Party Institutionalization in Africa: Kenya's 2013 Elections in Comparative Perspective
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Date
2015-01Author
Otele, OM
Etyang, Oita
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
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Since the return of multipartyism, Africa has seen the proliferation of
political parties as vehicles for political contestation. Consequently, this has
triggered curiosity among scholars to ask one main question: Are they
institutionalized? Using cases from former Anglophone countries; this
article offers a comparative assessment of party institutionalization in
Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Zambia. Although Kenya, Malawi,
Nigeria and Zambia epitomize weak levels of party institutionalization,
Ghana comes nearest to party institutionalizing based on Randall and
Svasand model. It is our supposition that most parties in Africa have failed
to institutionalize and this has hampered the performance of political
parties in consolidating the ideals of democracy. On the strength of the
evidence from Ghana, we contend that there is need for political party
renaissance in Africa to help them play their envisaged roles in democracy.
Citation
The African Review: A Journal of African Politics, Development and International Affairs, Vol. 42, No. 1 (2015), pp. 29-57Publisher
Brill
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Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United StatesUsage Rights
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Collections
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