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The Concept of ‘Critical Elections’ is Justifiably Used in Two eventualities: when there is a significant turning-point arising from a particular election, such as dramatic changes in party strengths which are subsequently consolidated and affect the structure of the party system (e.g. the replacement of one party by another as major opposition or government party); and, when in new democracies an election has a decisive effect in confirming or diverting from the democratization path. It may of course be that the latter incorporates the former.
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Geoffrey Pridham (2003) studied this question.
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