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Ethnic party bans in Africa: an introduction
Abstract
During the 1990s the number of African states allowing multiparty elections increased dramatically. Paradoxically, this has been accompanied in the majority of countries by legal bans on ethnic and other particularistic parties. The main official reason has been the aim of preventing the politicization of ethnicity as this is feared to lead to ethnic conflict and political instability. Despite the resurgent interest in institutional engineering, this phenomenon has received little scholarly attention. This contribution outlines the main research questions and preliminary answers of a collaborative research project which combines large and small N comparisons and case studies. Bans are relatively rarely enforced and the decision actually to ban parties is best explained by the interaction of an experience of ethnic violence in the past and hybrid regimes using these measures to restrict political party competition. Positive effects on democracy and conflict management seem generally limited and are context dependent.
... I also include institutional constraints on the executive, type of electoral system, voter turnout, and the runnerup vote share as co-variates owing to existing literature (Burchard, 2020;Fjelde & Höglund, 2016a;Hafner-Burton et al., 2014;International IDEA, 2008;Letsa, 2017) 2 . I also include other country-level co-variates that often shape political instability; electoral restrictions, gross domestic product per capita, and the level of electoral democracy in a country (Bogaards et al., 2010;Braithwaite & Braithwaite, 2020;Korotayev et al., 2017;Norris, 2015). ...
... V-dem codes the existence of statutory restrictions as 0 and the absence as 1 hence, one can infer that the more candidates are excluded based on social background, the higher the likelihood of opposition-sponsored post-election violence. This finding is supported by existing literature (Bogaards et al., 2010;Braithwaite & Braithwaite, 2020). For instance, Bogaards et al. (2010) find that ethnic party bans meant to reduce the likelihood of ethnic-related electoral conflict could rather result in political instability by offering ethnic opposition groups a reason to rebel. ...
... This finding is supported by existing literature (Bogaards et al., 2010;Braithwaite & Braithwaite, 2020). For instance, Bogaards et al. (2010) find that ethnic party bans meant to reduce the likelihood of ethnic-related electoral conflict could rather result in political instability by offering ethnic opposition groups a reason to rebel. ...
Allegations of electoral fraud provide opposition parties with two pathways: legal alternatives such as conceding defeat or petitioning the courts and illegal options like post-election violence. This research paper examines why in the case of alleged fraud, some opposition political parties resort to violence while others do not. Using V-Dem, NELDA, and ECAV data on 4,040 post-election violent events in 40 Sub-Saharan African countries, I find that opposition parties are more likely to resort to violence when their support is geographically concentrated and polarized. These findings are robust when logic models are alternated with probit models. The study enhances our understanding of the role of mobilization structures and political opportunities in shaping collective action and post-election violence. Case studies of Kenya (2007-2008) and Ghana (2012) also illustrate how geographically polarized and concentrated party support contributes to post-election violence. The paper aims to guide policymaking on electoral violence prevention and mitigation.
... Figure 2 shows that Nigeria has a relatively low quality level of democracy despite a competitive opposition in its dominant party system, too. Amongst others, this could be due to Nigeria's strict requirements for parties' electoral registration (Bogaards, 2010b;Bogaards, Basedau and Christof, 2010). 22 This, in turn, would imply that artificial competitiveness of the opposition is not as conducive to higher quality levels of democracy as competitiveness of the opposition reached through non-institutional means. ...
... Nigeria has one of the most strict requirements for political parties' electoral registration in Africa. Nigerian parties are forced to be present with party offices in the majority of states, and for becoming president, a candidate not only needs to win the majority of votes but also a quarter of the vote in the majority of states (Bogaards, 2010b;Bogaards, Basedau and Christof, 2010). This prevents the inflationary creation of new opposition parties in Nigeria. ...
... Cline (2011) has observed that ethnic and religious tendencies are used by Nigerians for both protection as well as promotion of ideological and practical objectives in Nigeria, but resulting in violence, which also feeds on itself. Politicians, ethno-religious entrepreneurs find it easier and more convenient to use and manipulate religion, ethnic or communal basis in order secure votes and political offices (Bogaards, Basedau & Hartmann, 2010). For that, Jafari et al. (2014) have posited that intrumentalised religiousity leads to ethnocentric tendencies as well as identity myopia, which also result in further socio-societal susceptibilities. ...
... Public policies are made in several ways in order to institutionalise, contain, legitimise and regulate the actions and reactions of the various groups and individuals within the diverse Nigerian state for peace, order, stability and sustainability (Ojie & Ewhrudjakpo, 2009). But Bogaards et al. (2010) have raised the fundamental question of whether constitutional provisions in heterogeneous states can bring about accommodation, unity and harmony in order to strengthen popular rule and stability since most of the state dynamics are shaped and greatly influenced by the informal, rather than the formal state established institutions. The fact Nigeria was originally a conglomeration of heterogeneous geo-ethnic, religious and socioculturally distinct groups, partly necessitated the adoption of federal system even before independence. ...
One of the major characters of the Nigeria is the prominence of ethnicity, regionalism and religion in her formation from 1914, and the succeeding trends, particularly in her public affairs. These (ethnicity, regionalism and religion) have therefore, greatly been influencing her unity, cohesion, development and sustainability. Not only have these manifested and determined Nigerian state make up, structure and affairs, but also resulted in conflicts, threats to national cohesion, controversies, and unhealthy rivalry among the heterogeneous ethno-religious and regional groups in the country. This article explores ethno-religious and regional rivalry among Nigeria's prominent religions, major, small and minority ethnic groups. It also examined the factors responsible for, the effects of rivalry on Nigerian state and the policy measures put in place by various regimes to contain the rivalry. It is very clear from the study that the basic reasons for the rivalry are economic, political, power and fear of domination and supremacy by the others. The article also argues that although ethno-religious, regional rivalry has been a potent threat to Nigeria's unity and social bond, accommodation, stability and prosperity, it is also positively awakening individuals, religions, groups and regions to civic duties and political participation, stand for their rights, responsibilities, etc. The nature and extent to which the rivalry is pursued (either positive or negative) determines the consciousness and stimulation of drives by the groups to rise up to impending socioeconomic and political development, which in turn speeds up the progress and development of the state, or further threaten national unity, social bond, and stability of Nigeria.
... However, Lijphart (1977) states that the possession of these conditions is not adequate or does not have to be present before consociationalism can be adopted or effective in any nation. Bogaards et al. (2010) state that the absence of favorable factors is not an insurmountable obstacle provided there is adequate political will from the elite. There is a possibility of success even when most of the conditions or the most decisive ones are unfavorable or absent. ...
The theory of consociationalism has been extensively discussed in literature; however , its feasibility in managing conflicts in deeply divided societies is heavily contested. The few studies that have examined how the theory applies in real-world situations remain inconclusive. The present work, therefore, explored the prospect of consociational power-sharing model in addressing the problem of under-representation, political exclusion, and marginalization in Nigeria. This is against the backdrop of the incessant separatist agitations in Nigeria, which has undermined the peace, stability, and unity of the country. Using qualitatively analyzed data from secondary sources, this study argues that even though Nigeria does not meet any of the favorable conditions of consociationalism set out by Lijphart (1985), it would still benefit from consociational power-sharing. The study proposes the adoption of semi-presidentialism based on the principle of grand coalition and proportionality and gives an assessment of how it could work for Nigeria. It contends that the rotation of power among the six geo-political zones in the country and the adoption of proportional sequential mechanism would facilitate elite cooperation and inclusion of all segments of the society in the political process, thereby easing the fear of sectional domination in Nigeria.
... Consolidated authoritarian regimes normally succeed in purging the electoral arenas from potentially strong challengers. This strategy, naturally resulting in restricted competition, can be implemented openly, by banning the activities of certain parties for political reasons (Bogaards, Basedau & Hartmann, 2010), or covertly, by introducing legislation with a lot of detailed, seemingly "technical" requirements for party or candidate registration that cannot be met by opposition parties (Karvonen, 2007). If viable alternatives are restricted, securing plurality support for a dominant party becomes an easy task, and in such conditions, multimember plurality systems become a useful tool for sustaining political monopoly. ...
One of the well-known properties of multimember plurality systems is their propensity toward producing the so-called “sweep effect,” manifesting itself in that the strongest party in a majority of districts sees its full slate of candidates elected even if the margin of plurality is small. Despite this property, and mostly for technical reasons, this system remains rather widely employed for conducting local elections both in democracies and in electoral authoritarian regimes. This article employs the evidence from the 2019 municipal elections in St. Petersburg to examine how increased strategic coordination of opposition voters became instrumental in countering the sweep effect and thus reducing the scope of political monopoly in an overtly authoritarian context. The analysis shows that this goal was achieved primarily by enabling opposition-minded voters to cast a greater number of votes than it otherwise would have been.
... There have been many attempts to engineer moderation through party system engineering. In Africa, it has often been used as a way of repressing political opponents, and generally, these measures have not 'strengthened democracy' or reduced conflict (Bogaards et al. 2013). One exception may be Burundi, where following a 2000 agreement to a package of consociational reforms, multiethnic parties were prescribed. ...
Nations built on exclusion and assimilation, decades of civil war, widespread poverty, authoritarianism and the decline of democracy. Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are travelling a road to federalism. Institutions and ethnic identity have interacted to privilege some and marginalise others. But when the right conditions prevail, political equality can be restored. This book charts the origins and evolution of federalism and other approaches to the accommodation of minority ethnic groups in Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. It applies a historical institutionalism methodology to understand why federalism has been resisted, what causes it to be established and what design options are most likely to balance otherwise competing centripetal and centrifugal forces. Breen shows how Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka are finding a middle ground whereby deliberative and moderating institutions are combined with accommodating ones to support a political equality among groups and individuals.
... In toto 12 African states banned 138 particularistic parties; denied 112 parties from registering; dissolved 25 parties; and suspended one party. 52 In the wake of Burkinabé president Blaise Compaoré's fall in October 2014, he was succeeded, in November 2014, by the deputy of the Presidential Security Regiment, Lt-Col Isaac Yacouba Zida. In an attempt to stabilise the country and prevent the incumbent elite from opposing him, he temporarily suspended various political parties, including Compaoré's CDP; the Alliance pour la démocratie et la fédération-Rassemblement démocratique africain (ADF-RDA); and the Fédération associative pour la paix et le progrès avec Blaise Compaoré (FEDAP-BC) for 'activities incompatible with the law'. ...
This chapter analyses the role, function and ideologies of political parties in selected African states to demonstrate their relevance to democracy in Africa. The intention is also to determine the political strategies, such as leverage and linkages, that political parties employ in order to operate in somewhat limiting political environments, ranging from democracies to electoral authoritarian governments and no-party systems.
... For Ansell and Samuels (2010), democratization is a function of demands by rising economic groups for protection from the state. Several studies have also demonstrated the impact of the 'politics of fear' on the electoral behavior of citizens (Polletta 2006;Runciman 2006;Basedau et al. 2007Basedau et al. , 2011Smith 2010;Bogaards et al. 2010, thus emphasizing the electoral rewards that follow a diminution of perceived threats. Interestingly, however, it is not only the presence of repressive authoritarian governments that may represent a barrier for further democratization stages; even 'enlightened authoritarianism' can block further development ( Eibl 2011;Gurses 2011;Ahmed 2012). ...
This book examines the relationship between development economics, social protection and democratization in the specific context of Sub-Saharan Africa. Moving existing theories of transformation into a new terrain, it sheds light on the exclusive origins of dictatorship and democracy.
... Countries enact rules banning ethnic or regional parties in their constitutions, electoral laws, political parties laws, and voluntary associations laws as well as by administrative decrees. They have been most common in, though not exclusive to, Africa, where strong ethnic ties combined with weak identification with the state threatens party system nationalization along with state cohesion and survival (Bogaards, Basedau and Hartmann 2010). Such bans should force the creation of more nationalized party systems because the elimination of ethnic parties increases nationalization. ...
Party system nationalization is often viewed as critical to national unity, the production of public goods, and may have implications for democratic success. This paper assesses the impact of ethnic diversity and electoral rules in 74 economically developing democracies. Contrary to past studies, majoritarian electoral systems heighten the tendency of ethnic diversity to reduce nationalization while proportional representation greatly reduces its impact. Presidential systems produce higher levels of nationalization than parliamentary systems but the effect reverses as the number of presidential candidates increases. Though ethnic party bans may increase nationalization, ballot access requirements, the level of freedom, and relative prosperity have no effect.
... Scholars have recently begun to closely examine party regulations in democracies both old and new (see Barnedt, 1998;Bogaards et al., 2010;Janda, 2005;Müller and Sieberer, 2006;Rashkova and van Biezen, 2014;Reilly, 2006;van Biezen, 2012). In addition to ordinary laws, countries have increasingly sought to regulate political parties by noting them in their constitutions. ...
What are the main reasons behind the regulation of political parties by contemporary constitutional practices? This article presents a framework for analysis which identifies types of justifications and actors involved in the process of regulation and their further influence on the outcomes of constitutionalisation. The empirical focus is on the revelatory case of Luxembourg, which amended the constitution for the sole reason of giving parties constitutional status. The analysis suggests that the constitutional regulation of political parties depends on their current interests and power status. Additionally, the paper draws attention to the involvement of external actors and to the changing nature of contemporary constitutionalism.
... Desde a introdução de eleições multipartidárias, a grande maioria dos países africanos adotaram uma legislação partidária autónoma ou regularam o funcionamento dos seus partidos políticos no seio das leis eleitorais ou das constituições. Recentemente, um número especial da revista Democratization (vol.17 (4), 2010) revelou que a vaga de democratização africana foi acompanhada pela proibição de partidos de base étnica e regional ou de fins particularistas (Bogaards, Basedau, & Hartmann, 2010) e, em alguns casos, pelo reforço da regulação partidária como forma de condicionar a proliferação de novos partidospor exemplo na Tanzânia, Quénia ou Uganda (Moroff, 2010). ...
Resumo:
Cabo Verde e São Tomé Príncipe apresentam semelhanças e diferenças que os tornam particularmente comparáveis. São dois arquipélagos com experiências de (des)colonização mais ou menos semelhantes e que acolhem sociedades crioulas, onde as diferenças de natureza étnica, religiosa ou territorial são muito ténues. No início dos anos 1990 fizeram parte do grupo de países na África subsaariana onde uma transição bem-sucedida para a democracia foi seguida de uma alternância política. Desde a transição, estes dois (micro)estados têm mantido eleições regulares e figuram entre as democracias com melhores desempenhos em termos de liberdades políticas e direitos cívicos. Todavia, existem diferenças importantes entre estes países: enquanto Cabo Verde desenvolveu um sistema bipartidário estável, São Tomé e Príncipe conhece um sistema multipartidário relativamente instável. Para explicar estas trajetórias divergentes analisamos as escolhas institucionais (tipo de sistema eleitoral e leis dos partidos) feitas pelos atores políticos chave durante a transição. O nosso argumento, devedor do novo institucionalismo histórico, é que as decisões estratégicas feitas nesta conjuntura crítica têm efeitos na longa duração, influenciando as diferentes trajetórias de desenvolvimento dos sistemas partidários.
Palavras-chave: Cabo Verde; São Tomé e Príncipe; sistemas partidários; escolhas institucionais; conjunturas críticas.
A comparative analysis of party system development in Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe (1991-2014)
Abstract
Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe feature similarities and contrasts that make them perfect to compare. They are two archipelagos with similar (de)colonization experiences, hosting creole societies framed by weak ethnic, religious and territorial cleavages. In the beginning of the 1990s, they were part of the group of sub-Saharan African countries where a successful democratic transition was followed by alternation in power. Since transition, these two (micro)states have conducted regular elections and reaching the level of the most advanced democracies in terms of political liberties and civil rights. However, these two cases reveal important differences: while Cape Verde has developed a stable two party system, São Tome and Príncipe is characterized by a quite instable multiparty system. To explain this variance we focus on the institutional choices (electoral system design and party laws) made by the key political actors during transition. Following the new historical institutionalism, we argue that strategic decisions made at this critical juncture have long lasting effects, shaping divergent paths of party system development.
Keywords: Cape Verde; São Tomé and Príncipe; party systems; institutional choices; critical junctures.
... bans can be institutionalised in ways that limit such practices, for example, by obliging the parties to open branch offices in various regions of the country or by imposing a multi-ethnic composition of their leadership. See Bogaards, Basedau, and Hartmann (2010) for experiences with ethnic party bans in Africa. ...
In 1990, according to polls, 7 out of 10 citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina were against ethnic parties. Yet, 75% of voters ended up voting for one of the three main ethno-nationalist parties. In no other post-communist country, including other former Yugoslav republics, did ethnic parties receive such large support in the first democratic elections. In Croatia, for example, in the 1990 elections the Croatian ethnic party Hrvatska demokratska zajednica gathered 42% and the Serb ethnic party Srpska demokratska stranka gathered only 2% of the vote. Were Bosnians and Herzegovinians already that much ethno-nationalistically oriented in 1990? The article rejects this thesis and purports to explain the voting behaviour of the Bosnian electorate by using the prisoner’s dilemma theoretical framework. It concludes by arguing that the problem of collective action could have been addressed via a pre-electoral referendum on a ban of ethnic parties – a ban which had been actually adopted by the then-ruling Communist party, but was eventually overturned by the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
... Considering Mozambique's main political parties' past of civil war rivalry, we could argue that the more party loyalties are based on the experience of violent conflict in opposition to non-violent conflict, the less opposition strength and institutionalization necessarily leads to the fulfillment of its promise of accountability and high quality of democracy.Figure 2 shows that Nigeria has a relatively low quality level of democracy despite a competitive opposition in its dominant party system, too. Amongst others, this could be due to Nigeria's strict requirements for parties' electoral registration (Bogaards, 2010b; Bogaards, Basedau and Christof, 2010 ). This, in turn, would imply that artificial competitiveness of the measures the freeness and fairness degree of party competition in an electoral regime, has the expected highly significant and positive influence on the Civil Liberties index, i.e., the quality of democracy in the society in 2008 (p < 0.01). ...
Conventional wisdom argues that a dominant party system prevents democratic consolidation. I argue, however, that democratization can be successful in dominant party systems under the following condition: if a competitive opposition party – even if too weak to take power – challenges the dominant government party, the quality of democracy improves substantially. I test this argument with data from 18 African countries with dominant party systems using the Freedom House Civil Liberties in-dex as a measure of the quality of democracy. The findings show that dominant party systems with strong and institutionalized opposition parties have more comprehen-sive civil liberties. The analysis thus suggests that the opposition does not need to win office. For improving the quality of democracy it is enough when competitive opposition parties challenge the dominant party and force its rulers to be more ac-countable to the citizenry.
... 9. The empirical examination of the seats/population ratio is hampered by a number of problems, such as ethnic groups refraining from forming political parties (e.g. the Chiapas in Mexico), election boycotts (e.g. by the 'Mohajir Quami Movement' (MQM) in Pakistan in 1993), rigging or party bans (e.g. in Rwanda; see also Bogaards et al., 2010). Nevertheless, for any theoretical assessment of the relationship between ethnic composition, electoral systems and peacebuilding, the expected impact on the seats/population ratio is a key indicator. ...
The merits and shortcomings of various electoral systems for post-conflict elections in divided societies have been debated extensively. This paper aims to contribute to this debate by moving ethnic composition, i.e. the number, size and settlement patterns of ethnic groups in a society, centre-stage as a context condition for list proportional representation, majoritarianism and single member plurality. An overview is then provided of the electoral systems used in 23 post-conflict parliamentary elections conducted in divided societies, and we discuss to what extent they correspond to the requirements of a society's ethnic composition.
This volume of essays brings together a group of leading political scientists, legal scholars, and political theorists to describe and analyze the body of constitutional law and practice within and upon democratic institutions, in particular examining how constitutional law shapes electoral democracy. Constitutional law and practice on this question are complex and varied. This volume therefore takes a thematic and regional approach: it selects a range of key theoretical questions related to democratic constitutional design and offers a series of chapters featuring a diverse range of voices, as well as a blend of theory, qualitative studies, and quantitative methods. Readers will gain a multifaceted understanding of a phenomenon of growing importance. The volume will also be useful to students of comparative constitutionalism, who will gain a rich array of empirical evidence to stimulate further work. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
This study asks whether existing standards of good governance have incorporated ideals and measures to manage communal diversity. The context is an intellectual landscape in which the efficacy of heterogeneity policies has typically been compared through their impact on the likelihood of violent conflict. Alternate approaches would fine‐tune the outcome variable and/or enlist new independent variables. The Ethnic Power Relations project provided measures of the groups' co‐determination position (egip, excl) and measures of empowerment through self‐governing start to follow suit, such as improved indicators of territorial autonomies, decentralization, and language use rights. We also crafted a measure of functional autonomies, based on the ENTA Network's case‐study collection. With the exception of territorial autonomies, all existing measures of policies that accommodate the difference tend to improve the group's relationships with other groups and with the country as a whole. They also correlate well with the general good governance indicators.
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) held multi-party elections in 2006, 2011 and 2018. This paper highlights that ethnic socio-cultural associations in former Katanga province have been politically involved in the DRC’s electoral process. Such associations were originally founded in cities to organise mutual aid among migrants hailing from the same region. The attractiveness of ethnicity as a frame of reference for the electorate seems to increase in the context of a weak state failing to deliver public goods. Ethnicity potentially influences voting behaviour in the DRC, as it is assumed that in return for votes, elected elites will prioritise their ethnic community. The ruling PPRD party has instrumentalised ethnic associations in Katanga to support Joseph Kabila’s presidential candidacy, as well as legislative candidates of the presidential majority. These ethnic associations have in turn tried to influence the outcome of elections in favour of their communities, e.g. by limiting the number of co-ethnic candidates per constituency to avoid ethnic vote splitting and thereby maximising the chances of success for candidates from their own group. Their efforts have not always been successful; elections enable voters to hold elites accountable for not keeping their promises once elected.
Is coordinated anti-regime voting by opposition-minded citizens possible in authoritarian settings where the opposition does not coalesce against the regime? If so, what are the factors behind the citizens’ (un)willingness to vote strategically for the opposition? This study investigates the ‘smart vote’ (umnoe golosovanie) strategy of Aleksei Naval’nyi in the 2020 subnational elections in Russia and shows that it boosted non-regime candidates’ electoral results countrywide. The article also finds that the willingness of anti-regime voters to behave strategically depends on the candidates’ opposition credentials, and that this willingness can be affected by the scope of voter intimidation available to the authorities.
The 2012 Syrian Constitution has been largely (dis)regarded as embodying a mere policy intent to placate contestation, leaving the resorts of monocratic power untouched. While this might be true, there were formal changes whose study is worthwhile to understand the possibilities for some degree of democratization. This article delves into the 2012 charter and its main innovations, asking, first, from a descriptive-analytical perspective, what are the main trends underlying contemporary Syrian constitutional politics? Second, from an explanatory perspective, what specific constitutional provisions prevent the rule of law and the material constitutional transformation in democratic terms? What legal-institutional mechanisms account for this phenomenon? While the 2012 formal constitutional changes can be conceived as a ‘blueprint’ revealing governmental priorities, the outstanding democratic deficits might help to identify the opposition's priorities. Together, they contribute to delineate a bargaining range for the ongoing constituent negotiations.
Free speech is essential to democracy and political participation. But scholars hold competing expectations about whether courts will protect free speech in similar ways for extremism. Drawing on free speech cases from high courts in Australia, Canada, India, and South Africa, as well as from the European Court of Human Rights, I show that judges are substantially less likely to support free speech in cases involving extremist claimants or extreme speech. Moreover, I demonstrate how judges tailor arguments in response to concerns about extremism. This evidence has implications for our understanding of judicial behavior and the role that courts play in preserving democracy.
I explore the concept of militant democracy in the context of what appear to be persistent threats to the democratic order. I begin with a reconstruction of the concept with the intention of distinguishing and identifying its historical manifestations. I trace and document two constitutional devices that exhibit the pre-emption and illiberalism that characterizes militant democracy. The first device—party restrictions—is the prototypical example of the concept and is designed to pre-empt extremist intimidation. The second example—hardened term limits—is designed to pre-empt executive ambition. The latter form of bullying may be the most relevant threat, at least in modern Latin America and Africa. In one view, term-limit evasion accelerates a pernicious negative cycle in which constitutional non-compliance begets constitutional weakness, which in turn begets subsequent non-compliance. Such a negative feedback loop is a core problem in law. Militant democracy, the logic of which implies the entrenchment and protection of term limits, could potentially disrupt such negative cycles. The concept could also be useful as an intellectual defense of seemingly non-democratic means of protecting democracy.
This article uses a unique dataset from the September 2019 municipal elections in St. Petersburg in order to examine empirically the efficacy of strategic voting under authoritarianism, as manifest in the effects of the “smart vote campaign” of Alexei Navalny in Russia. The analysis allows for the conclusion that the campaign, while technically similar to the vote advice applications that are now widespread in many democracies, was efficient enough to make a significant difference in the overtly authoritarian context. We demonstrate empirically that Navalny’s call for strategic voting did indeed affect the behavior of the electorate, particularly by improving strategic coordination among opposition-minded voters; that the electoral results of the candidates backed by the “smart vote” campaign tended to be better than the electoral results of other non–United Russia candidates; and that as a result of the “smart vote” campaign, the dominant party’s electoral results deteriorated quite visibly.
Ethnic diversity is considered detrimental to national unity, especially if ethnicity is politically mobilized: Ethnic parties in electoral competition in particular are thought to increase the salience of ethnic differences and, with it, ethnic tensions. Yet the individual links of this psychological chain have only been examined cross‐sectionally, and never together. This article employs original longitudinal survey data to simultaneously assess changes in ingroup identification, outgroup aversion, and national identification over the election period within one diverse society: Romania. While ingroup identification does increase, ethnic relations do not worsen. On the contrary, outgroup aversion decreases while national identification increases, for minority and majority Romanian citizens alike. I explain these findings with the common ingroup identity model from social psychology: Elections in ethnically diverse societies may not only increase the salience of ethnic groups but also that of the superordinate, national identity. The findings question the often assumed automaticity of intergroup threat.
This article overviews and seeks to explain the processes of party system formation in the post-Soviet Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) by focusing on a crucial party-system property, fragmentation. The analysis reveals that to a much greater extent than in democracies, where party systems are largely shaped by societal factors, the level of party system fragmentation in autocracies is determined by the scope of presidential powers, as entrenched in the formal institutional order and reflected in the national constitution. The level of authoritarianism is largely inconsequential for party system fragmentation, while the role of electoral rules is secondary. Institutionally weak and institutionally strong autocratic presidents have a preference for fragmented party systems, while presidents with an intermediate range of powers seek and obtain low levels of party system fragmentation.
Most countries of the Arab Mashrek are multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. In recent years, most of them have experienced violent clashes between groups that frame their conflicts along ethnic-sectarian lines. This article investigates the Lebanese Ta’if Agreement of 1989 as a crucial case study of how to manage such conflicts through a transitory power-sharing arrangement. It presents several provisions of this agreement that adhere to three different approaches of how to deal with such conflicts: the consociational and the centripetal models of power-sharing as well as the integrationist paradigm. It thereby seeks to develop a theoretical argument about chances and risks of transitory power-sharing in deeply divided societies and derives some general lessons for managing conflicts in the Middle East.
Political representation is crucial for the political stability of plural societies. It contributes to political stability by fostering feelings of inclusion and belonging among the minority or by affecting policy responsiveness. Previous research confounds these two types of representation by using descriptive representation as a proxy for policy responsiveness, although the relation between the two is not self-evident as minority representatives can easily be outvoted or marginalised, or represent other constituencies than their group. In this paper, I argue that the effect of representation must be disentangled by studying descriptive representation and policy responsiveness separately. The empirical analysis is based on a cross-sectional time-series design, analysing 90 ethnic minority groups in more than 40 electoral democracies worldwide. I find that descriptive representation has only an accommodative effect if it is sufficiently consequential, and that economic and cultural policies are differently linked to protest: economic rights have a curvilinear effect, whereas cultural rights are associated through a linear effect with protest. I explain this difference with a lack of economic means among economically marginalised groups, which might deter them from protesting.
This chapter follows a “Rokkanian” perspective of critical junctures and historical legacies of political cleavages to explain institutionalization and strength of the opposition in African dominant party systems of the third wave of democratization. Competitive opposition is rooted in historical legacies of cleavages that were formed during the first pre-independence elections and survived the political vicissitudes after decolonization. The chapter develops a quantitative measurement of historical legacies of cleavages and successfully tests its purported positive influence based on a data set of 53 elections in 18 African party systems characterized by one-party dominance, clientelism and valence competition. In sum, to be more immune against factionalism as well as co-optation by the dominant party, opposition parties need a “brand identity” based on historical political conflict.
This chapter shows that the third wave of democratization in Africa can be successful even if the government remains dominated by one major political party. A competitive opposition party (system) with some minimum amount of strength and institutionalization—even if too weak to take power—can be conducive to a higher quality of democracy. The chapter conceptualizes opposition competitiveness and illuminates how competitive opposition parties can push the dominant party system toward democratic consolidation. The quantitative analysis is based on 53 national parliamentary elections in 18 African dominant party systems between 1990 and 2008 that meet minimum freeness standards of party competition, that is, can be classified as electoral democracies or competitive authoritarian regimes at least.
Comparative scholarship suggests that sustainable democracy and conflict management are dependent on the existence of well-functioning political parties and institutionalized party systems. Surprisingly little attention has been given to how to strengthen parties by institutional means. Drawing on Lesotho, this article will discuss two different approaches of political party engineering: electoral system reform and banning party switching in parliament. Since reintroduction of multiparty politics, elections in Lesotho were marked by post-election conflict and violence. Following violent clashes after the elections in 1998 Lesotho adopted a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system to deal with electoral conflicts. The article argues that the introduction of Africa's first MMP system produced an inclusive parliament that mitigates violent conflict and the simultaneous introduction of a regulation of party switching was useful in preventing party system instability and could set an example for democracy building in other post-conflict societies in Africa.
Most countries of the Arab Mashrek are multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian. In recent years, most of them have experienced violent clashes between groups that frame their conflicts along ethnic-sectarian lines. This article investigates the Lebanese Ta’if Agreement of 1989 as a crucial case study of how to manage such conflicts through a transitory power-sharing arrangement. It presents several provisions of this agreement that adhere to three different approaches of how to deal with such conflicts: the consociational and the centripetal models of power-sharing as well as the integrationist paradigm. It thereby seeks to develop a theoretical argument about chances and risks of transitory power-sharing in deeply divided societies and derives some general lessons for managing conflicts in the Middle East.
This chapter discusses how well our understanding of political parties, based on the knowledge and models of political parties in established democracies, can help us to understand political parties in new democracies. Armed with concepts and models from the party literature, party scholars have tried to make sense of the vastly expanded universe of parties in the wake of the third wave of democratization. Are parties and party systems in newer democracies very different from parties in established democracies? And if so, are there commonalities between parties in newer democracies? This chapter revisits the debate on parties and democracy while discussing three related topics (typologies, functions, and contrasts of parties between old and new democracies) within the study of political parties to discuss the extent to which our understanding of political parties in established democracies is adequate when applied to new democracies. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013. All rights are reserved.
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe the world has witnessed a rising tide of contentious elections ending in heated partisan debates, court challenges, street protests, and legitimacy challenges. In some cases, disputes have been settled peacefully through legal appeals and electoral reforms. In the worst cases, however, disputes have triggered bloodshed or government downfalls and military coups. Contentious elections are characterized by major challenges, with different degrees of severity, to the legitimacy of electoral actors, procedures, or outcomes. Despite growing concern, until recently little research has studied this phenomenon. The theory unfolded in this volume suggests that problems of electoral malpractice erode confidence in electoral authorities, spur peaceful protests demonstrating against the outcome, and, in the most severe cases, lead to outbreaks of conflict and violence. Understanding this process is of vital concern for domestic reformers and the international community, as well as attracting a growing new research agenda. The editors, from the Electoral Integrity Project, bring together scholars considering a range of fresh evidence- analyzing public opinion surveys of confidence in elections and voter turnout within specific countries, as well as expert perceptions of the existence of peaceful electoral demonstrations, and survey and aggregate data monitoring outbreaks of electoral violence. The book provides insights invaluable for studies in democracy and democratization, comparative politics, comparative elections, peace and conflict studies, comparative sociology, international development, comparative public opinion, political behavior, political institutions, and public policy.
Over the past two decades, the concept of militant democracy-the use of legal restrictions on political expression and participation to curb extremist actors in democratic regimes-has again captured the attention of comparative constitutional lawyers and political scientists. In comparative constitutional law, the old neutral model of liberal democracy, according to which all political views are entitled to the same rights of expression and association, has given way to a general consensus that restrictions on basic rights designed to preserve democracy are legitimate. At the same time, legal scholars attribute the considerable cross-national variation in the formal design and use of such restrictions to the particular historical background of each country. In political science, a large body of work now examines specific militant restrictions on extremist actors. Although this scholarship consists mainly of descriptive analyses, it has begun to advance causal hypotheses explaining variation in important militant democracy policies. Taken together, these developments point to the fact that militant restrictions constitute an important facet of modern democracy and that at the same time, notwithstanding recent advances, our understanding of the phenomenon is still marked by significant gaps, making the legal and empirical analysis of militant democracy an important emerging research program both in comparative constitutional law and political science. This article reconstructs the debate on the concept since its origins in the 1930s and suggests directions for further research in both fields.
Ethnicity has emerged as a prominent issue in electoral contests around the world, particularly in countries that have embraced multiparty elections in the past few decades. What factors influence ethnic mobilization and the politicization of ethnicity? Although a number of factors have been hypothesized to influence the politicization of ethnicity in the comparative politics literature, many of these relationships have not been established through empirical testing. This study empirically tests a number of the hypotheses derived from the literature with our unique data set on candidates' ethnic appeals in the Nigerian 2007 gubernatorial elections. We find that political parties' use of ethnic appeals is correlated with the competitiveness of the election, nature of the campaign, partisan attachments, and social, demographic, and economic characteristics of the states. Of particular note is the finding that the salience of ethnic identity in the electorate influences political leaders' use of ethnic appeals.
This paper argues that democratisation is characterised by risk management. Democratisation aims not only to manage the risks to global security believed to emerge from the borderlands. Rather, as a complex of depoliticised strategies, democratisation advances a set of technocratic solutions to administer local populations who are constructed as risky, in particular, prone to conflict and extremism. Yet, efforts to manage risk beget new risks to be managed, rendering democratisation a self-defeating and interminable project. This interminability perpetually defers democracy for (‘riskised’) local populations that are constructed as unfit for democracy; thus, democratisation emerges as a quasi-permanent modality of global governance. This article reviews risk in democratisation discourse through three illustrative examples: the discourses of electoral risk, the risk of freedom and the risk of inclusion.
Since the sweeping (re)introduction of multiparty systems in the early 1990s, almost all sub-Saharan countries have introduced legal provisions to ban ethnic or other identity-based particularistic parties. Altogether, 12 countries have actually banned political parties on these grounds. In theoretical terms, such bans can exclude particularism from politics but - contrary to public discourse - also run the risk of forcing groups to resort to violent means or of becoming an object of conflict themselves. Empirically speaking, hardly any general patterns in the effects of bans can be detected. A closer look at 12 politically relevant bans in six countries reveals an initially stabilizing impact in one case (Rwanda in 1994). A ban on a religious party in Kenya in 1993 triggered violent conflict. In cases such as Equatorial Guinea (1994) and Rwanda (2001, 2003), this regulatory measure, allegedly designed to promote peace, seems to be part of the 'menu of manipulation' and is abused to suppress the opposition.
This article analyses the ways in which African countries are grappling with the problem of electoral violence. It argues that, although electoral violence has posed a serious challenge to democratic consolidation and peace in Africa, knowledge of how to prevent and or manage it is largely inadequate. Much of the academic interest in electoral violence has focused on defining the phenomenon, particularly analysing its causes, scope, patterns and consequences. This article examines the measures adopted by Ethiopia, Kenya and Nigeria to manage electoral violence. The specific measures analysed in this study include: (1) establishment of commissions of inquiry; (2) mediation in high-tension situations; and (3) regulation of political activities. While these measures represent significant efforts to curb electoral violence in Africa, they do not, of course, directly address the underlying causes of the problem. Electoral violence will continue to pose serious challenges to democracy and peace in Africa until the lingering socio-economic and political tensions and the lack of credibility of the electoral process in many African countries are addressed; however, in the meantime, to save lives, it is worth putting into place effective deterrents to election violence wherever it threatens.
This article suggests that in most semi-democracies, the same solution might not be that favourable to minorities. Many semi-democratic countries either restrict party competition or limit parties of ethnic minorities, including: Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirgistan, Cameron, Equatorial Guinea, Tanzania, Gabon, Kenya, Mauritania, and Congo (Brazzaville). This article highlights the impact of the electoral system and the importance of political plurality and electoral district design in such contexts. The article argues that the interests of minorities are best protected if they can elect their representatives in small, ethnically homogeneous electoral districts. Plurality or majority voting systems offer minorities the possibility to run with independent candidates. The case study in this article elections to municipal councils in Georgia in 2006 under a mixed electoral system seem to reflect the hypothesized pattern.
With the decision to abstain from introducing a constitutional provision for the banning of particularistic and extremist parties South Africa appears to be the exception in Africa. This article is interested in the main reasons for this particular constitutional practice. For this purpose three hypotheses will be developed. The article argues that the structures of South Africa's transition to democracy, in particular the beliefs, experiences, and interests of the main transition actors, account for this specific constitutional choice.
Since 1990 the banning of ethnic and other identity-based parties has become the norm in sub-Saharan Africa. This article focuses on three East-African countries – Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda – which opted for different ways of dealing with such parties. The analysis shows that the laws have actually been enforced by the responsible regulatory institutions. However, they have only marginally influenced the character of the political parties in the three countries: a comparison of regional voting patterns suggests that bans on particularistic parties have not ensured the emergence of aggregative parties with a national following in Tanzania and Uganda. In Kenya on the other hand, where such a ban has been absent until 2008, parties proved not to be more regionally based. In all three countries governing parties were clearly more nationalized than opposition parties, while the overall level of party nationalization is lower than in other world regions.
The article presents a complete overview of existing regulations of party switching in Africa since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s. While most established democracies do not see any reason for sanctioning with legal restrictions the decision of members of parliament to change their party affiliation, in Africa many countries take a critical stance towards party switching. Frequent party switching is considered to weaken political parties, to hinder the institutionalisation of party systems, and to endanger the stability of government and the legitimacy of democracy. The article distinguishes legal regulations of party switching conceptually by what is prohibited and its enforcement. A preliminary analysis shows that anti-defection laws indeed matter for party system institutionalisation in Africa's emerging democracies.
The debate on institutional engineering offers options to manage ethnic and other conflicts. This contribution systematically assesses the logic of these institutional designs and the empirical evidence on their functioning. Generally, institutions can work on ethnic conflict by either accommodating (“consociationalists”) or denying (“integrationists”) ethnicity in politics. Looking at individual and combined institutions (e.g. state structure, electoral system, forms of government), the literature review finds that most designs are theoretically ambivalent and that empirical evidence on their effectiveness is mostly inconclusive. The following questions remain open: a) Is politicized ethnicity really a conflict risk? b) What impact does the whole “menu” (not just single institutions) have? and c) How are effects conditioned by the exact nature of conflict risks?
Two prevalent sets of public policies are available to democratic states willing or obliged to manage national, ethnic, and communal diversity. The orthodox wisdom drives under the banner of integration while the other flies under the flag of accommodation. Integration promotes a single public identity coterminous with the state’s territory. It commends a common and functional single public house, a Le Corbusier-style tower block with uniform apartments. It makes no formal commendation on how private apartments should be maintained or decorated. Integrationists primarily seek the equality of individual citizens before the law and within public institutions. With the sole exception of the state’s citizenship they are against the public institutional recognition of group identities, but they accept collective diversity in private realms. They see integration as the key to a progressive politics, political stability, public unity, and the transcendence of group-based chauvinism.
This chapter explores how electoral arrangements can and have been used in the Balkans to shape the political organization of ethnic cleavages in the emerging party systems and how these choices have contributed to or detracted from achieving social peace and democratic consolidation. In the process, the chapter will propose corrections to two prevailing conceptions about electoral engineering for conflict management. First, the current preoccupation with electoral systems should not obscure that, in a heterogeneous society, the choice of electoral system follows from the choice of party-system function, that is, the desired role of the party system as an intermediary between social and political cleavages. Second, the longstanding juxtaposition of plurality elections or first-past-the-post (FPTP) and proportional representation (PR) loses much of its relevance when socio-cultural groups are geographically concentrated, as is the case in the Balkans. Rather, the menu of choice is between electoral systems that promote aggregation of socio-cultural divisions and those that facilitate the political translation of ethnic differences.
One under-theorized aspect of "multiculturalism and the antidiscrimination principle" is religious and ethnicity based political parties. With political organization, the fact of pluralism is made concrete for democratic purposes. When the struggle for empowerment is "waged within the world of democratic politics" it is waged through parties. That is the associational form modern democracies have settled on for participation, representation, and governing, and for countervailing power and regular opposition. Particularist parties and bloc voting are key instruments of political conflict and, as important, of political integration. This paper looks at the challenges these parties pose to democracy; specifically, at the principal reasons given for banning parties from participation in electoral politics. I identify four categories of justification for disqualification: violent overthrow, incitement to hate, altering the character of the nation, and outside support or control. This is a preliminary to setting out regulative principles of "defensive democracy."
This article reconciles theoretical and methodological differences between the Minorities at Risk (MAR) project and Bratton and van de Walle's 1997 analysis of democratic transitions occurring between 1990 and 1994. Analyses based on MAR have shown that protest in the 1980s was more likely to occur in more democratic African countries, whereas violent rebellion was more likely to occur in more autocratic countries. Bratton and van de Walle have shown that urban protests also occurred more frequently in more democratic countries. This article replicates earlier findings that prior democracy is an important variable for explaining ethnopolitical protest and rebellion. The authors analyze the relationship between such ethnopolitical action and democratic transitions and levels of democracy in 1994 and show that democracy and worker-student protest are mutually reinforcing, whereas democracy and rebellion are mutually incompatible. The authors further demonstrate that ethnopolitical protest is neutral in its consequences for democratization.
The new South African constitution, with its emphasis on ‘co-operative government’, sets out the structure of the state and delineates, in broad terms, the responsibilities of the different levels of the public sector. The constitution, however, merely spells out an enabling framework for the development of a system of inter-governmental relations (IGR). The operationalisation of the policy of co-operative government, consequently, is in formation and manifests the extant tensions between a unitary and a federal model of the state. The shortcomings in the existing system of IGR lead to poor co-ordination within and between the different structures of government and limit its capacity to deliver multi-sectoral social programmes. While the government is anxious to develop a regulatory framework for IGR, it is unlikely that legislation on its own will promote greater intergovernmental co-operation and co-ordination; administrative capacity and the evolution of accepted models of interaction are likely to be of equal or greater import. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
How should constitutional design respond to the opportunities and challenges raised by ethnic, linguistic, religious, and cultural differences, and do so in ways that promote democracy, social justice, peace and stability? This is one of the most difficult questions facing societies in the world today.There are two schools of thought on how to answer this question. Under the heading of "accommodation", some have argued for the need to recognize, institutionalize and empower differences. There are a range of constitutional instruments available to achieve this goal, such as multinational federalism and administrative decentralization, legal pluralism (e.g. religious personal law), other forms of non-territorial minority rights (e.g. minority language and religious education rights), consociationalism, affirmative action, legislative quotas, etc. But others have countered that such practices may entrench, perpetuate and exacerbate the very divisions they are designed to manage. They propose a range of alternative strategies that fall under the rubric of "integration" that will blur, transcend and cross-cut differences. Such strategies include bills of rights enshrining universal human rights enforced by judicial review, policies of disestablishment (religious and ethnocultural), federalism and electoral systems designed specifically to include members of different groups within the same political unit and to disperse members of the same group across different units, are some examples.Constitutions matter centrally in the response to the challenge of divided societies. But while comparative constitutional law occupies centre stage, as an academic discipline it has been missing in action. In this volume, leading scholars of constitutional law, comparative politics and political theory redress this gap by addressing the debate at a conceptual level, as well as through numerous country case-studies, through an interdisciplinary lens, but with a legal and institutional focus.In this introductory chapter, Sujit Choudhry provides an overview of the volume and situates it in the academic literature.
The Human Development Report (HDR), published annually by the United Nations Development Programme, is an unlikely stimulus for reflection upon the state of the field of comparative constitutional law. Although the Human Development Reports take a broad understanding of development, constitutional law has never occupied center stage. However, the HDR 2004 is different. Entitled Cultural Liberty in Today’s Diverse World, the HDR 2004 opens up by stating that “[m]anaging cultural diversity is one of the central challenges of our time”. The report supports this contention by drawing on a wide range of examples, from disputes over official languages in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, to the political representation of ethnic and religious minorities in Iraq and Fiji, to demands for asymmetric regimes of regional autonomy in Quebec and Catalonia, to the competing nationalisms of Northern Ireland, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Cyprus.
This book is one of the series Oxford Studies in Democratization, and examines electoral systems and democratization in southern Africa. The design of electoral systems and executive types is increasingly being recognized as the key lever of constitutional engineering to be applied in the interests of political accommodation and stability in ethnically divided societies. In this comparative study of democratic design in southern Africa, Andrew Reynolds finds that the decisions about how to constitute representative parliaments have wide-ranging effects on the type of parties and the party system that develops, the nature of executive–legislative relations, and the inclusiveness of both majority and minority interests in the process of governance. While electoral system design is the primary focus of the book, the related constitutional issues of whether to choose a presidential or parliamentary system, and whether to entrench consensual, consociational, or majoritarian government are also discussed. In analysing the experiences of Malawi, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the author presents conclusions that help shed light on the success or failure of democratic design in other fledgling democracies, in both Africa and beyond.
This book, comprising papers contributed to a conference entitled Constitutional Design 2000 and held at the University of Notre Dame in December 1999, brings together the views of the leading academic specialists on the theory of effective democratization, and of the institutional design tasks involved.
This special collection focuses on political parties and party systems in the process of democratic consolidation. The articles it includes are, with one exception, a selection of papers that were presented to a European Consortium of Political Research (ECPR) Joint Sessions workshop on 'Parties, party systems and democratic consolidation in the Third World' in Easter 2001. These articles, and indeed the excellent discussion generated during the workshop, have ranged widely in their approach and central concerns. Questions have been raised, for instance, about the analytic status of parties (whether they should be seen as the dependent or independent variable); ways of classifying party systems; the role of ideology in party differentiation; and the impact of international or global influences on the nature and opportunity horizons of parties and party systems. Rather than pursue all these questions further in this introduction, however, they will only be broached to the extent that they have relevance for its main theme. That theme is the part played by both parties individually and party systems in the process of democratic consolidation.
M. C. Young — Nationalisme, ethnicité et classe en Afrique : une rétrospective.
Ces trois notions ont, tour à tour, constitué les thèmes dominants des études africanistes au cours des trente dernières années — chacun de ces thèmes, avec sa méthode d'approche particulière, ne permettant que peu d'imbrications et de recouvrements. Une confrontation systématique de ces approches — et de leurs limites (vite atteintes) — avec les faits de l'histoire récente souligne tout à la fois leur utilité, leur complémentarité, et leurs insuffisances. L'analyse globale de la riche littérature sur ces thèmes génère plus de questions que de réponses, ce qui témoigne de son opportunité.
This is a comprehensive study of the special legislation on political parties around the world. In a survey conducted in late 2003, 39 party laws (PLs) identified among the world's states were subjected to a systematic content analysis which confirmed the hypothesis that PLs regulate political parties differently depending on the democratic status of the respective countries. In non-democratic states, regimes tend to use PLs to restrict the freedom of their opponents, while in newly democratized states, democratic regimes use the law to counteract lingering anti-democratic tendencies. In some stable democracies, the PL is primarily a prerequisite for regulation of public party subsidies and political finance. The article concludes with some reflections on PLs in established democratic states.
The third wave of democratisation has given new impetus to the debate about the choice of electoral system in divided societies. The growing preference for proportional representation has been dented by Horowitz's advocacy of 'vote pooling' through the alternative vote. However, the conditions in most African polities are unfavourable to the working of the alternative vote. This article seeks to reveal the hidden potential in Horowitz's analysis by focusing on 'constituency pooling' as a related but distinct way of promoting cross-cutting cleavages in the party system. The principle is illustrated with the unique Ugandan electoral law for the 1971 parliamentary elections and its possible application is examined with the help of the case of contemporary Nigeria. Constituency pooling may have special relevance for new democracies in Africa, because it is expected to work best under conditions of non-fragmented party systems and geographically concentrated ethnic groups.
For a long time Africa's political parties have been neglected in political science research, although they have mushroomed during the last decade and are being seen as crucial for the democratic development of the continent. Part of the neglect was due to the very specific western European bias of political science party research, while Africanists claimed the uniqueness of the subject. Despite this bias, the article argues that the framework of established party research can be applied to African parties as well – provided that some modifications are considered. These necessary modifications are explained for four ‘fields’, namely the functionalist approach, the cleavage model, the inclusion of informal politics, and finally whether a distinctively ‘African’ or a universal party typology approach should be applied.
In their study of 12 Latin American countries, Mainwaring and Scully develop a framework to assess levels of party system institutionalization and explore the impact of the degree of party system institutionalization on democratic consolidation. In this paper, we provide a description of the levels of party system institutionalization in the African context. Employing three criteria adapted from the framework of Mainwaring and Scully, we systematically measure the level of party system institutionalization in 30 African countries. More specifically, we examine (1) regularity of party competition; (2) extent to which parties manifest roots in society; and (3) institutionalization, or the extent to which citizens and organized interests perceive that parties and elections are the means of determining who governs in the 30 countries. Our findings indicate that the level of party system institutionalization is generally lower in African countries than in those of Latin America. However, we find that the length of time during which a country has experience with democracy is an important factor in determining the level of party system institutionalization. The difference in performance between the five long-standing African democracies and those countries new to multipartyism was notable on all of the criteria.
Elections,usually taken to be a hallmark of democracy,can also become a tool of authoritarian powerholders seeking to legitimate their rule.
Many observers believe that multi-party democracy increasingly represents the inevitable future of governance around the world, including Africa. Some countries such as South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, and Senegal have in fact made remarkable progress in instituting and moving toward consolidation of democratic systems. There has also been a history on the continent, however, of political systems that place de facto or de jure legal constraints on the ability of political parties to function. In fact, in recent years many African leaders have only grudgingly permitted multi-party politics under donor pressure. There remains a current of underlying skepticism toward political parties, and arguments exist against multi-party politics. This paper identifies and explains five key arguments. It then critiques them and determines that while individual elements of these arguments may have some validity, the conclusion that is drawn, i.e.that party activity should be constrained, if not prohibited, is not consonant with democratic governance. The final section presents suggestions of how weaknesses in political party functioning could be addressed without placing limits on the ability of parties to play their legitimate role in a democratic political process.
Elections are central to the theory and practice of constitutional democracy. A decision to exclude particular groups from the political process represents a fundamental choice about the nature and character of legitimate political conflict. Whether in the form of a constitutional ban, as in the case of Article 21 of the Federal Republic of Germany's Basic Law, or in statutory form, as in the US Internal Security Act of 1950, the exclusion of anti‐democratic parties constrains the universe of what a people may will and determines who is entitled to participate in the political sphere. Assessing how such proscriptions affect the level and likelihood of political violence requires strict, systematic scrutiny. It leads us to ask a series of questions about which factors motivate exclusion, on what rational grounds such restrictions may be justified, and if and under what conditions the democratic experiment is advanced by such bans. Moreover, the exclusion of anti‐democratic parties in transitional states, where democracy is still in its nascent and therefore tenuous stage, may provide for interesting case studies in addressing the issue of how limits on self‐governance affect the strategies of political parties as well as regime legitimacy.
After the resurgence of democracy in the 1990s, as was the case after independence, dominant party systems are predominant in Africa. This has occurred irrespective of the particular electoral system used. Both scholars and practitioners have so far failed to appreciate the fact that not fragmentation but concentration of the party system is the main challenge and that a choice between proportional representation or a plurality electoral system will do little to change the fortunes of the majority party and the opposition. This article goes beyond the current debate by suggesting that opposition parties in Africa could be crafted through a minority premium, preferably in combination with a majority ceiling. Such electoral engineering would in the long‐term contribute to the emergence of a two‐party system, generally recognized as the environment most congenial to a strong parliamentary opposition. In the short‐term, adoption of a minority premium would increase competitiveness.
With the re-introduction of multiparty politics at the beginning of the 1990s most African countries started to regulate political parties extensively, especially ethnic and other particularistic parties. This article presents a new database on particularistic and other party bans in sub-Saharan Africa, drawing on a comprehensive collection of African party regulations and records of their implementation since 1990. After demonstrating the magnitude and complexity of party bans in Africa the article deals in depth with enforcement institutions and legal procedures. It shows that party bans are especially pervasive in less democratic countries and have often targeted politically relevant parties.
This article advances the argument that national cohesion cannot meaningfully be pursued in multiethnic African states in the absence of democracy. But in order for democracy to facilitate cohesion, it must have the capacity to address issues of unequal power relations among the competing groups and regulate the conflicts which ensue therefrom. The article discusses four dimensions of pluralist democracy which address this capacity: democratisation of the state, strengthening of regulatory and oversight institutions, civil society and promotion of cross-sectional affiliations in party politics. The contrasting experiences of South Africa and Nigeria are then used to illustrate the formidable obstacles to democratic national cohesion in multiethnic African states, and the efforts that have been made to overcome them.
Despite earlier assumptions that ethnicity is a central feature of African party systems, there is little substantial evidence for this claim. The few studies with an empirical foundation rarely rely on individual data and are biased in favor of Anglophone Africa. This paper looks at four Francophone countries, drawing on four representative survey polls in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Multivariate regression models and bivariate control tools reveal that ethnicity matters as a determinant of party preference, but that its impact is generally rather weak and differs with regard to party systems and individual parties. “Ethnic parties” in the strict sense are almost completely absent, and only the Beninese party system is substantially “ethnicized.” In particular, regional ties between voters and leaders—rather than ethnic affiliation alone—deserve attention in the future study of voting behavior in Africa.
Restrictions on political association and expression are problematic from a democratic point view. The default assumption seems to be that democracy minimally entails that all citizens have claims to participate in the legislative programming of society, which, given the size and complexity of democratic societies, they have to realize to a significant degree as participants in the debates of a political public sphere or through their membership in and support for political organisations such as parties. If they lack such chances, political decisions will lack democratic legitimacy. Where the law prohibits such options, \“it cuts off the possibility of participating in the open ended future required by democracy. Precisely to the extent the law imposes a version of what the future can or cannot be …[people] are reduced to heteronomous subjects, instead of autonomous citizens.\” It follows that the burden of justification for future-constraining regulations on freedom of association and expression is on those who propose and favour them.
Conventional wisdom holds that ethnicity provides the social cleavage for voting behav-iour and party affiliation in Africa. Because this is usually inferred from aggregate data of national election results, it might prove to be an ecological fallacy. The evidence based on individual data from an opinion survey in Zambia suggests that ethnicity matters for voter alignment and even more so for party affiliation, but it is certainly not the only factor. The analysis also points to a number of qualifications which are partly methodology-related. One is that the degree of ethnic voting can differ from one ethno-political group to the other depending on various degrees of ethnic mobilisation. Another is that if smaller eth-nic groups or subgroups do not identify with one particular party, it is difficult to find a significant statistical correlation between party affiliation and ethnicity – but that does not prove that they do not affiliate along ethnic lines.
Party Regulation in Conflict-Prone Societies: More Dangers than Opportunities?
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Randall, V. 'Party Regulation in Conflict-Prone Societies: More Dangers than
Opportunities?'. In Political Party Regulation in Conflict-Prone Societies, ed. Ben
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Electoral Regimes'; Fox and Nolte, 'Intolerant Democra-cies'; and Rosenblum, 'Banning Parties
- For
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Ethnicity as Political Cleavage; Erdmann, Ethnicity, Voter Alignment and Political Party Affiliation
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Cheeseman and Ford, Ethnicity as Political Cleavage; Erdmann, Ethnicity, Voter Alignment and Political Party Affiliation; Basedau and Stroh, Ethnicity and Party Systems; Elischer, Ethnic Parties in Africa.
Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights I and II
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Maßstä fü die Verteidigung der Demokratie Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1995. Democratization Leggewie Intergovernmental Relations in South Africa: The Challenges of Co-operative Government
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Leggewie, Claus, and Horst Meier. Republikschutz. Maßstä fü die Verteidigung der Demokratie. Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1995. Democratization Leggewie, Claus, and Horst Meier, eds. Verbot der NPD oder Mit Rechtsradikalen Leben? Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 2002. Levy, Norman, and Chris Tapscott. Intergovernmental Relations in South Africa: The Challenges of Co-operative Government. Cape Town: Juta, 2001.
Challenges for Future Research', hypothesizes that the impact of party regulation depends crucially on the social distance of social groups
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- Mcmenamin
For example, McMenamin, 'Challenges for Future Research', hypothesizes that the impact of party regulation depends crucially on the social distance of social groups.
Nationalism, Ethnicity, and Class in Africa. A Retrospective'. Cahiers d
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Bridging Comparative Politics' on integration and consociation
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See Choudhry, 'Bridging Comparative Politics' on integration and consociation.
Intolerant Democracies
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Fox, Gregory, and Georg Nolte. 'Intolerant Democracies'. Harvard International Law Journal 36, no. 1 (1995): 1–70.
De Villiers, Bertus. Local And Provincial Intergovernmental Relations: A Comparative Analysis Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, 1997. Elischer, Sebastian. Ethnic Parties in Africa: A Comparative Study of Kenya, Namibia, and Ghana
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Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008. De Villiers, Bertus. Local And Provincial Intergovernmental Relations: A Comparative Analysis. Johannesburg: Konrad-Adenauer Foundation, 1997. Elischer, Sebastian. Ethnic Parties in Africa: A Comparative Study of Kenya, Namibia, and Ghana. Unpublished PhD thesis, Jacobs University Bremen, 2010.
From Voting to Violence
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Hartmann, Christof. 'Paths of Electoral Reform in Africa'. In Votes, Money and Violence: Political Parties and Elections in Africa, ed. Matthias Basedau, Gero Erdmann, and Andreas Mehler, 144–67.
Empfindsame Demokratie
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Elections and Conflict Management; Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Democratization; Reilly and Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies; Bogaards, 'Crafting Competitive Party Systems' and 'Electoral Choices for Divided Societies'; Hartmann, 'Paths of Electoral Reform
- Reynolds Sisk
Sisk and Reynolds, Elections and Conflict Management; Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Democratization; Reilly and Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies; Bogaards, 'Crafting Competitive Party Systems' and 'Electoral Choices for Divided Societies'; Hartmann, 'Paths of Electoral Reform'.