Politische Parteien und ihre Funktionen in afrikanischen Demokratien. Analysekonzept und empirische Befunde zu Botswana und Namibia

A representative democracy demands the existence of political parties. As long as there is no working multiparty system a democracy is not consolidated. But so far political parties in Africa did not take the centre stage in the debate on transformation processes. The article takes this gap as starting point and provides a concept for the analysis of political parties in Africa. For this purpose the argumentation is divided into two parts. The first part presents a theoretical concept for a functional analysis of political parties in Africa. The second part provides some findings on political parties in Botswana and Namibia. On the one hand a couple of similarities between parties in Botswana and Namibia exist. Maybe most noticeably is the weakness of opposition parties in both countries. On the other hand there are also some differences between both countries. While the party system in Namibia is still structured along ethnic or linguistic cleavages one can notice in Botswana a slight trend towards party competition along economic conflicts. This makes the alternation of power more likely, and is one main criteria of consolidation.