Multi-Ethnic Coalitions in Africa: Business Financing of Opposition Election Campaigns (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics) by Arriola, Leonardo R.
ISBN: 9781107605435
Cambridge University Press, 15 October 2012
Paperback, 324 pages
Incumbent leaders in African countries typically keep themselves in power, winning election after election, by using state resources to enlist the support of politicians from other ethnic groups. It is less evident how opposition politicians can form the electoral alliances needed to compete against these entrenched incumbents. This book explains how the business-state relationship can influence coalition bargaining among opposition politicians representing different ethnic groups. It combines cross-national analyses of African countries with in-depth case studies of Cameroon and Kenya to show that incumbents actively manipulate financial controls and institutions in order to prevent members of the business community -- the main funders of parties in poor countries -- from supporting their opposition. It demonstrates that opposition politicians are more likely to build multiethnic coalitions once incumbents have lost their ability to blackmail the business sector through financial reprisals.
Multiethnic Coalitions in Africa received the Best Book Award in 2013 from the African Politics Conference Group, an organized section of the American Political Science Association (APSA) and the African Studies Association (ASA). The book was also recognized in 2014 with an Honorable Mention for the Gregory Luebbert Prize for best book from the Comparative Politics section of the American Political Science Association (APSA).
Editorial Reviews
Review
"A major contribution. Arriola draws not only from Africanist literatures, but also from scholarship on other regions. His account will be broadly read and influential. Learned, rigorous, and deeply thoughtful. Full marks!"
Robert H. Bates, Harvard University
"Under conditions in which the benefits of political office are presumed to accrue only to those who share the ethnicity of the officeholder, how can a multiethnic opposition coalesce to unseat an incumbent? Leonardo Arriola provides an original and compelling answer rooted not in politics, but business: financial deregulation and banking reform liberates private capital holders from government control, which frees them to contribute to the regime's opponents. Opposition leaders then use this money to buy, upfront, the endorsements of leaders from multiple ethnic groups. By demonstrating the connections between financial and political liberalization, and by solving the long-standing puzzle of explaining the existence of multiethnic coalitions, Arriola makes a valuable contribution to the study of African political economy."
Daniel N. Posner, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Arriola's book argues with impressive verve and great learning that African incumbents owe their political longevity to their ability to control domestic capital. In the process, he takes the reader through a comprehensive and compelling tour of post-colonial African political economy, shedding new light on a number of issues in novel ways, from the salience of ethnicity, to the relationship between independence parties and the private sector, and the success of opposition coalitions in the past decade. I believe this book represents an impressive achievement and will be considered one of the landmark works in African political economy."
Nicholas van de Walle, Cornell University
Book Description
Africa's long-ruling incumbents stay in power because opposition politicians struggle to secure the finances required to build electoral coalitions.
About the Author
Leonardo R. Arriola is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. His research focuses on electoral politics, ethnic politics, and political violence in developing countries. He has conducted field research in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, and Senegal. His research has been published in scholarly journals such as the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, and World Politics.