Nationalized incumbents and regional challengers

Abstract

The African party literature, especially research prescribing to the long-dominant ethnic voting thesis, has asserted that African party systems exhibit low levels of party nationalization. However, systematic research on nationalization across parties and party systems is still lacking. This study argues that the prospects for building nationalized parties vary substantially between incumbent and opposition parties. Incumbent parties, with their access to state resources, have been successful in creating nationwide operations, even in countries where geographical factors have been unfavorable and where ethnic fractionalization is high. The analysis utilizes a new data set of disaggregate election results for 26 African countries to calculate nationalization scores for 77 parties and study the correlates of party nationalization. The results show that factors like ethnic fractionalization, the size of the geographical area, and urbanization affect party nationalization, but only in the case of opposition parties. Incumbent parties, on the other hand, generally remain nationalized despite unfavorable structural conditions.

Party Organizations Around the Globe. Introducing the Varieties of Party Identity and Organization Dataset (V-Party)

“…Looking at Africa, the wide dispersion of party organizational extensiveness confirms Elischer's (2013) observation that there is substantial variation in organizational features of African parties. In line with existing research, V-Party data also shows that parties in sub-Saharan Africa are organizationally less extensive than parties in other regions, but there is notable variation across parties in the region (most likely due to an incumbent-opposition party divide; Wahman, 2017). Moreover, we observe a notable increase in party organizational extensiveness since the early 1990s -a period coinciding with the resurgence of multiparty elections in the region -which further explains recent findings about the gradual stabilization of African party systems (Weghorst & Bernhard, 2014).…”

Elite Coalitions and Power Balance across African Regimes: Introducing the African Cabinet and Political Elite Data Project (ACPED)

“…1. Even political parties-especially regime parties, seek to be multi-ethnic but must integrate large communities in cooperation with each other (Cheeseman & Ford, 2007;Wahman, 2017). 2.…”