Manipulating Political Decentralisation ─ Africa's Inclusive Autocrats

In the wake of decentralization reforms, several democratizing states across the world have introduced legislation that provide for subnational elections. This does not mean, however, that subnational elections in these countries are all of a certain quality or are organized according to legislation on a regular basis. On the contrary, there is a great variation in both their quality and stability. While the literature on decentralization reforms is large, there have been few attempts to develop conceptual and methodological tools for comparing subnational elections across democratizing states. Consequently, we do not really have a suitable tool that can help us evaluate the standard of subnational elections and take account of the variation.

This book provides a new conceptual tool and typology that can be used to assess sub-national elections’ quality, aiding us in building theories on the causes and consequences of political decentralization. Using examples from Africa, a continent including a great variety with regard to subnational elections, Lovise Aalen and Ragnhild L. Muriaas propose a fourfold (2 x 2) typology of subnational electoral arenas defined along two dimensions: stability of elections and quality of elections. The resulting four types of subnational elections are labeled as institutionalized, compromised, vulnerable, and unsettled.

Conceptualizing Political Decentralization in Africa show the importance of a precise, operationalizable definition of institutionalized subnational elections, which is a precondition for democratic decentralization. Only when such a precise definition is available will it be possible to proceed to the identification of causal mechanisms

Lovise Aalen is a Senior Researcher and Research Director for Political Scientists at Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway. She has researched Ethiopian politics for more than a decade (including several long term fieldworks), and has developed an extensive knowledge of the social, economic and political conditions of the country and of the wider Horn of Africa region.

Ragnhild L. Muriaas is an associate professor in the Department of Comparative Politics at University of Bergen, Norway. Her work focuses on comparative politics, territorial politics, women’s representation and multiculturalism in the Global South. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Malawi, South Africa and Uganda.