How 'Ethnopopulism' interacts with Pentecostalism in African Politics

• In Event: Religion and Political Behavior in Africa

Abstract

Until recently, most research on party politics in Africa emphasized “ethnic” determinants of political outcomes, and defined ethnicity in terms of heritable traits or descent-based characteristics. Yet, two new lines of inquiry have identified other elite strategies that are irreducible to “ethnic” politics as usual, including literature on “ethnopopulism” (c.f., Cheeseman and Larmer, 2015) and studies of political mobilization and Pentecostal Christian movements (which do not view heredity as a defining feature of group membership; c.f., Marshall 2009). This paper represents the first synthesis of insights from studies of ethnopopulism and Pentecostalism in African politics. Specifically, the paper traces the use of ethnopopulist and Pentecostal appeals over three Presidential elections in Zambia, which is a paradigmatic case of both “ethnopopulism” and politicized Pentecostalism. How do the content and structure of ethnopopulist and Pentecostal appeals relate? To what extent were these types of appeals used in concert with or opposition to one another? Does the introduction of populist rhetoric in African multiparty systems subsequently increase the impact of Pentecostal rhetoric by inducing disappointment with the status quo?

I find that in Zambia's historic 2011 elections, the (then) opposition party, the Patriotic Front, used ethno-populist appeals that mimicked the “political theater” — i.e., the structure but not the content — of Pentecostal leaders who stumped for the ruling MMD party. These appeals were invoked in direct competition with incumbents’ attempts to cultivate support through Pentecostal elites. In accordance with recent research on “post-populist” dilemmas, however, I find that by 2015, Zambia’s new ruling party, the Patriotic Front, had discarded ethnopopulist appeals to embrace the “Pentecostalization” of politics. In this context, Pentecostal leaders were used generate fear of a "demonized" opposition. This fear-based strategy allowed the Patriotic Front to surmount political disaffection that is characteristic of “post-populist” moments (Fraser 2018). These findings advance understanding of political (de-)mobilization in sub-Saharan Africa by highlighting the reciprocal relationship between strategies of ethnopopulism and Pentecostalization in majority-Christian African states.

Author

• Elizabeth S. Sperber, University of Denver