Making Protest: The Role of Protest Brokers in South Africa’s Urban Landscape. [Under Review]
AbstractExisting theories of protest struggle to explain why some communities regularly turn to protest to express their frustrations and demand change, while other seemingly similar communities do not. In this book, I argue that closer attention to the technology of mobilization helps to explain these patterns, and identify the important role played by protest brokers – intermediaries who connect elites desiring mobilization with communities of potential protesters. Without these brokers, I argue, many elites lack the local knowledge, connections, and reservoirs of trust necessary to mobilize community members, significantly decreasing the likelihood of protest occurrence, and helping to explain where protests happen. Because protest brokers are not homogenous in type, moreover, I argue further that variation at this level also helps to explain geographic differences in the types of protest we observe, leading to predictable variation in protest frequency, variety, and duration, as well as the likelihood of violence, and the mobilization tactics that are likely to be most effective. I test my argument using two original datasets, an original survey and survey experiment, along with qualitative data from over 30 months of fieldwork in South Africa, Malawi and Ghana. My findings highlight the critical role of mobilization technology in protest, with important theoretical and practical implications for our understanding of collective action.
PUBLICATIONS
Drivers of Non-Electoral Political Participation: The Role of Partisanship, Identity and Incentives in Mobilizing Zambian Citizens. With Prisca Jöst, Matthias Krönke, and Ellen Lust Comparative Political Studies, 2023.
AbstractScholars and policymakers widely regard citizens’ political engagement as vital for democracy. From fundraising and campaigning to participatory budgeting and attending community meetings, non-electoral political participation should increase citizens’ inclusion and political accountability, encourage civic skills and virtues, improve policy, and enhance the legitimacy of both the process and outcomes. In Africa, however, many assume that citizens do not engage in many of these vital activities, with political participation primarily limited to voting. Thus, little research explores the drivers of these other activities. In this paper, we aim to fill the gap, using an original survey experiment to explore the drivers of citizen participation around Zambia’s 2021 national elections. Contrary to widely held views in the literature, we find that partisanship is a critical driver of this non-electoral activity, with social incentives and ethnicity also playing important but less significant roles. Finally, we explore the mechanisms underpinning these results and find that citizens anticipate sanctions if they fail to support a co-partisan but not a co-ethnic candidate. These findings have important implications for understanding political engagement and democratic development throughout the region.Article
Protest Brokers and the Technology of Mobilization: Evidence from Africa. Comparative Political Studies, 55(4), 2022.
AbstractWhy do some communities protest to demand change, while other seemingly similar communities do not? A large body of literature has found that elites play an important role in this regard, and documented the wide variety of mobilization tactics they use. While such arguments go some way towards explaining protest patterns, however, the literature has so far struggled to explain why some elites are able to employ these mobilization tactics so much more effectively than others. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa, I argue that closer attention to the technology of mobilization helps to explain these patterns. Specifically, I identify the critical role played by protest brokers – intermediaries who connect elites desiring mobilization with potential protesters. Without these brokers, I argue, many elites lack the local knowledge, connections, and trust necessary to mobilize collective action, significantly decreasing the likelihood of protest occurrence, and helping to explain where protests happen.Article
Alexander L. George Article Award for Outstanding New Research within the Qualitative Tradition, Qualitative and Multi-Method Research Section, American Political Science Association (Honorable Mention)
Party Structures and Organization Building in Africa: An Introduction. With Matthias Krönke and Robert Mattes Party Politics, 28(2), 2022. AbstractPolitical parties are a vital element in the quality of representative democracy, playing a crucial role in mobilization, competition, governance, and accountability. Despite their importance, however, we currently know relatively little about how political parties in Africa are organized, with most evidence restricted to journalistic accounts or country-specific scholarly accounts. This symposium, which comes out of a conference on political parties held at the University of Cape Town, takes a closer look at the development of party structures and organization across the continent. It seeks to answer a number of critical questions including: What affects the organizational structure of parties? How do party primaries affect party-building and electoral success? And what effect does the shrinking of open political space have on the ways in which parties organize? Taken as a whole, this symposium brings together established and emerging scholars, to systematically explore, for the first time, what party organization looks like on the African continent, and how it affects critical issues of governance, mobilization, and accountability.Article
Party Footprints in Africa: Measuring Local Party Presence Across the Continent. With Matthias Krönke and Robert Mattes Party Politics, 28(2), 2022. AbstractThe conventional view is that most of Africa’s political parties are organizationally weak, with little grass roots presence. Yet, few studies are based on systematically collected data about more than a handful of parties or countries at any given point. In this paper, we attempt to remedy this situation by focusing on one crucial aspect of party organization – the local presence that enables political parties to engage with and mobilize voters during and between elections. We develop a new index which provides the first systematic means of assessment to measure the extent of local party organization across 35 countries. Moreover, our exploration of some substantive questions in relation to the consequences of party activity shows that the Party Presence Index is an important tool for scholars of African political parties, with the potential to add significantly to our understanding of grass roots party organization around the world.Article
Do Electoral Systems Affect How Citizens Hold their Governments Accountable? Evidence from Africa. With Matthias Krönke Democratization, 28(3), 2021. AbstractThis paper asks whether a country’s choice of electoral system affects the methods citizens use to try and hold their government accountable. A large body of literature suggests that electoral system type has an impact on voting behaviour, but little work has been done so far looking at other forms of democratic accountability, such as contacting an elected representative and protesting. Using Round 6 Afrobarometer data, we find that the type of electoral system does indeed have a significant impact on these other forms of participation. Citizens in PR systems are significantly more likely to protest than those in majoritarian ones, while those in majoritarian systems are more likely to contact their elected representatives. We argue that this is because the connection between citizens and representatives in majoritarian systems is clearer, closer and more responsive, making contact an effective strategy and providing an efficient “safety valve” when citizens want to hold their government to account. The lack of a similar connection in most PR systems, in contrast, leads citizens to turn to protest with greater regularity.Article
Activist Origins of Political Ambition: Opposition Candidacy in Africa’s Electoral Authoritarian Regimes by Keith Weghorst. Party Politics, 2023. Book Review
Party Proliferation and Political Contestation in Africa: Senegal in Comparative Perspective by Catherine Lena Kelly. Democratization, 29(3), 2022. Book Review
Demanding Development: The Politics of Public Goods Provision in India’s Urban Slums by Adam Auerbach. Democratization, 28(4), 2021. Book Review
Leverage in a Tight Space: Zimbabwean Foreign Policy in International Organizations. In J. Warner and T. M. Shaw (eds.), African Foreign Policies in International Institutions. New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan, pp.265-282, 2018. AbstractThis chapter explores the foreign policy of the Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe, with a particular focus on the government’s use of international organizations (IOs). By providing access to support and funds, making it difficult for opposition groups to challenge the status quo, and helping the government to limit international criticism, many IOs have shown themselves to be useful tools in the Zanu-PF arsenal. Using them in this way is not without its challenges, however, and this chapter highlights the skill with which Mugabe uses the leverage he has to try and push his agenda within and through such organizations. Rather than seeing Mugabe’s activities on the international stage as merely the bizarre and isolating behavior of a pariah, therefore, this chapter argues that his often confrontational interactions with IOs, and associated use of fiery rhetoric, are actually central to the complex ways in which he maintains his grip on power.Chapter
The Paradox of Traditional Chiefs in Democratic Africa by Kate Baldwin. Political Studies Review, 16(1), 2018. Book Review
SPECIAL ISSUES
Special Issue on Party Structures and Organization Building in Africa. Lockwood, Sarah J., Robert Mattes, and Matthias Krönke (Eds). Party Politics, 28(2), 2022.
PUBLISHED WORKING PAPERS
Party Footprints in Africa: Measuring Local Party Presence Across the Continent. With Matthias Krönke and Robert Mattes Afrobarometer Working Paper 186, 2020 AbstractThe conventional view is that most of Africa’s political parties are organizationally weak, with little grass roots presence. Yet, few studies are based on systematically collected data about more than a handful of parties or countries at any given point. In this paper, we attempt to remedy this situation by focusing on one crucial aspect of party organization – the local presence that enables political parties to engage with and mobilize voters during and between elections. We develop a new index which provides the first systematic means of assessment to measure the extent of local party organization across 35 countries. Moreover, our exploration of some substantive questions in relation to the consequences of party activity shows that the Party Presence Index is an important tool for scholars of African political parties, with the potential to add significantly to our understanding of grass roots party organization around the world.Published Working Paper
Do Electoral Systems Affect How Citizens Hold their Governments Accountable? Evidence from Africa. With Matthias Krönke Afrobarometer Working Paper 181, 2018. AbstractThis paper asks whether a country’s choice of electoral system affects the methods citizens use to try to hold their government accountable. A large body of literature suggests that electoral system type has an impact on voting behavior, but little work has been done on its effects on other strategies for democratic accountability, such as contacting an elected representative and protesting. Using data from 36 African countries, we find that the type of electoral system has a significant relationship with these forms of participation. Citizens in proportional representation (PR) systems are significantly more likely to protest than those in majoritarian ones, while those in majoritarian systems are more likely to contact their elected representatives. We argue that this is because the connection between citizens and representatives in majoritarian systems is clearer, closer, and more responsive, making contact an effective strategy and providing an efficient “safety valve” when citizens want to hold their government to account. The lack of a similar connection in most PR systems, in contrast, leads citizens to turn to protest with greater regularity.Published Working Paper
WORKING PAPERS
Type Matters: The Importance of Broker Variation in Explaining Patterns of Protest. [Revise and Resubmit] Abstract The literature suggests that protest brokers – intermediaries who connect elites desiring mobilization with communities of potential protesters – play an important role in the organization of protest. While the existing literature has so far seen these brokers as homogenous in type, however, this article introduces the concept of variation at the broker level. Focusing on two key relationships – the relationship between brokers and elites, and the relationship between brokers and the communities they mobilize – it presents the first typology of protest brokers, and shows that variation at the broker level leads to predictable variation in protest frequency, variety, and duration, as well as the likelihood of violence, and the mobilization tactics that are used. The argument is illustrated using an original dataset, along with qualitative data from over 26 months of fieldwork in South Africa, and the findings highlight the critical role played by variation at the broker level, with important theoretical and practical implications for our understanding of collective action.
Postcolonial Perspectives on Peaceful Assembly [Under Contract] In Tabatha Abu El-Haj, Michael Hamilton, Thomas Probert, and Sharath Srinivasan (Eds). Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Assembly. Oxford University Press. Abstract The influence of history on protest has long been noted by scholars of social movements, but the literature still lacks a detailed understanding of the ways in which earlier assemblies influence activity in the modern day. This chapter provides an initial attempt to fill this lacuna, by examining the ways in which a specific set of historical assemblies – anti-colonial movements – influence protest in the postcolonial world today. Drawing on a rich set of examples, it argues that anti-colonial protests influence contemporary protests in ways far broader than the literature has traditionally assumed – affecting the issues protested, the types of protest we see, and the social and political arrangements that channel protest. Crucially, while some of these connections between past and present may be important globally, this chapter argues further that there is something distinct about the way that anti-colonial movements influence contemporary protest in the postcolony. This is because the dominance of colonial arrangements and the anti-colonial movements make it particularly difficult for activists today to break free from their influence, making it impossible to fully understand contemporary activity without studying and understanding these historical influences. This does not mean that innovation and change is completely absent, however, and the chapter ends by considering some of the ways in which contemporary movements are seeking to move beyond the influences of the past, as well as the possibilities and limitations they face in doing so.
What Motivates Elite Participation in Research? Evidence from an Experimental Study of South African Councillors. With Evan Lieberman. EGAP Pre-Analysis Plan Registration ID: 20220922AD. Abstract Political scientists routinely focus their investigations on the attitudes and behaviors of politicians and increasingly study them through systematic surveys. As with all surveys, researchers aim to maximize response rates. In this paper, we consider whether financial incentives in the form of small cash payments or participation in lotteries for slightly larger rewards increase participation. Based on a randomized control trial (RCT) conducted as part of an effort to survey local councillors in South Africa, we find that, if anything, material incentives depress response rates overall – weighing against their use in future surveys. However, we also find some heterogeneity in estimated effects by political party, which may indicate that the intentional and possibly randomized provision of some material incentives can help to achieve a more representative sample.
Organizing for Success: The Effect of Intra-Party Democracy on Local Level Party Presence. With Matthias Krönke. [Revise and Resubmit] AbstractLevels of intra-party democracy have long been seen as important for candidate recruitment, policy development, and party membership. But what impact do they have on the ability of parties to interact with citizens at the local level? In this paper, we leverage new data on the formal rules governing political parties in Africa, along with an innovative measure of local party presence, to show that parties with higher levels of intra-party democracy have a greater presence at the local level, and are better able to interact with citizens both during and between elections. We argue that this is because such parties are more responsive to the needs and demands of local party members (providing an effective route to share important mobilizing information), and more likely to invest in building local party structures that can subsequently be used to interact directly with citizens. These findings suggest that intra-party democracy plays an important role in the outward facing activities of parties, highlighting the importance of bringing together research in these two areas.
South African Parties and the Development of Democracy With Robert Mattes and Matthias Krönke. [Under Contract] In T. Poguntke and W. Hofmeister (Eds). Political Parties and the Crisis of Democracy. Oxford University Press.
African Political Parties With Matthias Krönke and Robert Mattes. [Under Contract] In China Korieh (Ed). Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies. Oxford University Press.
Clients or Partisan Activists? Party Membership and Mobilization in Africa. With Matthias Krönke Abstract In Africa, party members are often seen as clients in search of material benefits, rather than activists that contribute to large political organizations. However, few studies have attempted to actually measure the extent and effectiveness of party activism in the African context. In this paper, we use survey data from more than 30 countries to assess the ability of parties in Africa to organize local-level engagement. Contrary to received wisdom, we find that political parties on the continent can rely more on active partisans than expected, and have similar numbers of party activists compared to parties in other parts of the world. We also test the relative importance of socio-economic and institutional factors in explaining the variance in party activism across our sample, and close by exploring the consequences of this variation on a key metric of democracy – voter mobilization.
SELECT WORKS IN PROGRESS
Speaking with Many Voices: A Survey Experiment on Elite Protest Organization in South Africa.
EGAP Pre-Analysis Plan Registration ID: 20221031AA
From ‘Rainbow Politics’ to Monochromatic Mobilization? Opposition Parties and Political Participation in South Africa. With Robert Nyenhuis and Matthias Krönke.
Living in Fear: Political Violence and Authoritarian Attitudes Among Politicians in South Africa. With Philip Martin. EGAP Pre-Analysis Plan Registration ID: 20220717AA.
Carrots versus Sticks: Experimental Evidence of the Effectiveness of Accountability Messaging in South Africa. With Evan Lieberman. EGAP Pre-Analysis Plan Registration ID: 20221021AB.
Who is Canvassing Whom? Party Electoral Strategies in Africa. With Robert Mattes and Matthias Krönke.
Accountable to Whom? The Thembelihle Crisis Committee and the Challenge of Participatory Governance.
