IMPORTANT NOTE: DON'T CHEAT. DON'T PLAGIARIZE. Notes and Papers are shared here for reference and for studying. Footnote as appropriate.
BONUS LINK: My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here.
BONUS LINK: My entire (so far) grad school notes collection can be found here.
NOTES on African Political Parties
Opposition Weakness in Africa by Rakner and Van de Walle
- By and large, voters want constituent services—and the way
you do that is by being a member of a large ruling party
- what opposition that exists is fragmented and NOT
united…the second place party is typically half as potent (at the most) as
ruling party.
*Just because a party gains 50% doesn’t mean that elections
are competitive—but it is better than them winning 90%. It just means opposition is really weak.
- Independents by and large aren’t very useful—they are
hedging their bets and are ready to throw in their hats, and votes, with the
ruling party.
- Two-round, majority presidential elections—clearly
addresses problem of opposition fragmentation in the short-term. Question really surfaces in the first
round—who’s going to be the opposition candidate. 1st round election determines the
opposition leader.
- A lot of the independent and opposition groups that are
splintered will end up (post-election) joining and supporting the ruling party
because they want the goods and services—this is because they don’t have
ideological platforms!
- One counterpoint is for the opposition to win the
mayorship of the capital (or other large municipal position) to control those
resources.
*The Table on p. 110 may or may NOT indicate an improving
trend because there are less countries examined in each subsequent
election…perhaps the 21 countries in the 4th election have had the
same percentages through their first 3 elections and haven’t actually been
improving—or maybe they have been.
- Opposition parties are viewed by the voters as
opportunistic and seen as self-serving
- Opposition coalitions should be able to address the
problem of lowering support for ruling party—but the vast majority can’t
overcome a lack of trust—to overcome the ruling party.
- Is social protest evidence presented sufficient to support
their data?
- Two arguments:
*Irrational
one—french secular elite culture combined with aid dependence make them not see the kinds of appeals that would
be useful to them
*Rational one—governments are
largest employer and largest private employers are
donors.
OVERALL:
- State is too weak to support a democratic system
- Perhaps people want good governance but don’t know how to
go about getting
- Locality of rural majority? Not concerned with state.
- Ruling party spends much of the time after first election
creating rules to prevent the strength of the opposition. Often time ruling party owns the some of the
opposition parties and just uses them for subterfuge.
- there are no official expectations for the government
beyond that of a welfare state—not a want for good governance—but just give me
stuff—but is this more of a rural phenomenon?
(Welfare state argument)
*With the
rise of urbanization (which rarely supports the incumbent), how does this change?
Of note: poverty hurts more in the city than in the country.
*Unemployment,
food, student stipends, civil servant raises
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