On Losers’ Politics: A Study On African Presidential Election And Ethnic Conflict

Compared with established democratic states, African countries often face the problem of so‐called “losers’ politics”, a phenomenon in which electoral losers are unwilling to accept election results. This study calls into question the common practice among Western academics of attributing such failures to African ethnic conflicts. Combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies, this paper reviews losers’ politics in Africa between1960and2012and identifies3phases in the development of losers’ politics, namely the early stage after decolonization from1960to1970, the political modernization reversion period from1971to1991, and the third wave democratization period from1992to2012. The research finds that ethnic conflict can’t be identified as one constant factor of losers’ politics. In fact, ethnic conflict only becomes statistically significant in the second phase, which means ethnic conflict may not be the real reason for the breakdown of the electoral process. Meanwhile, the quantitative research implies another important conclusion, namely that external intervention is one of the key causal factors for losers’ politics in both the first and third phases, a fact which the West tries hard to conceal. In other words, the West is potentially spreading “democrazy” but not democracy in Africa, which illustrates the importance of African countries taking full responsibility for their own political modernization.