Ethnopopulism in Africa: opposition mobilization in diverse and unequal societies
Ethnopopulism in Africa: opposition mobilization in diverse and unequal societies
复制标题
非洲的民族民粹主义：多元化和不平等社会中的反对派动员
DOI：
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发表时间：
2015
期刊：
影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Miles Larmer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Nick Cheeseman;Miles Larmer
乍一看，以族裔为基础的动员形式和民粹主义形式似乎是相互矛盾的，最终是相互排斥的现象。基于对强大或富裕社会阶层的共同经济不满感来吸引选民，与强调部门划分不太相符，而部门划分是根据种族或地区来争取支持所必需的。然而，在过去十年中，非洲的一些反对派政党通过融合民粹主义和族裔选民而声名鹊起，这是一种我们称之为“族裔民粹主义”的政治动员形式。本文采用肯尼亚和赞比亚的成对比较，以解释领导人如何能够利用这种明显不兼容的组合相当大的选举效果。我们认为，为了充分克服种族民粹主义的核心紧张局势，领导人需要识别和纳入不同的社区和利益群体所感受到的排斥的共同叙述。但我们也表明，政治企业家可用的叙事是由社会结构和过去政治动员事件遗留下来的思想和网络塑造的。最后，我们认为，城市政治经济的影响范围和种族身份在历史上被政治化的程度的变化塑造了民粹主义动员克服种族分裂的潜力，从而挑战“种族政治”的流行模式。
At first glance, ethnically based and populist forms of mobilization appear to be contradictory and ultimately mutually exclusive phenomena. Appealing to voters on the basis of a shared sense of economic grievance against powerful or wealthy sections of society does not fit well with the emphasis on sectional divisions that is required to rally support on the basis of ethnicity or region. Yet over the past ten years a number of opposition political parties in Africa have risen to prominence by fusing populist and ethnic constituencies, a form of political mobilization we call “ethnopopulism”. This article employs a pairwise comparison of Kenya and Zambia to explain how leaders have been able to harness this apparently incompatible combination to considerable electoral effect. We argue that in order to fully overcome the tensions at the heart of ethnopopulism leaders need to identify and incorporate shared narratives of exclusion felt by different communal and interest groups. But we also show that the narratives available to political entrepreneurs are shaped both by the structure of society and the ideas and networks left over from past episodes of political mobilization. Finally, we argue that variation in the reach of the urban political economy and the extent to which ethnic identities have historically been politicized shape the potential for populist mobilization to overcome ethnic divisions, and hence challenge prevailing patterns of “ethnic politics”.