Opposition weakness in Africa

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 20, Issue 3, 2009, Pages 108-121

  Rakner, Lise ^a   Van De Walle, Nicolas ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN   (Norway)

^b Department of Obstetrics Gynecology   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 67651251462     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. The data set of legislative and presidential elections used for this essay is available from Nicolas van de Walle. Note that the data extend to the end of 2007. Elections in Botswana and Mauritius are not included.
2. The "effective number of parties" statistic is often used instead, but the huge number of independent candidates in some countries lessens its usefulness, because it is difficult to distinguish between small parties and independents, both of which are proliferating. To give just one example, in the 2006 elections in Congo-Kinshasa, 63 independents won seats, and 56 parties won five seats or fewer. "The effective number of parties is the number of hypothetical equal-size parties that would have the same total effect on fractionalization of the system as have the actual parties of unequal size." See Markku Laakso and Rein Taagepera, "'Effective' Number of Parties: A Measure with Application to West Europe," Comparative Political Studies 12 (April 1979): 3-4.
3. Vicky Randall and Lars Svȧsand, eds., "Parties, Party Systems and Democratic Consolidation in the Third World," special issue, Democratization 9 (Autumn 2002).
4. Staffan I. Lindberg, Democracy and Elections in Africa (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 13.
5. The numbers are reported at http://africanelections.tripod.com/.
6. Most independents elected in 2004 were previously in UDF but defected during the nomination process. After the election, most rejoined the UDF parliamentary group.
7. H. Kwasi Prempeh, "Progress and Retreat in Africa: Presidents Untamed," Journal of Democracy 19 (April 2008): 109-23.
8. John Ishiyama and John Quinn, "African Phoenix? Explaining the Electoral Performance of the Formerly Dominant Parties in Africa," Party Politics 12 (May 2006): 317-40.
9. M. Steven Fish and Matthew Kroenig, The Handbook of National Legislatures: A Global Survey (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
10. Joel Barkan, "Progress and Retreat in Africa: Legislatures on the Rise?" Journal of Democracy 19 (April 2008): 124-37.
11. Siri Gloppen, Lise Rakner, and Lars Svȧsand, "Political Paralysis in Malawi: Repercussions of Party Splits in a Weakly Institutionalized Democracy," paper presented at the ECPR General Conference, Pisa, 5-8 September 2007.
12. Nicolas van de Walle, "Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss? The Evolution of Political Clientelism in Africa," in Herbert Kitschelt and Steven I. Wilkinson, eds., Patrons, Clients and Policies: Patterns of Democratic Accountability and Political Competition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
13. Michael Bratton, Carolyn Logan, Wonbin Cho, and Paloma Bauer, compilers, "Afrobarometer Round 2: Compendium of Comparative Results from a 15-Country Survey," Working Paper No. 34, March 2004, 30, 32, 34. Available at www.afrobarometer.org/papers/AfropaperNo34.pdf.
14. Piet Konings, "Opposition and Social Democratic Change in Africa: The Social Democratic Front in Cameroon," Commonwealth and Comparative Politics 42 (November 2004): 305-6.
15. Van de Walle, "Meet the New Boss."
16. We thank Devra Moehler for this insight.
17. Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz, "African Cities and Incumbent Hostility: Explaining Opposition Success in Urban Areas," paper presented at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association, San Francisco, November 2006.
18. Conroy-Krutz, "African Cities and Incumbent Hostility."
19. See Matthijs Bogaards, "Crafting Competitive Party Systems: Electoral Laws and the Opposition in Africa," Democratization 7 (Winter 2000): 163-90;
20. Andrew Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Democratization in Southern Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999);
21. and Shaheen Mozaffar et al., "Electoral Institutions, Ethno-political Cleavages, and Party Systems in Africa's Emerging Democracies," American Political Science Review 97 (August 2003): 379-90.
22. Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky, eds., Informal Institutions and Democracy. Lessons From Latin America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 11.