Counting parties and identifying dominant party systems in Africa

Matthijs Bogaards*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview Articlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

By most definitions, the third wave of democratisation has given rise to dominant parties and dominant party systems in Africa. The effective number of parties, the most widely used method to count parties, does not adequately capture this fact. An analysis of 59 election results in 18 sub-Saharan African countries shows that classifications of party systems on the basis of the effective number of parties are problematic and often flawed. Some of these problems are well known, but the African evidence brings them out with unusual clarity and force. It is found that Sartori's counting rules, party system typology and definition of a dominant party are still the most helpful analytical tools to arrive at an accurate classification of party systems and their dynamics in general, and of dominant party systems in particular.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)173-197
Number of pages25
JournalEuropean Journal of Political Research
Volume43
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 2004
Externally publishedYes

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