Politician Defection in Zambia

• In Event: New Insights into Party Institutionalization in Developing Countries

Abstract

Many of the political parties that emerged in the wake of Africa’s democratization are weak, short-lived organizations. Party weakness is shaped, in large part, by politicians who choose to defect from one party to another. In the case of Zamia, these defections are so numerous that former ruling parties often disintegrate after losing office and opposition parties typically do not survive from one election to the next. To examine the factors influencing the defection decisions made by politicians, we present evidence from a survey of candidates who competed in the 2011 and 2016 parliamentary elections. In assessing organizational and sociological hypotheses, we find that politicians not only seek to affiliate with the party in power, but their choices also are influenced by particularistic benefits promised by party leaders. Our findings suggest that access to patronage and money, rather than ethnicity, structures the choices made by politicians in choosing to affiliate with, or defect from, a party.

Authors

• Leonardo R. Arriola, University of California, Berkeley

• Donghyun Danny Choi, University of California, Berkeley

• Justine Davis, University of California, Berkeley

• Melanie Lauren Thompson, University of California, Berkeley

• Lise Rakner, University of Bergen

• Ingvild Aagedal Skage, University of Bergen