Abstract
Since the 1990s, most of Africa has transitioned towards holding regular multiparty elections. However, this has not always coincided with democratic consolidation and instead Africa has experienced a great deal of continuity rather a democratic deepening. While it is difficult to generalise about a continent so vast and varied, much of Africa’s contemporary political environment is defined by the same structural conditions that existed prior to this transition. This includes a relatively small middle class, continuing concerns over economic development and elite-driven politics with power centred in the executive.
Although African elections seem to exhibit high levels of electoral volatility, there is significant underlying continuity in the political class and figures that define electoral competition. While elections provide a window of opportunity for change and democratic progress, African elections have mostly been defined by minor setbacks and minor progress. This continuity is driven by two main themes that can be traced throughout the book - the persistence of presidentialism and the liability of newness for challengers.
African Presidents rarely lose elections. Incumbent Presidents have significant advantages through their access to state resources and, in some countries, have manipulated electoral processes. The lack of presidential term limits in many countries also closes opportunities for change and the de-personalisation of power. This centralisation of power around the President coincides with large legislative majorities for their party and often independents or smaller parties officially or informally join the presidential majority to benefit from access to state resources. This executive dominance is one of the main causes of continuity and has led to relatively weak legislatures.
However, unlike the relative lack of alternation in the presidency, legislatures generally have high turnover rates. These low re-election rates for legislators are a consequence of the weak institutionalisation of parties and legislators’ lack of power, which undermines their ability to meet the demands of voters. Discretionary control of state resources also provides the executive with the means to create networks of dependency, giving leaders power over candidate selection and the ability to block challengers.
Rather than continuity emerging out of the strength of parties, it has been driven by the advantage parties gain from incumbency. Once out of power, many once dominant parties have atrophied. Incumbency provides parties with several distinct advantages which both discourages the emergence of challengers and undermines the competitiveness of challengers that do emerge. Beyond the semi-authoritarian measures employed by some, incumbents can use their control of state-owned media and other government resources in their electoral campaigns.
This advantage is significant as campaigns are often expensive and the weakness of parties means that campaigns are regularly funded by candidates - another factor contributing to high legislative turnover and creating dependency on state resources. Incumbency also provides parties with discretion over the allocation of resource wealth and the distribution of foreign aid, which some incumbents have been found to disproportionately allocate to their supporters. This period of multi-party elections has also coincided with Africa’s fastest economic growth since independence, which favours incumbents who can claim credit for a favourable economic climate.
This slow democratic deepening and relative continuity is aided by the weak institutionalisation of African parties, both in terms of the party organisation and their links to society. The single-party era espousing national unity, from which most politicians have emerged, has similarly left a legacy of weak polarisation and vague policy platforms which in other regions structure party competition. This party weakness has meant that many have resorted to co-opting local brokers through clientelism to supplement their weak societal linkages.
For the most part, the general weakness of parties and low party identification has meant that election campaigns are often candidate-centred. While political parties may be weak and incumbents use state resources to skew the playing field, this does not mean that African voters are irrational or vote purely on the basis of clientelism as they are sometimes portrayed. Rather, a significant body of research shows that African voters engage in economic and retrospective voting.
African voters and politicians care about programmatic issues and the authors identify six substantive categories of valence issues: constitutionalism and democracy, economic development, security, sovereignty, citizenship, and the distribution of natural resources. Voters care about these issues and partisanship increases with elections. Again, when it comes to valence issues incumbency proves an advantage. Incumbents can reference their past experience in office and lay claim to development programmes while opposition parties often focus on criticising the government for slow development and corruption while framing themselves as defenders of democracy.
While the book largely relies on bringing together existing research and makes no bold new claims about the nature of African politics, it remains a valuable contribution for understanding African elections. The authors provide an objective analysis of 25 years of multiparty elections in Africa, rejecting both Afro-pessimist and overly optimistic narratives of African democracy. It is difficult to make generalisations about a continent as varied as Africa; however, this book is an excellent introduction to elections in Africa for those new to the topic or with a casual interest. Equally, experts will find its generalisations and matter-of-fact insights into the challenges hampering Africa’s democratic consolidation valuable for understanding broad trends on the continent.