Dominant Party Systems and Electoral Volatility in Africa

Abstract

In a recent publication in this journal, Mozaffar and Scarritt claim to have found a puzzling combination of low fragmentation and high volatility in African party systems. However, if we look at national party systems rather than Africa-wide averages, include regime type as a variable and specify dominance, we find three different constellations: dominant party systems with relatively low volatility, non-dominant and pulverized party systems with high volatility and dominant authoritarian party systems with high volatility. The real surprise is that dominant parties in authoritarian regimes have higher electoral instability than dominant parties in democracies. The analyis is based on data from 78 elections in 20 African countries with at least three consecutive multiparty elections.