Abstract
This chapter situates the book’s arguments about party formation, party trajectories, presidential turnover, and party loyalty and defection within the social science and African studies literature. It situates the research and its claims within two social science literatures, one on competitive authoritarianism, and another on party-building and party functions in developing countries. It also describes how the arguments in each book chapter improve or refine extant theories, findings, and assumptions about party politics, which are often rooted in accounts based on Western experiences and sequences of political and economic development. In particular, the chapter highlights how analyzing party-building dynamics on the uneven playing field, a hallmark of competitive authoritarianism, contributes to our understanding of why politicians would form parties that are not election-oriented but nevertheless find them worthwhile vehicles for political advancement, as is sometimes the case in Senegal. It also helps us account for proliferation, which theories of party-building in democracies and dominant-party autocracies do not predict.
The statements and analysis expressed are solely those of the author and have not been approved by the House of Delegates or the Board of Governors of the American Bar Association and do not represent the position or policy of the American Bar Association.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
See LeBas (2011) for an excellent review.
- 3.
As Collier (1982) specifies, “the French citizens of Senegal (natives either of France or of the communes) elected a deputy to the French National Assembly in Paris from 1848 until the post-World War II reforms, with the exception of the period during the Second Empire” (82). A very limited suffrage was extended in 1925 to a select few in select urban areas of Dahomey, Ivory Coast, Guinea, and Mali to elect three non-citizens to each colony’s advisory administrative council, but the scale of suffrage and scope of representation were very limited compared to Senegal.
- 4.
In 1983 and 1988, there were 120 National Assembly seats, split 60–60 (plurality-proportional); in 1993, the split was 50–70 and in 1998, there were 140 seats with a 70–70 split. Plurality rules became increasingly dominant under Wade, with a 65–55 split in 2001. In 2007 and 2012, there were 150 deputies split 90–60 and in 2017, there were 165 deputies split 105–60. The political science research is divided about the effects one should expect mixed systems to have on incentives for party formation.
- 5.
There were other, less overt ways that the Khalifas General sent their disciples messages about presidential candidates. For instance, in 2007, the Khalifa General of the Mourides announced that “… right after the [Mouride Magal] pilgrimage President Wade would personally oversee great state infrastructure projects in the holy city of Touba” (Koter 2013: 671).
- 6.
Nor do we observe many parties formed as unintended consequences of interest group alliances, which can in some cases mobilize a broad-based cleavage that had previously been muted in the party sphere, as was the case for confessional party formation in Europe.
- 7.
Chapter 3 discusses this point in greater detail. The Social Front for Development (FSD/BJ) of Cheikh Abdoulaye Dièye and his son Cheikh Bamba Dièye, as well as Imam Mbaye Niang of the Movement for Democratic and Social Reform (MRDS), come the closest to fitting Kalyvas’ definition of confessional party, but even the FSD/BJ has somewhat pivoted its platform away from the religious issues that inspired Abdoulaye Dièye to form the party.
- 8.
There is likely some overlap between the post-Third Wave regimes that are competitive authoritarian and the regimes falling into these other categories based on more permissive definitions of democracy. Senegal under Wade is a case that Levistky & Way classify as competitive authoritarian, but that could fall into the “developing democracy” or “fragile democracy” category based on less stringent criteria.
- 9.
Interviews with Mody Guiro (leader of CNTS union), 8/6/12, Dakar; Cheikh Diop (leader of CNTS-FC union), 8/2/12, Dakar; Amadou Lamine Diouf (leader of CDSL union), 8/3/12.
- 10.
Party trajectories per se are not the focus of Riedl’s book, but the hypothesis about consistent opposition is derived from the elements of her theory of party system institutionalization.
- 11.
Leading cross-national studies find that presidential resignation or death, opposition coalescence, and economic crisis increase the chances of turnover.
- 12.
An impending succession begins when the president either states—or chooses not to dispel a predominant expectation among the political elite—that he will not complete the term that he is seeking to win in an upcoming election. Impending successions are thus identifiable through press coverage of the president’s preparation for campaigns, party documents about candidacy, and secondary accounts by local experts closely following the president’s communications with the voting public.
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Kelly, C.L. (2020). Theories of Party-Building: Africa, Competitive Authoritarianism, and Democracy. In: Party Proliferation and Political Contestation in Africa. Contemporary African Political Economy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-19617-2_2
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