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Single-Party Systems in West Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Ruth Schachter
Ruth Schachter*
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Extract

In this paper I propose to examine the tendency towards single-party systems in West Africa, particularly in relation to the social structure and the historical circumstances in which the parties emerged. I shall therefore point up the distinction between “mass” and “patron” parties, and then consider the new single-party governments, most of them based on mass parties, in relation to the prospects of of democracy in West Africa. My argument is that mass parties are created by African leaders out of the very liberating and egalitarian forces we in this country generally associate with democracy. Some of the mass parties encourage the growth of forces and institutions which may ultimately make possible the machinery of democratic systems familiar to us: as, for instance, competition for every citizen's vote by more than one organized team of candidates. At this stage of West African party history, it seems to me, the number of parties is far too simple a criterion upon which to decide whether or not a system is democratic.

General statements about parties in the new West African states can be made only tentatively. Significant rights to vote and organize parties came to West Africa only after the Second World War. Since then formal institutional change has taken place at a rapid pace. The constitutional framework in which the parties grew changed continuously. The franchise expanded until it became universal, the powers of African elected representatives grew by stages from consultative to legislative and eventually to executive, and the locus of political power shifted from London or Paris to Africa.

Type
Studies in Comparative Politics
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , June 1961 , pp. 294 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1961

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References

1 Evidence for this paper was gathered during field trips to West Africa, and is to be published in my Parties of French-Speaking West Africa. I am most grateful to Jeffrey Butler, Thomas Hodgkin, Richard Sklar and Immanuel Wallerstein for their valuable comments, and to Newell Stultz for his assistance.

2 “Patron” parties and “parties of personalities” are terms employed by Hodgkin, Thomas, author of Nationalism in Colonial Africa (London, Muller, 1956)Google Scholar. ‘Cadre’ party is used by Maurice Duverger in his Political Parties (London, Methuen, 1954)Google Scholar.

3 Parties indicated with an * have gone out of existence.

4 Hodgkin, op. cit., p. 144.

5 Rézette, R., Les Partis politiques marocains (Paris, Colin, 1955)Google Scholar.

6 Apter, David E. and Rosberg, Carl G., “Nationalism and Models of Political Change in Africa,” The Political Economy of Contemporary Africa, Symposia Studies Series #1, The National Institute of Social and Behavioral Science, George Washington University, 1959, p. 8 Google Scholar.

7 Apter, David, The Gold Coast in Transition (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1955)Google Scholar.

8 Weber, Max, “The Sociology of Charismatic Authority,” From Max Weber, Gerth, H. H. & Mills, C. Wright, eds. (London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1952), p. 250 Google Scholar.

9 Worsley, Peter, The Trumpet Shall Sound (London, MacGibbon & Kee, 1957), p. 271 Google Scholar.

10 Carlyle, Thomas, “The Hero as King,” On Heroes and Hero Worship (London, Ward & Lock, 1900), p. 262 Google Scholar.

11 See Berg, Elliot, “The Economic Basis of Political Choice in French West Africa,” this Review, Vol. 54 (06 1960), esp. Table I on p. 393 Google Scholar.

12 Clark, Colin, The Conditions of Economic Progress (London, Macmillan, 1951), p. 567 Google Scholar.

13 From the electoral manifesto of September 5, 1945, issued by the Parti Progressiste Soudanais leader, Fily Dabo Sissoko.

14 Forerunner of the Union Progressiste Sénégalaise.

15 In 1958 both groups merged into the Union Progressiste Sénégalaise.

16 For further details, see Robinson's, Kenneth E. excellent chapter “Senegal” in Five Elections in Africa, edited by him and Mackenzie, W. J. M. (Oxford, 1960)Google Scholar.

17 Neumann, Sigmund, Modern Political Parties (University of Chicago Press, 1956), p. 404 Google Scholar.

18 Hodgkin, op. cit., p. 144.

19 Keïta, Madeira, “Le Parti unique en Afrique,” Présence Africaine, février-mars, 1960, pp. 19–20 Google Scholar.

20 Austin, Dennis and Tordoff, William, “Voting in an African Town,” Political Studies (Oxford), 06 1960, p. 131 Google Scholar.

21 La Liberté, PDG newspaper, December 22, 1955.

22 Traditional caste resembling medieval troubadours.

23 Abidjan-Matin, June 18, 1959. See Zolberg, A. R., “Effets de la structure d'un parti politique sur l'intégration nationale,” Cahiers d'études africaines, 10 3, 1960, p. 140 f.Google Scholar

24 Unless otherwise indicated, I recorded the citations in Africa.

25 Condition Humaine, Bloc Démocratique Sénégalais* newspaper, November 30, 1948.

26 The forerunner of Sawaba.

27 Democracy in America (London, 1952), pp. 550–51.Google Scholar

28 The term is frequently used by the Union Soudanaise secretary general, Modibo Keïta.

29 Official Report (Conakry, 1959), pp. 43–4Google Scholar.

30 After 1957 the United Party.

31 “Common Sense” in The Political Writings, Vol. 1, Investigator Office (Boston, 1856), p. 33 Google Scholar.

32 For a most interesting discussion of the new history of West Africa, see Immanuel Wallerstein's paper delivered to the 1960 meeting of the American Sociological Association, “The Search for National Identity,” mimeographed.

33 Adandé, Alexander, “In the Phase of National Reconstruction the Fusion of Parties Becomes a Categorical Imperative,” address at the Congress for Cultural Freedom Conference, Ibadan, 03 1959, mimeographed, F/413, p. 3 Google Scholar.

34 Madeira Keita, op. cit., p. 9.

35 Nyerere, Julius suggested this in “Africa's Place in the World,” Symposium on Africa (Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., 1960), pp. 162-3Google Scholar.

36 La Liberté, November 23, 1954.