Debate: PR and Southern Africa: Elections in Agrarian Societies

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Abstract
In agrarian societies, with their low levels of occupational specialization and class identity, most people define their interests and differentiate themselves from one another on the basis of where they live, rather than what they do. They have a strong attachment to the place where they reside and affection for their neighbors. When it comes to elections, they focus on the basic needs of their local community and surrounding region—whether they have adequate water, schools, and health-care facilities, whether there is a farm-to-market road, whether the producer price for the agricultural commodity grown in the area yields a fair return to local farmers, and so on. Inhabitants of a particular rural area usually have a common set of political interests, and they vote accordingly. This explains the high geographic concentration of the vote for competing parties in the recent round of multiparty elections in Africa. Except in urban areas, whose inhabitants come from many different regions and tend to have a relatively strong sense of occupational and class identity, people who live in the same place vote for the same political party. 2 In agrarian societies, people evaluate parties and candidates in terms of their potential for, or past record of, constituency service. 3

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