability of other instruments of electoral manipulation has a positive effect on the probability of a ban, suggesting one reason party bans may be so prevalent among democracies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]