Ethnic Politics, Political Polarization, and Democratization in Africa

Ethnicized political competition and political polarization are usually thought to undermine democratization. This study challenges the conventional wisdom, arguing that, in many circumstances, they can actually make democratic transitions more likely. In particular, under electoral authoritarian regimes--where democratic breakthroughs require opposition parties to defeat the incumbent party despite the cards being heavily stacked against them--high levels of polarization can help opposition parties and candidates mobilize and maintain their strength in the face of repression and cooptation, the primary tools that authoritarian incumbents use to maintain power when subject to electoral competition. When polarization is high, opposition politicians and supporters are harder to coopt with the carrots that incumbents can offer--and they are more likely to continue challenging the regime in the face of repression--because of the strength of their animosity against the ruling party and the depth of the divisions between each side. This paper examines the relationship between ethnic politics, polarization, and democratization in Africa. It identifies a pattern whereby political polarization in the multiparty era has been most pronounced in those countries where politics tends to revolve around ethnic lines, thus making political divisions more difficult to bridge than cleavages based on more mutable factors such as disagreements over policy or who is best positioned to stimulate economic development. In turn, those countries where ethnic divisions define politics have tended to see democratic breakthroughs earlier and more often than those where ethnic divisions are less politically salient (either because a country is ethnically homogeneous or because the ruling party has constructed a broad-based multiethnic coalition that has forestalled opposition mobilization along ethnic lines). Still, once democratic transitions occur, the very same dynamics (ethnic politics and the resulting political polarization) can make democratic consolidation challenging. This dynamic can help explain why African countries have seen numerous democratic transitions over the last three decades but few instances of consolidation into mature, stable democracies. The study provides a more nuanced understanding of how polarization affects democratization and democratic consolidation, including how it shapes opposition strategies and their likelihood of success in dislodging incumbents presiding over electoral authoritarian regimes.