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Electoral Institutions, Ethnopolitical Cleavages, and Party Systems in Africa's Emerging Democracies

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  • MOZAFFAR, SHAHEEN
  • SCARRITT, JAMES R.
  • GALAICH, GLEN

Abstract

Do electoral institutions and ethnopolitical cleavages shape the structure of party systems separately or jointly? We examine the independent, additive, and interactive effects on the number of electoral and legislative parties of two institutional variables (district magnitude and proximity of presidential and legislative elections), one intervening variable (effective number of presidential candidates), and two new measures of ethnopolitical cleavages based on constructivist specification of ethnopolitical groups (fragmentation and concentration). Ethnopolitical fragmentation independently reduces the number of parties but, interactively with ethnopolitical concentration, increases it. However, the additive and interactive combinations of both measures with electoral institutions explain the largest amount of variance in the number of parties. These results emphasize the importance of ethnopolitical cleavages in mediating the effects of electoral institutions on the structure of party systems, with important implications for the stability of Africa's emerging democracies in which parties are weak and multiethnic coalitions are fluid.The National Science Foundation provided financial support (Grant SBER-9515439; Shaheen Mozaffar, Principal Investigator) for the larger project from which this article is drawn. Scarritt supervised the data collection on ethnopolitical groups and Mozaffar supervised the data collection on elections, electoral systems, and party systems. Adrian Prentice Hull of Jackson State University and Michelle Camou and Eitan Schiffman of the University of Colorado at Boulder provided invaluable assistance in the coding of ethnopolitical groups. For many helpful comments on early drafts, the authors thank the editor and three anonymous reviewers, as well as Fabian Camacho, Gary Cox, Ted Gurr, Richard Katz, David Leblang, Arend Lijphart, Tom Mayer, Susan McMillan, Kathleen O'Doherty, Dan Posner, Donald Rothchild, and members of the Globalization and Democratization colloquium at the Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder. Mozaffar thanks the Boston University African Studies Center for continued research support. The data set for the article is available at http://webhost.bridgew.edu/smozaffar/. Final responsibility for the article rests with the authors.

Suggested Citation

  • Mozaffar, Shaheen & Scarritt, James R. & Galaich, Glen, 2003. "Electoral Institutions, Ethnopolitical Cleavages, and Party Systems in Africa's Emerging Democracies," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 97(3), pages 379-390, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:97:y:2003:i:03:p:379-390_00
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    1. Nwankwo Cletus Famous, 2020. "Rurality and Party System Fragmentation in the Nigerian Presidential Elections of the Fourth Republic," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 59-85, June.
    2. Gisselquist, Rachel M. & McDoom, Omar Shahabudin, 2015. "The conceptualization and measurement ofethnic and religious divisions: categorical, temporal, and spatial dimensions with evidencefrom Mindanao, the Philippines," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 61993, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Arusha Cooray, 2014. "Ethnic or Political Fractionalisation? A District Level Analysis of the Provision of Public Goods in Sri Lanka," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(4), pages 640-666, December.
    4. Erdmann, Gero, 2007. "The Cleavage Model, Ethnicity and Voter Alignment in Africa: Conceptual and Methodological Problems Revisited," GIGA Working Papers 63, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    5. Pamphilious Faanu & Emmanuel Graham, 2017. "The Politics of Ethnocentrism: A Viability Test of Ghana’s Democracy?," Insight on Africa, , vol. 9(2), pages 141-158, July.
    6. Omar Shahabudin McDoom & Rachel M. Gisselquist, 2016. "The Measurement of Ethnic and Religious Divisions: Spatial, Temporal, and Categorical Dimensions with Evidence from Mindanao, the Philippines," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 129(2), pages 863-891, November.
    7. Grigorii V Golosov, 2016. "Party system nationalisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Empirical evidence and an explanatory model," International Area Studies Review, Center for International Area Studies, Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 231-248, September.
    8. Isaksson, Ann-Sofie, 2010. "Political participation in Africa: Participatory inequalities and the role of resources," Working Papers in Economics 462, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 01 Oct 2010.
    9. Ann-Sofie Isaksson, 2011. "Social divisions and institutions: assessing institutional parameter variation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(3), pages 331-357, June.
    10. Jean Pierre TRANCHANT & Grégoire ROTA-GRAZIOSI & Léandre BASSOLE & Jean-Louis ARCAND, 2006. "The Making of a (vice-) President: Party Politics, Ethnicity, Village Loyalty and Community-Driven Development," Working Papers 200633, CERDI.
    11. Stroh, Alexander, 2009. "The Effects of Electoral Institutions in Rwanda: Why Proportional Representation Supports the Authoritarian Regime," GIGA Working Papers 105, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    12. Roxana Gutiérrez-Romero, 2012. "An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Electoral Practices and Effects of Political Violence," CSAE Working Paper Series 2012-16, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    13. Riccardo Pelizzo & Zim Nwokora, 2016. "Bridging the Divide: Measuring Party System Change and Classifying Party Systems," Research Africa Network Working Papers 16/042, Research Africa Network (RAN).
    14. Dercon, Stefan & Gutiérrez-Romero, Roxana, 2012. "Triggers and Characteristics of the 2007 Kenyan Electoral Violence," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 731-744.
    15. Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz, 2016. "Competing cleavages in sub-Saharan Africa?: How economic distance affects ethnic bloc politics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2016-104, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    16. Carl Müller-Crepon, 2022. "Local ethno-political polarization and election violence in majoritarian vs. proportional systems," Journal of Peace Research, Peace Research Institute Oslo, vol. 59(2), pages 242-258, March.
    17. Basedau, Matthias & Stroh, Alexander, 2009. "Ethnicity and Party Systems in Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa," GIGA Working Papers 100, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    18. Crespin-Boucaud, Juliette, 2020. "Interethnic and interfaith marriages in sub-Saharan Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    19. Jeffrey Conroy-Krutz, 2016. "Competing cleavages in sub-Saharan Africa? How economic distance affects ethnic bloc politics," WIDER Working Paper Series 104, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    20. Omar McDoom & Rachel M. Gisselquist S., 2015. "The conceptualization and measurement of ethnic and religious divisions: Categorical, temporal, and spatial dimensions with evidence from Mindanao, the Philippines," WIDER Working Paper Series 022, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    21. Kyle L. Marquardt & Yoshiko M. Herrera, 2015. "Ethnicity as a Variable: An Assessment of Measures and Data Sets of Ethnicity and Related Identities," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(3), pages 689-716, September.
    22. Josep Colomer, 2014. "Equilibrium institutions: the federal-proportional trade-off," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 158(3), pages 559-576, March.

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