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In this paper I propose to examine the tendency towards single-party systems in West Africa, particularly in relation to the social structure and the historical circumstances in which the parties emerged. I shall therefore point up the distinction between "mass" and "patron" parties, and then consider the new single-party governments, most of them based on mass parties, in relation to the prospects of of democracy in West Africa. My argument is that mass parties are created by African leaders out of the very liberating and egalitarian forces we in this country generally associate with democracy. Some of the mass parties encourage the growth of forces and institutions which may ultimately make possible the machinery of democratic systems familiar to us: as, for instance, competition for every citizen's vote by more than one organized team of candidates. At this stage of West African party history, it seems to me, the number of parties is far too simple a criterion upon which to decide whether or not a system is democratic.General statements about parties in the new West African states can be made only tentatively. Significant rights to vote and organize parties came to West Africa only after the Second World War. Since then formal institutional change has taken place at a rapid pace. The constitutional framework in which the parties grew changed continuously. The franchise expanded until it became universal, the powers of African elected representatives grew by stages from consultative to legislative and eventually to executive, and the locus of political power shifted from London or Paris to Africa.

The literature on comparative political institutions highlights a tradeoff between majoritarian/plurality and proportional/consensus models of democracy. The former arrangement is said to enhance having governing parties held accountable. The latter is said to promote representation of a range of views, with a coalition of multiple parties governing. A tradeoff may be that the representativeness of multi-party coalitions can make it difficult for voters to hold government accountable, while single-party governments that facilitate accountability might fail to represent a range of parties in government. The ability of voters to respond to such differences is, however, subject to some skepticism given that the public opinion literature finds serious limits on a person's ability to know basic facts about political institutions, let alone have preferences for governments that reflect democratic norms of accountability and representativeness. We assess public preferences for single versus multi-party governments and find evidence of systematic preferences that suggests people may link democratic norms of accountability and representativeness to the governmental system that promotes the respective norm. Preferences are also associated with the party system that people are familiar with.

With the exception of Libya, Egypt, the Sudanese Republic, and Ethiopia, where no political parties exist, some variation of the single-party political system or a distinctive tendency in that direction may be found in nearly all of the independent African states. That this should have come to pass within the relatively short period of the rise of African states has been a surprise to some observers of African nationalist movements and parties during the colonial period—who were rather sanguine about the prospects of Western-type democracy and party systems in Africa—as well as to the colonial powers themselves (especially Britain and France)—who presumably assumed that their policies of decolonization in Africa were providing the institutional framework within which Western-type party systems and politics would prevail.

Single-party dominance (SPD) is a phenomenon that has puzzled many scholars within the field of political science, as it does not fit into the standard dichotomy of democracy versus dictatorship. Kenneth Greene's Resource Theory seeks to explain prolonged electoral dominance in these systems by looking at resource asymmetries between the governing party and the opposition. Greene applies his theory to democratic and non-democratic SPD systems alike. In order to expand knowledge in the field of SPD research, this thesis has provided a critical analysis of Greene's theory using South Africa under the ANC within the timeframe of 1994 to February 2018 as an illustrative case. The thesis concluded that the Resource Theory could not be used for explaining ANC dominance, and indicated that resources have a limited power to explain SPD. As such, the aim of the thesis is to uncover theoretical weaknesses of the theory. Firstly, it is argued that the theory is weakened by the use of subjective and sometimes arbitrary concepts which hamper testability. The main theoretical flaw identified is Greene's assumptions of the nature of such systems, in which he sees the dominant party as one unit. I argue in this research that this assumption renders the theory unable to predict the consequences of factionalisation within the dominant party. Three main factors are identified to justify why resources have limited explanatory power. Firstly, factionalisation leads to intra-party competition for state resources, and these factions become dependent on a steady stream of resources to sustain themselves. This competition can become so fierce that the economy suffers. When resources become less available, these conflicts intensify. Consequently, the dominant party starts deteriorating from within and misconduct can no longer be concealed from the public. As the government becomes less responsive in terms of providing public goods in combination with increased public awareness, voter dissatisfaction also intensifies. This eventually leads citizens to abandon their allegiance to the party. The research study shows that resources are not independent from external and internal environments, indicating that asymmetric resource advantages alone cannot explain why these systems exist over longer periods of time.