" Faced with a transition to multiparty democracy, many assume that breaking the power of
incumbents is necessary to develop a stable, highly institutionalized party system. But, in …

Does political competition exacerbate economic discrimination between citizens on ethnic or
partisan cleavages? Individuals often discriminate on group lines in ordinary economic …

Two aspects of contemporary urban life in Africa are often described as sources of political
change: the emergence of a large urban middle class and high levels of ethnic diversity and …

African democracies are increasingly urban. While ethnicity is generally correlated with vote
choice, recent research suggests there may be less ethnic voting in cities. But I show that …

We consider the effect of legislative primaries on the electoral performance of political
parties in a new democracy. While existing literature suggests that primaries may either hurt …

Patronage is important in developing countries, but its relationship to political competition
has received little attention. Major literatures generate opposing predictions. In the good …

States are often minimally present in the rural periphery. Yet a limited presence does not
mean a limited impact. Isolated state actions in regions where the state is otherwise scarce …

Leveraging novel experimental designs and 2,160 months of Constituency Development
Fund (CDF) spending by legislators in Ghana, I examine whether and how fairer elections …

This article introduces a special issue on candidate nomination, intra-party democracy, and
election violence in Africa. Although a burgeoning literature on African democratization has …

Seminal models of clientelism assert that parties value brokers for their strong downward
ties to voters. Despite its dominance, scholars have not empirically scrutinized key …