ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a meaningful measure of the extent to which party systems in sub-Saharan Africa are institutionalized. It addresses the main issues revolving around the measurement of party system institutionalization (PSI) and proposes a new framework for analysis that differs from others used in and out of the African continent. The 1960s and 1970s were marked by a proliferation of studies which adopted slightly different indicators for its operationalization. Party institutionalization may either be mutually supportive of or at least compatible with PSI or be at odds with it. Dimensions such as stability of interparty competition and stable roots in society express the structural characteristics of institutionalization. Stable roots in society and stable patterns of interparty competition are likely to exhibit continuity. Mergers are an important aspect both of interparty and intraparty competition as they result from the decision of one party to dissolve itself and join a different party or to create a completely new entity.
