Accommodating, Opposing, or Dismissing? Ethno-Regional Mobilization, (De)Centralization, and State-Wide Party Strategies in Nigeria and Kenya

Abstract

Political parties in much of sub-Saharan Africa are often statewide , but the societies are characterized by salient ethno-regional cleavages. Statewide parties, therefore, frequently encounter strategic challenges around ethno-regional mobilization and demands for special rights or self-rule. What shapes these parties' strategic choices? We analyze whether party strategies are characterized by accommodation, opposition, or dismissal, and argue that their strategies are shaped by the degree to which contestation around territorial politics are centralized. We examine this argument by comparing how regionally dominant statewide parties have responded to ethno-regional mobilization in the Niger Delta in federal Nigeria and the Coast region in more centralized Kenya over the last decade, and find that centralized contestation over ethno-regional issues forces parties to engage with ethno-regional demands while decentralized contestation allows parties to dismiss them.

Engaging with elections: Ethno-regional mobilization, demands for federalism, and electoral politics in central Uganda

“…In the absence of parties as vehicles for ethno-regional interests, discrepancies between cleavages at the societal level and party structures therefore sometimes result in the mobilization of ethno-regional movements. This is particularly likely to be the case when the ethno-regional concerns involve calls for some form of self-rule, which is different from being an equal partner in a multi-ethnic coalition, as observed in regions in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya (Verweijen and Vlassenroot 2015;Sjögren and Angerbrandt 2019).…”