Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty

6.1 New parties—old theories?
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Political Parties in Africa: Challenges for Sustained Multiparty Democracy
At least three empirical arguments merit a further discussion on the applicability of
theories on political parties and democracy based on Western experiences to political
parties in new, restored and emerging democracies.
The first argument comes from the failure even in Western democracies to explain
political party development on the basis of existing theories. The mass party model
no longer applies and the explanatory powers of other theories are not sufficient for
understanding present developments (Mair 2005: 11; and Biezen and Katz 2005:
4).
The second argument relates to the different historical trajectories that exist for
established democracies in the West and for political parties in new, restored and
emerging multiparty systems 8 and democracies. This is well illustrated by Robert
Dahl’s classification of political regimes along the dimensions of political competition
and political participation/inclusiveness, and illustrates the process of moving from
non-democratic forms of government to more democratic regimes (Dahl 1971: 4).
In many new and emerging democracies, the trajectory towards democratization
has not been one of gradual development along the dimension of competition or
participation or inclusiveness. Instead, political systems have moved from little or
no competition or participation to full competition and inclusiveness due to rapid
processes of decolonization or because they have moved from one-party to multiparty
systems. Naturally, this affects political parties in very specific ways and limits their
capacity to develop a mass base and to ensure internally democratic structures. 9
The third difference between ‘old’ and ‘new’ multiparty systems and democracies
is that regulations on parties emerged gradually, and rather late (if at all) in the
established democracies in the West, while in many new democracies regulations
on political parties were already present from the onset of multiparty politics (Janda
2005: 23). Whether established to promote political competition or to protect ruling
parties’ positions in government, party regulations are today much more of a factor in
processes of democratization than what was the case some 100 years ago in emerging
Western democracies. This development clearly demonstrates the trend towards, and
belief in, the ability to engineer regulations that shape political parties and their
impact on political competition in specific ways.
8
The number of political systems that have multiparty elections but fall short of being liberal or
consolidated democracies.
9
See van Biezen 1998 for an elaboration on how this shaped the communist and socialist parties in
Spain and Portugal.