ABSTRACT
The purpose of the analysis provided in this chapter and the next is to test the portion of the main hypothesis that addresses the general impact indigenous institutions have on the ability of political actors to accept multiparty governance. This hypothesis is derived from the theory of historical institutionalism and firmly grounded in the democratization literature – both of which assume that past institutions impact future institutional development by constraining the choices and behavior of actors. In keeping with historical institutionalist scholars, who assume a reciprocal relationship exists between informal institutions and the state, this study demonstrates that neither social structures nor traditional political institutions impacted the dependent variable independently of the other.
