IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/gigawp/40.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Problems of Categorizing and Explaining Party Systems in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Erdmann, Gero
  • Basedau, Matthias

Abstract

Starting from controversial findings about the relationship between party systems and the prospects of democratic consolidation, this article argues that problems can only be properly addressed on the basis of a differentiated typology of party systems. Contradictory research results do not pose an 'African puzzle' but can be explained by different and inadequate approaches. We argue that a modified version of Sartori's typology of party systems provides an appropriate method for classifying African party systems. Based on Sartori's framework, a preponderance of predominant and dominant party systems is identified. This can partly be explained by the prevailing authoritarian nature of many multiparty regimes in Africa as well as by the ethnic plurality of African societies. High ethnic fragmentation is not transformed into highly fragmented party systems. This phenomenon can be attributed to the most frequent 'ethnic congress party' which is based on an ethnic elite coalition.

Suggested Citation

  • Erdmann, Gero & Basedau, Matthias, 2007. "Problems of Categorizing and Explaining Party Systems in Africa," GIGA Working Papers 40, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gigawp:40
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/47749/1/605330662.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. repec:gig:afjour:v:37:y:2002:i:3:p:311-333 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. repec:gig:afjour:v:34:y:1999:i:3:p:375-393 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. repec:gig:afjour:v:37:y:2002:i:3:p:259-285 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    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. repec:gig:afjour:v:50:y:2015:i:2:p:111-123 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. John Ishiyama, 2014. "Civil Wars and Party Systems," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 95(2), pages 425-447, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:gigawp:40. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dueiide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.