Old boys, church mates, childhood friends: How social relations form and sustain the multi-ethnic political elite in Africa

In analysing elite accommodation, political science has often focused on ascriptive attributes such as region or ethnicity. The social foundations of elite networks, however, are more complex. Using original data from Gabon, Benin, Cameroon, Uganda and Botswana, this paper shows that the majority of Members of Parliament have known at least one of their fellow Members of Parliament prior to being elected. Many of these prior contacts stem from joint membership in political and civic associations, sports clubs or churches, while a substantial share originates in educational institutions. A further category relates to home communities, kinship ties and matrilineal or patrilineal systems of descent. The findings demonstrate that these relational foundations contribute more to the formation of political networks than social selection based on ascriptive identities. To better understand elite alignment, research must therefore pay closer attention to the processes of elite formation and reproduction.