Mosley, P. and Chiripanhura, B. (2016) The African Political Business Cycle: Varieties of Experience. Journal of Development Studies, 52 (7). pp. 917-932. ISSN 0022-0388
Abstract
We seek to understand both the incidence and the impact of the African political business cycle in the light of a literature which has argued that, with major extensions of democracy since the 1990s, the cycle has both become more intense and has made African political systems more fragile. With the help of country-case studies, we argue, first, that the African political business cycle is not homogeneous, and occurs relatively infrequently in so-called ‘dominant-party systems’ where a pre-election stimulus confers little political advantage. Secondly, we show that, in those countries where a political cycle does occur, it does not necessarily cause institutional damage. Whether it does or not depends not so much on whether there is an electoral cycle as on whether this cycle calms or exacerbates fears of an unjust allocation of resources. In other words, the composition of the pre-election stimulus, in terms of its allocation between different categories of voter, is as important as its size.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an author produced version of a paper subsequently published in Journal of Development Studies. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > Department of Economics (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Nov 2015 15:34 |
Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2017 21:52 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220388.2015.1113263 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Taylor & Francis (Routledge): SSH Titles |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/00220388.2015.1113263 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:92040 |