How can the West's economic and political polarization be explained? We argue that persuasive lobbying at various levels of government leads to systematic deviations of policies from those desired by the majority. Implemented policies diverge from the majority position despite centripetal forces...

Since the sweeping (re)introduction of multiparty systems in the early 1990s almost all sub-Saharan countries have introduced bans on ethnic or - in more general terms - particularistic parties. Such party bans have been neglected in research, and this paper engages in a preliminary analysis of...