ABSTRACT
Cape Verde has developed a highly institutionalized party system that has been able to promote change, to accommodate and channel the inflows of participation and in which major political actors are committed to democratic principles and practices. This chapter provides an overview of Cape Verde's political history, covering independence, one-partyism and the shift to multipartyism. It then focuses on the mechanisms associated with the transition stage, the effects of political institutions and the party–citizen linkages. This analysis combines various data sources, from electoral and survey data through semi-structured interviews conducted with political and social elites during fieldwork in 2017. Political liberalization measures started to be implemented in response to both the internal crises faced by the party until 1980 and to the aforementioned breach of the social contract. Contrary to Mozambique and Zambia where experiences and perceptions of politics vary greatly in accordance with the party to which the citizens feel more attached, Cape Verde displays more similarities than differences.
