Party Behavior in Africa

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Political parties are a vital element in the quality of representative democracy, playing a crucial role in participation, competition, accountability, and responsiveness. Despite their importance, however, we currently know relatively little about how political parties in Africa work on the ground. This panel brings together scholars from Africa, North America, and Europe to explore crucial questions around party organization and behavior, with a particular focus on the ways in which party organization affects the quality of democracy on the continent.

Mattes (Strathclyde), Lockwood (Harvard) and Krönke (Cape Town) begin the panel with a cross-national study of the organizational presence of parties in Africa. Contrary to the received wisdom that political parties in Africa are often weakly institutionalized, they find that many parties actually have a strong, coherent presence on the ground, and show that this has important implications for levels of citizen trust and voter turnout.

The next two papers explore internal candidate selection methods, and the impact that intra-party democracy has on election outcomes. Warren (NYU) asks how candidate selection methods affect the ability of women to seek and obtain office in young democracies. Using an original dataset, she shows that the introduction of more inclusive methods of candidate selection paradoxically increases the exclusion of women from the political sphere, while Sulley (Dar es Salaam) reveals the importance of internal power dynamics to candidate selection methods in Tanzania.

Finally, Kwayu (Bumaco) explores the strategies used by opposition parties in Tanzania to combat the sharp decline in civic space that has occurred over recent years. Using new data, collected as part of a multi-country project between the Political Parties in Africa Project and the Political Party Database, she demonstrates the gap that exists between the formal rules governing CHADEMA and their behavior on the ground, and the impact that this has on politics in the country.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 35: Political Organizations and Parties

Cosponsor

• DIVISION 12: Comparative Politics in Developing Countries

Individual Presentations

• Party Footprints in Africa: Measuring Party Presence with Public Opinion Surveys - Robert Britt Mattes, University of Strathclyde; Matthias Werner Krönke, University of Cape Town; Sarah Jane Lockwood, Columbia University

• Sacrificial Lambs: Female Candidates in New Democracies - Shana S Warren, New York University

• Candidate Selection Methods and Electoral Performance in Tanzania - Consolata Raphael Sulley, University of Dar es Salaam

• Opposition Party Practices in a Shrinking Civic Space - Aikande Clement Kwayu, Bumaco Ltd

Chair

• Sarah Jane Lockwood Columbia University

Discussant

• Michael Wahman Michigan State University