One undeniable feature of the growing economies in sub-Saharan Africa is urbanisation. Cities grow faster here than in any other region in the world, and this will have profound effects on politics in Africa. This is one reason behind this recent study, Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies, by Danielle Resnick. The author aims towards a better understanding of the political dynamics within the growing, mostly poor, urban population in emerging democratic states in Africa. The main cases are Senegal and Zambia, with a brief additional outlook on Kenya, Botswana and South Africa. The particular focus in this study is why and when the urban poor vote for opposition parties; what kind of strategies they use: clientelist, personalist or programmatic. All three have a role, the author claims, within a fourth strategy: the populist. This is defined as a mode of mobilisation that involves an anti-elitist discourse, a policy message oriented around social inclusion, and a charismatic leader who professes an affinity with the underclass.

Another reason for the study is to better understand how opposition parties can be successful in elections, thus contributing to the consolidation of democracy in the region. Resnick makes use of elite interviews in Ghana and Zambia and surveys of urban poor voters in marketplaces in Lusaka and Dacca. The latter part of the study reveals that ethnic voting played a part in the successful elections by the opposition in Zambia, combined with the populist strategy highlighted by the author. Similar populist strategies were not employed by the opposition in Senegal, where the incumbent succeeded.

The book reveals that populist tendencies are not only used by the political opposition, but that, in the two main cases, Senegal and Zambia, only those candidates that used a populist strategy were successful. Resnick also shows that effective candidates reached out beyond the urban centres to the more populated rural areas with a clientilist or ethnically aligned strategy. With organisational membership being low, those candidates that tried to build on labour union support, for example, did not reverberate with large sections of the poor urban population that belong to the informal sector.

This careful study is mostly about voting behaviour and electoral strategies. The chapter discussing populist political strategies and its history in other parts of the world does not really ask questions about the degree to which these kind of policies are viable, responsible and sustainable in the long run. There is no discussion on the arguable parallel with mass populist movements in the early 20th century in Europe that did use ethnic linkages in order to win elections – the fascist and national socialist movements. There are similar tendencies within some very successful populist parties in southern Africa. However, it could be said in defence that such questions are outside the strict scope set out for the present inquiry.