Recent publications suggest that exclusively ethnoregional parties are as rare in sub- Saharan Africa as elsewhere. At the same time, the idea that ethnicity is a very special feature of African party politics persists. The paper acknowledges the general relevance of ethnicity in party...

Generally speaking, the effects of international political party assistance are viewed nega-tively, or at least controversially. This study attributes some of the shortcomings of political party aid to the poor relationship between assistance providers and political science party research. They...

Despite a growing interest in African political parties, no comparative analyses of political ideology in Africa have been undertaken to date. This study addresses this shortcoming by applying the Manifesto Research Group's (MRG) coding scheme to a complete set of African party manifestos in...

Since 1990 the banning of ethnic and other identity-based parties has become the norm in sub-Saharan Africa. This article focuses on Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda as three East African countries that have opted for different ways of dealing with such parties. Using case studies, it traces the...

Ghana's 2008 elections have been hailed by national and international observers as a model for Africa. This perception has prevailed despite persistent concerns about "ethnic block voting" and electoral fraud. Electoral malpractice and vote rigging along ethnic lines in Ghana's virtual two-party...