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You Have to Know Where to Look in Order to Find It: Competitiveness in Botswana's Dominant Party System

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 October 2012

Stephanie Burchard
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Abstract

Dominant party systems are defined by a lack of party alternation at the national level; however, dominant party systems do not inherently preclude electoral competition at the macro level, the micro level, or both. Nonetheless, little systematic work has documented the competitiveness of elections under a dominant party system. This article describes the nature of competition under one of sub-Saharan Africa's most enduring dominant party systems, Botswana. By examining electoral outcomes at the constituency level, this article demonstrates that elections in Botswana produce significant levels of competition, especially when compared to other sub-Saharan countries. Furthermore, electoral competitiveness appears unrelated to the party system at large: namely, competitiveness is no less or greater under dominant party systems than under multiparty systems.

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Government and Opposition , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 101 - 126
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Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 2012

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Footnotes

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Stephanie Burchard is a research staff member at the Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, VA. Contact email: smburchard@gmail.com.

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