Neopatrimonialism and its web of informal networks – personalism, clientelism and tribalism – are usually associated with politics in Africa. On the one hand, numerous studies have underlined neopatrimonialism as the foremost institutional legacy from the pretransition authoritarian regimes in Africa (Bratton and van de Walle 1997; Lindberg 2001; van de Walle 2003; Riedl 2008; Young 2012). On the other hand, research about formal political institutions is more modest, and particularly recent. In this context, the works of van Cranenburgh (2003, 2008, 2011) are very relevant and telling in so far as she shows how the institutional context, namely the choice for presidential, semipresidential or parliamentary forms of government may affect the survival, but also the quality and the performance of democratic regimes. Notwithstanding, several other studies have contributed to map the institutional landscape of African polities. For example, Posner and Young (2007), Prempeh (2008), Lobo and Neto (2009) and Neto and Lobo (2012) focused on the form of government and on the length of presidential powers, while Lindberg (2005) and several contributors of the book Votes, Money and Violence Political Parties and Elections in Sub-Saharan Africa (Basedau, Erdmann, and Mehler 2007) focused on the electoral institutions and party systems.
This section follows in the steps of these studies, therefore suggesting that the institutionalization of party systems can be determined by the institutional context within
56 Just to mention a few examples: Lesotho experienced serious political violence in the wake of the 1998 elections. The events required the establishment of The Interim Political Authority (IPA) which became something of a parallel Parliament until 2002 when fresh elections took place. In Guinea-Bissau, alleged or de facto coup d’état led by the military constantly undermine the development of stable and durable political institutions from the onset of mulipartism. For instance, in 2003, President Yala was overthrown in a bloodless coup led by General Verussuni Correia and, in 2009 and 2008; members of cabinet were killed or exiled for suspicion of staging a coup (See Polity IV country reports of Lesotho and Guinea-Bissau)
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which it develops. Even though, at this point, we are mainly thinking about formal political institutions, we acknowledge that political institutions are bound both by formality and informality (Hall and Taylor 1996). Thus, later in this dissertation when we focus on the mechanisms of PSI, we will seek to encompass the informal dimension of institutionalization in our analysis. For now we focus on the design of formal institutions at the central level considering regulated party funding/finance and form of government.
The issue of party funding has been debated for a long time in Political Science covering several countries from all continents (van Biezen 2000; van Biezen 2004; van Biezen and Kopecký 2007; Austin and Tjernström 2003; Bermann and Daintith 2006; Ohman 2012), including Africa (Pottie 2003; Bryan and Baer 2005). In the context of new democracies, particularly, it is believed that financial resources are determinant to sustain a democratic party system, as political parties need resources to be able to physically exist (e.g. office, staff, recruitment of officials) and to develop their activities (e.g. socialization and mobilization of voters) (Randall and Svåsand 2002b; Salih and Nordlund 2007). Yet, this is not consensual. In fact, in a much wider discussion it is possible to find different points of view on whether public or private funding should be made legal and on when whether it should be given in a particular moment (election campaigns) or as a means to sustain political parties’ activities outside the electoral period (Salih and Nordlund 2007, 89-90).
Proponents of public funding usually defend that political parties should be treated as public utilities, subjected to wide regulations and endowed with funds, given that funding provides a living space to the opposition political parties and enables the representation of minority groups – women and youth – in the political sphere. Those who disfavor public funding think that grassroots participation should be encouraged and that political parties’ sustainability should result from their ability to mobilize their members (about this debate see among several, Fambom 2003; Saffu 2003; Austin and Tjernström 2003; Salih and Nordlund 2007). In new African democracies, however, the majority of the citizens are poor; hence mobilizing mass membership on the basis of income may prove useless. Moreover, because political parties are shaped from above, resulting from factionalism and personalism (Manning 2005), they lack societal and territorial implantation and face several difficulties to become financially self-sufficient, principally where state funding is lacking or is poorly regulated. As result, in most African countries, political parties (especially those in opposition) end up relying «on a small core group of individuals, businessmen and women, and foreign donors, party-to-party networks and fraternal organizations for funding their activities» (Salih and Nordlund 2007, 91). This can have far reaching effects on the nature of
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linkage between parties and their constituencies, which may be furthermore framed by personalistic and clientelistic relationships. In the context of post-Communist European countries, Booth and Robbins (2010) confirmed that campaign finance and donation restrictions can effectively thwart PSI. In this sense H4: PSI will be higher where provisions for party funding/finance are more extensive.
The effects of the form of government in the way a given political system functions are quite established known. For instance, Stepan and Skach (1993, 17) argued that parliamentary systems are more virtuous for democracy, as they support single-party coalition majorities, minimize legislative impasses, and discourage political society’s support for military coups; whereas presidential regimes are more prone to conflicts, discourage the formation of durable coalitions, maximize legislative impasses, and stimulate political society to call periodically for a military coup. Lijphart (2004) equally disfavors presidentialism as it inherently limits possibilities for power sharing, whilst van Cranenburgh (2011, 444-445) calls attention to the risks of high levels of presidential power for the survival of democracy. Differently, Shugart (1999, 53) has argued that the assumption that parliamentarism is a superior form of government for purposes of “consolidating” new democracies, is erroneous by the simple fact that «parliamentary democracies are located in the most-developed regions of the world and most presidential democracies are located in Latin America or other less-developed regions» which:
tend to be especially large and complex societies, highly unequal in their income distribution, and with great regional disparities. These are countries that may be expected to have difficulty sustaining democracy, whatever its constitutional form, but presidentialism may actually be more suitable for most of them (Shugart 1999, 53).
As far as semipresidential regimes, the findings are mixed as well. While some authors such as Pasquino (1997) argue that it is positive to democratization, others sustain that it must be avoided in new democracies as the inherent potential for conflict between the president and the prime minister may damage the prospects for successful democratization ( Lijphart 2004; Valenzuela 2004). With a different nuance Elgie (2005) and later Elgie and Moestrup (2007) defend that the problem might actually reside on the nature of presidential power; as countries:
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with both a highly personalized presidential-like system and countries where there was a very clear balance of power between the president and prime minister would be worse than that of countries with a system in which the prime minister was the main actor. Highly presidentialized semi-presidential systems are likely to encourage political croneyism and arbitrary presidential action. Countries with a balance of presidential and prime ministerial powers may experience gridlock, especially during periods of cohabitation. By contrast, semi-presidential countries in which the prime minister is the dominant actor in the executive might be expected to operate more efficiently, with the president acting as a figurehead and/or as someone who intervenes at times of crisis as a way of trying to stabilize the situation (Elgie and Moestrup 2007, 243-244).
This position has also been sustained by Lobo and Neto (2009) and Neto and Lobo (2012) in their analysis of semipresidentialism in Portuguese speaking countries. In what concerns the effects on party systems, Mainwaring and Zoco (2007) argue that presidential forms of government bring more harm to institutionalization vis-à-vis the other variants, because of the personalizing vote for the head of government. In fact, they are found to be more vulnerable:
to political outsiders with anti-party proclivities. The incentives to develop party organizations and to build enduring ties between parties and voters might be weaker, leading to higher electoral volatility. In contrast, in parliamentary systems the assembly elects the head of government, making parties the gateway to controlling executive power. Presumably, the incentives to building strong linkages between parties and voters should be stronger in parliamentary systems, leading to lower electoral volatility (Mainwaring and Zoco 2007, 162).
Based on this study, Ferree (2010) also controlled for the effect of presidentialism in her study of electoral volatility in African countries. She found no significant effects (but a negative association) when analyzing the data from a pooled time-series cross-sectional perspective. Yet, when she used average values of volatility per country (thus only cross-sectional) presidentialism proved a strong correlate (with positive association). To the extent to which these studies can be applicable to the study of electoral volatility and of PSI in new democracies, they seem to suggest that: H5: levels of institutionalization will be lower in presidential regimes.
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