Institutional changes from the early 1990s across Africa led to the decline of one party, autocratic governments and opened the political environment to competition. New elites entered government and the size of cabinets expanded significantly. But despite these changes, very few leaders have been removed through the ballot. The regime survival paradox is explained by the cohort surrounding leaders (De Mesquita, Siverson, and Woller, 1992; De Mesquita and Siverson ,1995; Goemans 2000a, 2000b;
Bueno de Mesquita et al., 2003). However, the composition of elites in democratizing African states, and the survival of large and unwieldy governments who fail to deliver basic services, has received limited attention in literature on instability.
Here we argue that the link between conflict and representation has been unduly limited to exclusion and civil wars. But other modalities of political violence have increased while political inclusion has risen. How can this be explained through the framework on ‘exclusive violence’? We find that political violence is widespread across democratizing states because of ‘competitive clientelism’: where elites are vying for senior positions, and leaders are seeking to accommodate minimum winning coalitions, violence becomes a strategy of negotiation. Organized violence is, most commonly, a strategy of elites to increase power; it is directed against regimes and other elites. It is also mainly a practice amongst those who already have power through senior positions in government.
These findings suggest that power politics, or ‘realpolitik’ principles, are apt representations of elite competition across African states. Leaders, and their regimes by extension, are engaged in a two-level game: leaders will appoint elites to the cabinet from a large swathe of the population, maximizing
‘representation’ and ‘inclusivity’, and providing enough rents and positions to potential spoilers. This is necessary for legitimacy, consolidation of authority and influence across the state. However, there are consistent levels of malapportionment in the cabinet, and higher levels of imbalance in elite representation increase the risk of violence against the state. This suggests that ‘dissatisfied’ elites may engage in anti-state violence for greater access to state power and resources. Therefore, ethnic imbalance creates conflict, but rarely challenges leaders.
Mal-apportioned cabinet may result from leaders’ strategy to reward electorally pivotal groups (or swing groups). In Africa’s emerging democracies, electoral competition exists alongside clientelistic exchanges (Weghorst and Lindberg, 2013). Leaders in these new democracies can buy political support by distributing more resources to ‘swing’ groups than to ‘loyal’ or ‘opposition’ ones.91 Loyal groups (e.g., regime co-ethnics) have limited influence to press the regime to offer more as their loyal support is guaranteed rather than used as effective leverage. Opposition groups (e.g., separatists or those with a history of armed rebellion against the government) may require unacceptable levels of accommodation or be unresponsive to redistributions of welfare; hence they should receive few benefits. On the other hand, swing groups are most likely to won over by clientelistic goods. These elites contest the regime to signal a negotiation, but also contest between each other to vie for greater local authority and power to leverage against the regime. These elites benefit the most from political bargaining within patronage systems.
Zimbabwe’s new cabinet after the 2018 election offers a good example of malapportionment (Raleigh and Morris, 2018). Although the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)
91 A number of studies in the patronage literatures ― for example, Lindbeck and Weibull (1987), Dixit and Londregan (1996), and Dahlberg and Johansson (2002) ― argue that leaders can purchase votes by allocating clientelistic goods primarily to groups or regions with large numbers of swing voters.
secured a two-thirds majority in the house of assembly, margins of victory were not large in most districts. Especially, three of the ZANU-PF’s traditional heartlands ― Manicaland, Mashonaland East and West ― turned into swing provinces. Since these areas are crucial for the consolidation of power, President Emmerson Mnangagwa allocated key cabinet posts to elites from swing provinces, and the distribution was markedly different from the last Mugabe government. For example, Manicaland elites secured several high value appointments, including Defence and War Veterans Affairs Minister, Home Affairs Minister, Minister of Information, and Deputy Minister for Information Technology and Courier Services. Elites from Mashonaland East and West secured positions in the ministries of Agriculture, Energy, Transport, Justice, Tourism and Mines. Despite being densely populated, both Bulawayo and Harare elites have little representation in the new cabinet.
To conclude, a leader is closely dependent on the correct balance of co-opted subnational elites. But a leader’s correct balance is not necessarily one that is fair. Strategies employed to generate a compliant coalition and cabinet are not likely to be stable or peaceful. Regimes across African states have managed to include great numbers of ethno-political communities, expand and retract cabinets frequently, and withstand variable levels and modalities of political violence, both against the state and between elites.
These factors underscore that competitive clientelism is a core feature of African politics, despite violence or mis-representation. Further, it reinforces the importance of subnational elites as critical political figures within African politics and as objects of study amongst scholars seeking to understand the changing dynamics of violence across the continent.
To that end, this expanded understanding of domestic politics in African states – and the strategies of power accumulation across politically relevant groups and elites – differs considerably from the ‘ethnic exclusion’ model that is frequently referenced in conflict literature. As conflict has changed to reveal increasing state violence, militias, and elite manipulation of violent agents, investigations of how domestic politics promotes these trends are compelling: subnational elites are flexible in their associations with leaders and regimes, often crossing ethnic and regional lines. The result is often a coalition that is pragmatic, rather than limited by identity politics. However, the leverage of elites is constantly in flux relative to other elites and the leader. This, in turn, affects their ability to negotiate their relevance with the regime. The regime is subject to constant political recalibration of which violence is a strategy, rather than an indication of government breakdown.
In competitive clientelism, violent strategies are closely associated with included elites, rather than marginalized communities. Pursuing armed, organized violence is a strategy of those with the means and ability to generate significant pressure on the regime; smaller and excluded groups are limited in their capacity to pursue this option. The contest for control and authority is between the strongest groups
and coalitions. To that end, conflict is not due to a breakdown in competitive clientelism; it is often a feature of it.