Ethnicity, elections and party system. Lessons from South Africa

The relevance of ethnicity in party competition has increased in the last two decades in Europe through democratisation of multinational states and territorialisation of politics. However, the effect and durability of ethnicity as a factor affecting vote and party politics is not yet as well analysed as other cleavages as class or religion. Indeed, it is important to analyse how ethnicity has been dealt with in other ethnically divided societies in the world to gather important lessons to be applied in Europe. This paper analyses the effect of ethnicity in voting behaviour and party system in South Africa as an example of ethnically divided society over a 20-year period in an attempt to cast light on the issue and gather some lessons to be applied in Europe. South Africa held its first multiracial elections in 1994 putting and end to over 40 years of Apartheid politics that excluded nonWhite population from the concept of people. Since then, ethnicity has played a core role in politics in general and in voting behaviour and party system in particular. The research takes form of a quantitative analysis making extensive use of survey data at the individual level in South Africa from 1990 to 2010. Results conclude that over the years ethnicity effect tends to decrease as the effect of other cleavages, as class, increase again and spread over society. This has an important imprint in the electoral campaign, electoral behaviour and the party system configuration and design. Lessons from South African politics in the last 20 years should be exported to Europe, if the role of ethnicity within party competition wants to be understood.