Measuring and comparing party ideology in non-industrialised societies: taking party manifesto research to Africa

The third wave of democratisation in sub-Saharan Africa has led to a new interest in African political parties and their role in democratic consolidation. However few, if any, studies systematically compare political party manifestos. . This study rectifies this empirical void by applying the Manifesto Research Group’s Comparative Manifesto Project (MRG/CMP) coding scheme to a complete set of election manifestos in Ghana, Kenya, and Namibia. Its main aim is to determine whether this research tool - which has been usefulto study Western politics - can be used to study political parties in non-industrialised societies.

The study examines the extent to which African manifestos advance programmatic ideas and investigates how African parties position themselves on a right-left spectrum. It also examines the stance of individual parties on specific policy issues such as democracy and human rights, education, corruption, youth and women, and inter-communal relations. Additionally, the study provides a review of previous and current approaches to the study of political ideology in Africa.

The three countries were selected because political ideology is expected to affect party politics to different degrees in each of the countries. The study shows that most parties:

• fail to advance programmatic ideas in their manifestos and results indicate drastic differences between parties
• display a moderate inclination in favor of the political Left.
  

The paper argues that although the MRG scheme has been designed against the historical background of European politics, it can be applied to advance the study of African parties. It further observes that::

• Programmatic ideas do feature in African party politics but at a generally low level.
• Parties put great emphasis on issues devoid of ideology, such as infrastructure improvements or increases in productivity.
• Of the five topics selected, African parties care most about provision of education.
• While parties care greatly about democracy, this tendency declines once the respective parties are in government.
• The emphasis on social harmony and multiculturalism is equally low in all countries.
• Findings correspond to the historical or political circumstances the respective party has faced, proving that party election manifestos are genuine expressions of political will rather than mere responses to donor pressure.
  

The paper concludes that the application of the MRG/CMP scheme can thus serve as a useful tool for examining political parties in non-industrialised, ethnically segmented societies and comparing the results with the content of Western manifestos.