Doctoral Dissertation Research in Political Science:Not In My Backyard: Intra-Group Party Competition in Africa

竞争的政党制度是巩固民主的必要条件（Mainwaring 1999, maair 1997, Sartori 1976）。然而，在撒哈拉以南非洲的民主化国家，政治家们经常试图通过建立政党来垄断种族界线的选票，以尽量减少他们所面临的竞争（Mozaffar et al. 2003, Horowitz 1985）。然而，非洲各国的立法选举显示，种族身份直接映射到党派联盟的程度存在相当大的差异。某些少数民族的选票被一党垄断，而其他少数民族则有多个政党，有效地争夺他们的支持。如果我们要了解非洲多民族社会民主的未来，这种跨时间和空间的民族内部政党竞争水平的次国家差异需要理论解释和实证分析。这个项目的智力价值与它对政治家如何在民主经验有限的国家建立政党支持的地方基础的研究有关。该研究探讨了以下问题：为什么一些政治家能够建立少数民族政党垄断，而另一些却失败了？这些少数民族政党是如何维持下去的？种族内或地区内竞争在什么条件下出现？经济和社会因素如何影响群体内部政治竞争的出现？研究表明，集团内的选举竞争取决于政党对经济资源的获取。因此，本项目将考察一个政党对经济资源分配的影响是否会影响其维持其对同种族选民投票的政治垄断的能力。这一论点挑战了两种关于非洲政治竞争的普遍解释，即：选举规则的作用和庇护主义。虽然把重点放在选举制度上提供了理论上的预期，即在一个特定地区应该观察到的政党数量和竞争类型，但该理论未能解释在类似选举规则下选民可获得的选举选择中存在的差异。此外，依赖于裙带关系的理论无法解释为什么政治家会创建政党来与已经存在的少数民族政党竞争，因为向总统提供一个统一的集团可以改善该集团对国家资源的获取。这一论点是用两个非洲国家的次国家级数据进行检验的，这两个国家具有相似的经济、政治和社会学特征，但在不同种族的选民可获得的选举选择上表现出相当大的差异：肯尼亚和马拉维。为了评估这些国家的地方政党竞争的性质，将收集地方政治家的竞选承诺的数量、内容、不同政党之间的关系等数据。政党承诺是衡量政党竞争性质的有效标准，因为它们反映了政党寻求竞争的问题；也就是说，双方根据对方的承诺更新承诺。该研究的设计还使许多自变量保持不变，以建立假设的自变量，经济多样性和观察到的因变量，选区级政党制度的变化之间的联系。除了收集有关经济多样性、政党承诺和政党竞争的数据外，该项目还包括一项调查和对政治家和商界领袖的半结构化访谈，以更好地展示商业与政治之间的联系。这项研究的广泛影响与其对与民主化有关的学术和政策问题的贡献有关。这项研究应为有关经济资源与政党制度发展之间联系的辩论提供信息。了解政治竞争背后的动态，对于超越多民族社会中的种族对抗是民主失败原因的普遍假设是很重要的。事实上，研究将证明，民族内部竞争促进民主实践；在这样做时，它将提出旨在促进长期民主化和发展的改革。

A competitive party system is necessary for the consolidation of democracy (Mainwaring 1999, Mair 1997, Sartori 1976). In Sub-Saharan Africa's democratizing states, however, politicians are often seen attempting to minimize the competition they face by building parties that monopolize votes along ethnic lines (Mozaffar et al. 2003, Horowitz 1985). Yet, legislative elections across African countries reveal considerable variation in the extent to which ethnic identities map directly onto partisan alignments. While the votes of certain ethnic groups are monopolized by single parties, other groups have multiple parties that effectively vie for their support. This sub-national variation in levels of intra-ethnic party competition, both across time and space, requires theoretical explanation and empirical analysis if we are to understand the future of democracy in Africa's multiethnic societies. The intellectual merit of this project is associated with its examination of how politicians build local bases of party support in countries with limited democratic experience. The research examines the following questions: Why are some politicians able to build ethnic party monopolies while others fail? How are such ethnic parties sustained? Under what conditions does intra-ethnic or intra-regional competition emerge? How do economic and sociological factors affect the emergence of political competition within groups? The research suggests that intra-group electoral competition is dependent on the access parties have to economic resources. This project will therefore examine whether a party's influence over the distribution of economic resources affects its ability to sustain its political monopoly over the votes of co-ethnics. This argument challenges two commonly offered explanations regarding political competition in Africa, namely: the role of electoral rules and clientelism. Although focusing on electoral institutions provides theoretical expectations on the number of parties and the type of competition one ought to observe in a particular district, the theory fails to explain the variation that exists in the electoral options available to voters given similar electoral rules. In addition, theories that rely on clientelism fail to explain why politicians would create parties to compete with already existent co-ethnic parties, given the group's access to state resources is improved by presenting the president with a unified group. This argument is tested using sub-national data from two African countries that share similar economic, political, and sociological characteristics, yet exhibit considerable variation in the electoral options available to voters across ethnic groups: Kenya and Malawi. To assess the nature of party competition at the sub-national level within these countries, data will be collected on the campaign pledges made by politicians at the local level: their number, substance, and the relationship between pledges made by different parties. Party pledges are a valid measure of the nature of party competition because they reflect the issues around which parties seek to compete; that is, parties update their pledges in response to what opposing parties offer. The study's design also holds many of the independent variables constant to establish the link between the hypothesized independent variable, economic diversity, and the observed variation on the dependent variable, constituency level party systems. Besides collecting data on economic diversity, party pledges and party competition, the project includes a survey and semi-structured interviews with politicians and business leaders to better demonstrate the links between business and politics. The broader impacts of the research are connected with its contributions to scholarly and policy concerns related to democratization. The research should inform debates on the link between economic resources and party system development. Understanding the dynamics behind political competition is important to move beyond common assumptions that ethnic rivalries in multi-ethnic societies are the reason for democracy's failure. In fact, the research will demonstrate that intra-ethnic competition promotes democratic practices; in so doing it will suggest reforms aimed at promoting democratization and development over the longer term.