African Phoenix? Explaining the Electoral Performance of the Formerly Dominant Parties in Africa

2006 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 317-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Ishiyama ◽  
John James Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Democratic Transition ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Dominant Parties ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Environmental Shocks ◽  
Electoral Performance

In this article we address the question: what explains the varying degrees of success of the formerly dominant political parties in African oneparty states following ‘democratic’ transition? Indeed, political liberalization and democratization pose strong environmental shocks to formerly dominant parties and radically change the environment in which these parties exist. Such parties are faced with great pressures to adapt to their new environment. Why are some more successful than others? To address this question, we examine the evidence from 22 sub-Saharan African countries over 53 legislative elections from 1990 to 2003. We find that the legacies of different previous regimes, party incumbency and (to some extent) the degree of ethnolinguistic fractionalization, impact on the relative electoral success of the formerly dominant parties.

scholarly journals Who’s Hot and Who’s Not? Factors Influencing Public Perceptions of Current Party Popularity and Electoral Expectations

2015 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 458-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Zerback ◽  
Carsten Reinemann ◽  
Angela Nienierza
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Public Perceptions ◽  
Federal Election ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
Current Opinion ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Media Slant ◽  
Electoral Expectations ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
Public Opinion Perception

This study analyzes how perceptions of the popularity of political parties (i.e., the current opinion climate) and expectations about parties’ future electoral performance (i.e., the future opinion climate) are formed. Theoretically, the paper integrates research on the sources of public opinion perception and empirically draws on a representative survey carried out before the 2013 German federal election. We show that the perceived media slant and opinions perceived in one’s personal surroundings are closely related to perceptions of party popularity, whereas individual recall of poll results and personal opinions about the parties are not. However, poll results are shown to be the single most important predictor of expectations about the parties’ future electoral success.

scholarly journals A Matter of Supply and Demand: The Electoral Performance of Populist Parties in Three European Countries

2013 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn van Kessel
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Comparative Studies ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Electoral Success ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Electoral Performance

This article assesses the electoral performance of populist parties in three European countries: the Netherlands, Poland and the United Kingdom. In explaining the electoral performance of the populist parties in the three countries, the article considers the agency of political parties in particular. More specifically, it examines the responsiveness of established parties and the credibility of the populist parties. Whereas the agency of populist parties, or other radical outsiders, has often been overlooked in previous comparative studies, this article argues that the credibility of the populist parties themselves plays a crucial role in understanding their electoral success and failure.

Electoral support and militants’ targeting strategies

2021 ◽  
pp. 002234332110477
Author(s):  
Deniz Aksoy ◽  
David Carlson
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Empirical Examination ◽  
Opposition Party ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Incumbent Party ◽  
Electoral Performance ◽  
The Impact

Militant groups that are in armed conflict with a government often coexist with political parties that have ethnic or ideological connections to them. In this article, we explore the extent to which electoral support received by militant associated opposition parties and nationally incumbent political parties influences subnational variation in militant attacks. We argue, and empirically demonstrate, that militants strategically target localities where the levels of electoral support for the opposition party and the nationally incumbent party are close in an effort to negatively influence the electoral performance of the incumbent party. To illustrate this dynamic we examine subnational data from 1995 to 2015 Turkish legislative elections and attacks organized by the Kurdish militants within the same time period. We also examine the impact of June 2015 legislative elections on militant attacks until the snap elections in November 2015. Our empirical examination shows that militants target localities where electoral support for the governing party and Kurdish opposition party is close. Moreover, increase in violence negatively influences the electoral performance of the governing party. However, it does not consistently have a significant influence on the opposition. The findings illustrate that militants strategically choose the location of their attacks based on electoral dynamics, and attacks can pose an electoral challenge to the governing party.

Political Parties and Regime Outcomes in Multiparty Africa

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrienne LeBas
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Government Accountability ◽  
Hybrid Regimes ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Holding Power ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Independent Effects

Since the early 1990s, most African countries have experimented with multiparty elections, but the building and institutionalization of political parties has proven difficult. In many countries, parties—including those holding power—are fluid, volatile, and lack grassroots structures. In others, the party landscape remains surprisingly similar to Van de Walle’s assessment: “[consisting] of a dominant presidential party surrounded by a large number of small, highly volatile parties.” As Van de Walle points out, ruling parties—including the ex-single parties that continue to rule in many of Africa’s hybrid regimes—have advantages that mean that elections are not fought on a level playing field. Ruling parties may use repression against challengers, or they may manipulate voter registration, constituency redistricting, and other aspects of electoral administration. Incumbents can also take advantage of state resources, and a decline in patronage resources has been a powerful driver of electoral turnover in regions. But differences in election competitiveness in Africa are not only a function of repression, manipulation, or access to patronage. Differences in both ruling party and opposition party organizations have independent effects on parties’ ability to win elections, on the loyalty of mass constituencies, and on the conduct of election campaigns. New scholarship has started to take these differences in party organization seriously, and this will enrich our understanding of how voters in sub-Saharan Africa navigate political choice. Research on parties and party systems highlights the degree to which these factors differ across countries and over time, complicating standard narratives that often privilege clientelism and ethnicity as the primary—and largely uniform—influences on voter behavior and government accountability on the continent.

Too Much Democracy? Primaries and Candidate Success in the 2006 Mexican National Elections

2010 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 25-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Bruhn
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
General Election ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Party Organizations ◽  
Entry Requirements ◽  
General Elections ◽  
Electoral Performance

AbstractsDo primaries help political parties perform better in general elections, or do they undermine electoral performance by contributing to internal divisions and to the weakening of party organizations? This article examines the effect of holding a primary on the general election prospects of candidates, using cases from two of the three major parties in Mexico's 2006 national legislative elections. In both parties, primaries fail to systematically produce candidates with advantages in the general election, due largely to organizational deficits of the parties and low entry requirements for aspiring precandidates. Indeed, outside urban centers, where parties tend to be better organized, primaries actually seem to hurt party performance in subsequent general elections.

Political Parties and Elite Resilience in Sahelian Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 404-422
Author(s):  
Daniel Eizenga
Keyword(s):  
Political Parties ◽  
Party Systems ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Historical Trends ◽  
Political Transitions ◽  
State Collapse ◽  
Multiparty Systems ◽  
Sub Saharan

All Sahelian political regimes had adopted multiparty elections by the 1990s, however, few of the subsequent elections led to peaceful political change or democratization. These newly adopted multiparty systems produced a variety of outcomes ranging from the continued rule of a given political party, to the fracturing of political parties, to military intervention, to near state collapse. This chapter offers a historical account of political parties within this context. It identifies the broad historical trends from independence until the multiparty elections, and presents a typology of political parties in the Sahel. It then presents an initial analysis of the thirty-five legislative elections that have taken place in these six countries since multiparty systems have been installed. The chapter finds that the Sahel may represent an ideal sub-region for comparative analysis for future research on political parties, party systems, political transitions, and regime trajectories in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Political Transition without Transformation: The Dialectic of Liberalization without Democratization in Kenya and Zambia

2007 ◽  
Vol 50 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shadrack Wanjala Nasong'o
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Political Party ◽  
Political Transition ◽  
The Political ◽  
Power Transition ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Political Liberalization ◽  
Leadership Elections ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Incumbent Regime

Abstract:The decade from 1990 to 2000 saw a total of seventy-eight top leadership elections involving forty-three of the forty-eight sub-Saharan African countries. Of these, only twenty-one elections led to power transition from an incumbent to an opposition political party in nineteen countries. Paradoxically, even where there was such transition, authoritarian tendencies persisted. Focusing on Kenya and Zambia, this article argues and seeks to demonstrate that the limited number of transitions from an incumbent regime to an opposition party and the persistence of authoritarianism are a function of political liberalization without democratization of political institutions and rules of the political game.

Crowdsourcing Covid-19 signals in sub-Saharan Africa: Leveraging digital contributor networks for participatory surveillance of Covid-19 symptoms and deaths (Preprint)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ngozi A Erondu ◽  
Sagal A Ali ◽  
Mohamed Ali ◽  
Schadrac C Agbla
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Specific Information ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Health Seeking ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Cross Sectional Survey ◽  
Local Networks ◽  
The World ◽  
Sub Saharan

BACKGROUND In sub-Saharan Africa, underreporting of cases and deaths has been attributed to various factors including, weak disease surveillance, low health-seeking behaviour of flu like symptoms, and stigma of Covid-19. There is evidence that SARS-CoV-2 spread mimics transmission patterns of other countries across the world. Since the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way research can be conducted and in light of restrictions on travel and risks to in-person data collection, innovative approaches to collecting data must be considered. Nearly 50% of Africa’s population is a unique mobile subscriber and it is one of the fastest growing smart-phone marketplaces in the world; hence, mobile phone platforms should be considered to monitor Covid-19 trends in the community. OBJECTIVE We demonstrate the use of digital contributor platforms to survey individuals about cases of flu-like symptoms and instances of unexplained deaths in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, and Zimbabwe. METHODS Rapid cross-sectional survey of individuals with severe flu and pneumonia symptoms and unexplained deaths in Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia and Zimbabwe RESULTS Using a non-health specific information platform, we found COVID-19 signals in five African countries, specifically: •Across countries, nearly half of the respondents (n=739) knew someone who had severe flu or pneumonia symptoms in recent months. •One in three respondents from Somalia and one in five from Zimbabwe respondents said they knew more than five people recently displaying flu and/or pneumonia symptoms. •In Somalia there were signals that a large number of people might be dying outside of health facilities, specifically in their homes or in IDP or refugee camps. CONCLUSIONS Existing digital contributor platforms with local networks are a non-traditional data source that can provide information from the community to supplement traditional government surveillance systems and academic surveys. We demonstrate that using these distributor networks to for community surveys can provide periodic information on rumours but could also be used to capture local sentiment to inform public health decision-making; for example, these insights could be useful to inform strategies to increase confidence in Covid19 vaccine. As Covid-19 continues to spread somewhat silently across sub-Saharan Africa, regional and national public health entities should consider expanding event-based surveillance sources to include these systems.

Managing African Urbanization in the Context of Environmental Change

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shuaib Lwasa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Governance ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Urbanization Rate ◽  
Development And Management

Africa’s urbanization rate has increased steadily over the past three decades and is reported to be faster than in any other region in the world . It is estimated that by 2030, over half of the African population will be living in urban areas . But the nature of Africa’s urbanization and subsequent form of cities is yet to be critically analyzed in the context of city authorities’ readiness to address the challenges . Evidence is also suggesting that urbanization in African countries is increasingly associated with the high economic growth that has been observed in the last two decades . Both underlying and proximate drivers are responsible for the urbanization, and these include population dynamics, economic growth, legislative designation, increasing densities in rural centers, as well as the growth of mega cities such as Lagos, Cairo and Kinshasa, that are extending to form urban corridors . With the opportunities of urbanization in Sub–Saharan Africa, there are also challenges in the development and management of these cities . Those challenges include provision of social services, sustainable economic development, housing development, urban governance, spatial development guidance and environmental management, climate change adaptation, mitigation and disaster risk reduction . The challenge involves dealing with the development and infrastructure deficit, in addition to required adaption to and mitigation of climate change . This paper examines the current state of urban management in Africa .

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document