Party System Institutionalization in 30 African Countries

In their study of 12 Latin American countries, Mainwaring and Scully develop a framework to assess levels of party system institutionalization and explore the impact of the degree of party system institutionalization on democratic consolidation. In this paper, we provide a description of the levels of party system institutionalization in the African context. Employing three criteria adapted from the framework of Mainwaring and Scully, we systematically measure the level of party system institutionalization in 30 African countries. More specifically, we examine (1) regularity of party competition; (2) extent to which parties manifest roots in society; and (3) institutionalization, or the extent to which citizens and organized interests perceive that parties and elections are the means of determining who governs in the 30 countries. Our findings indicate that the level of party system institutionalization is generally lower in African countries than in those of Latin America. However, we find that the length of time during which a country has experience with democracy is an important factor in determining the level of party system institutionalization. The difference in performance between the five long-standing African democracies and those countries new to multipartyism was notable on all of the criteria.