African governments are often understood as appendages of the leader. To that end, they are variably described as “corrupt”, “weak”, and “failed”. But attention is rarely paid to the composition of senior government ranks, and the tactics therein to secure senior regime elites. When researchers do consider senior elites and their positions, they discover that this scale of government is crucial to understanding clientelism, balancing, co-option, leverage (Huber and Martinez-Gallardo, 2008), longevity and survival (Magaloni, 2006), stability and security of governments (Laver, 2003; Fischer, Dowding and Dumont, 2012). We argue that research into senior government ranks and relationships has often avoided African investigations, instead concentrating on cabinets in Europe, or senior political scales in Latin America, to name a few. But the conclusions from African-based cabinet research are illuminating.
38 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/6260930.stm where Kenyan ministers complained of boredom.
We find that several positions, especially those of extremely short-term appointments, have no discernable infrastructure (e.g. Minister of Public Functions, or Zimbabwe’s Minister of Psychomotor Activities) or are very closely associated with another ministry that has official standing (e.g. multiple youth related ministries are simultaneously assigned ministers).
Here, we argue for greater consideration of two substantial shifts in how African power and governments are conceptualized and measured. We suggest that the political environment within African states has fundamentally shifted as countries began to build and reform institutions which made regimes more open to elite competition. These changes have made the ‘ethno-demographic’ arithmetic of typical representation measures obsolete in many ways: it is inaccurate as a voting metric or predictor, as a political identity in urban areas, or as reliable club vote. Instead, power distributions across African states are based on regimes and elites seeking to accommodate, co-opt and balance at senior levels of government through inclusivity and manipulation. This ‘regime management’ demands that researchers know the composition, size and change at senior levels of government to understand how regimes and leaders survive, why senior scales of government are volatile, governance is territorially uneven, and groups emerge is surprising coalitions.
What is the influence of these calculations for the distribution of power? As African regime leaders often stay in power for long periods of time, this indicates that they have often mastered the transactions necessary for short-term, loyalty exchanges. These dynamics enable incumbents to create coalitions of convenience to shore up support from multiple elites and constituencies. These coalitions can be created and maintained despite historical antagonisms.African political elites rarely push for political reform and corruption investigations because of the calculations of power calculus that leads to co-option or suppression, rather than a viable alternative programmatic appeal.
ACPED underscores how ethno-political and regional group representatives are critical features of the African political environment. Information on the presence, position and demographics of ministers within African cabinets, for each month from 1997 to the present, allows for unique interpretations of political identity at the individual (minister), group and regional scale. When aggregated, they create information on representation, proportional power and unity across a state’s government. ACPED collects information on all ministers within national cabinets. Their position, movement and political party membership is recorded for each month and will be extended throughout Africa and updated in near real-time. Initial conclusions from ACPED overturn many preconceptions about African governance and representation. Rather than exclusive and co-ethnic favouritism, African states are inclusive; although the level of representation and balance of power between groups is volatile. As regimes have different priorities and crises to attend to, relying on co-ethnics is a poor strategic choice and may lead to the emergence of ‘replacement’ politics rather than accommodation options for opponents and competitors.
ACPED data can be used to study how regimes balance or bias in the formation of governments, how levels of representation, proportion, and party unity vary and the role of elite-regime relationships in generating or curtailing economic development, resource distribution and systems of political competition. Metrics can also be employed to see the impact of different balancing strategies on popular
areas of study, including leadership survival, devolution or recentralization of political power, voting patterns and political violence. The new public data represents a significant step in moving towards realistic and dynamic information about domestic politics and the role of identity in developing states.
5.0 Economic Performance, the Pre-Electoral Period and Cabinet Volatility
5.1 Introduction
An enduring theme in African politics is that, in spite of the presence of personalised rule, leaders do not rule alone (Boix and Svolik, 2013; Jackson and Rosberg, 1982; Langer, 2005). Rather leaders retain or extend their political power through the forging of an intra-elite coalition which minimises threats to their continued rule (Arriola, 2009; Van de Walle, 2007). These coalitions are maintained through the distribution of state resources and senior government positions, creating webs of dependence in which patronage is traded for political support, linking African leaders to the elites within the ruling coalition and the communities they represent (ibid.). Existing research on the political fortunes of leaders within Africa frequently ties leadership survival or downfall to how rulers compose their ruling coalitions to ward off threats such as civil war, coups or electoral defeat (Lindemann, 2011a; Lindemann, 2011b;
Roessler, 2011; Roessler and Ohls, 2018; Arriola, 2009; Choi and Kim, 2018).
However, the existing literature is far from unanimous over what size and composition of ruling coalition is ideal to ensure the leader’s political survival. As political competition and conflict within Africa is commonly interpreted as a means through which excluded elites force their inclusion into government or capture power, some scholars have argued that large inclusive coalitions are optimal (Lindemann, 2011b; Arriola, 2009; Wimmer et al., 2009). Conversely, others have argued that sharing power increases the chance of infighting among elites and limits the amount of resources available to nourish the leader’s patronage network, raising the risk of the leader being deposed by insiders (LeVan, 2011; Roeder, 2005; De Mesquita et al., 2005). Increasingly, the optimal configuration for the ruling coalition is seen as being dependent on political context with threats minimised by a large, inclusive ruling coalition in some cases and small, exclusive ruling coalitions in others (Roessler and Ohls, 2018;
Choi and Kim, 2018; Roberts, 2015). Different ruling configurations such as inclusive ‘big-tent’ ruling parties, exclusionary military or political regimes, and multi-ethnic coalitions are all examples of different strategies leaders use to counteract threats to their rule. These strategies also reflect the differing levels of power the regime and leader have against external political rivals.
This paper aims to expand upon the current literature by examining how changes in the political environment prompt leaders to re-evaluate the configuration of the ruling coalition and make changes to minimise threats to their rule. This paper theorises that optimal coalitions are decided by the nature of the threats facing the regime and the strength of the regime’s hold on political power. This relationship is tested using data on ministerial appointments and reshuffles from eighteen African states between 1997 and 2017. The cabinet is used as a proxy to estimate the size and ethnic composition of the leader’s ruling coalition. Cabinet reshuffles are used to approximate the volatility within the ruling
coalition and determine whether leaders make changes to their ruling coalition in response to a change in the political environment. The study will focus specifically on how two threats affect the characteristics of the ruling coalition: upcoming elections and economic downturns. These threats will be assessed for both competitive regimes, which are vulnerable to the political opposition, and hegemonic regimes, which do not face an immediate threat of replacement (Schedler, 2013).
This paper makes two original contributions to the understanding of regime and leadership strategies of survival. Firstly, the characteristics of ruling coalitions are not static but undergo significant change when the regime is facing threat. Enduring claims in academia concerning the large size or ethnic inclusivity/exclusivity of African regimes fail to take into account the high degree of volatility that occurs within the senior levels of government. This paper shows that changes in the ruling coalition can occur outside of political transitions when used as strategies by the incumbent leader to hold onto power.
Secondly, different types of regimes adopt different tactics when facing different threats. The threat posed by opposition parties to competitive regimes means that leaders increase the size and inclusivity of their cabinets in the pre-electoral period, while the irrelevance of the opposition to hegemonic regimes means that they do not engage in this strategy of expansion.
Consequently, ruling coalitions in Africa should not be perceived as static entities with fixed attributes concerning size and composition. Rather, the ruling coalition is a reflection of current threats within the political landscape and the resources or capacity the regime has at its disposal to mitigate these threats.