African Democracy Research Articles

Investigating the democracy and environmental sustainability nexus in 52 African countries: Evidence from two‐stage least squares and quantile regression

AbstractObjectivesThis study has investigated the impact of democracy on the sustainability of the environment in 52 African countries between 1990 and 2020.MethodsThe study utilized the ordinary least square as the baseline estimation technique, the two‐stage least square to account for endogeneity, and the quantile regression to account for existing levels of carbon emissions (CO2), which is a proxy for environmental sustainability.ResultsOur findings show that improving the quality of African democracies will see a significant reduction in the level of CO2 emissions. Electoral and egalitarian democracy have a greater impact on reducing CO2 emissions in Africa and thus improving environmental sustainability. Further findings show that improving the quality of Africa's democracy will better dampen the level of CO2 emissions in African countries where the existing level of CO2 emissions is at its highest levels.ConclusionsThe findings highlight the importance of political institutions in improving environmental sustainability in Africa.

‘Debris’ of Coups D’état: Electoral Democracy, Election Violence, Political Vigilantism, and Elections Securitizations in Africa

Recent warm reception to military takeovers and mongering for coups d’état by citizens in some African nations due primarily to the disillusionment that has accompanied the promise that democracy in a globalized world will lead to prosperity and improve standards of living coupled with the myriad of social, economic, security and political challenges have become of great concerns to scholars, social scientists, advocates, and observers of African democracy. Three decades since the publication of Huntington’s famous work, Democracy’s Third Wave and Prezeworski’s recent book “Crisis in Democracy”, political observers of Africa’s democratic transitions and consolidation are questioning whether recent successful coups and attempts since 2010 in countries such as Mali, Burkina, Faso, Niger, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Gabon, Sudan amongst others raise serious questions about the future of African democracy. The numerous and successful military takeovers across the continent particularly in the West African sub-region raise a myriad of questions as to the direction of African democratic transition and consolidation. These causing many scholars, political analysts, academics, democratic advocates and experts on military takeovers/coup to begin to analyze whether recent happenings on the continent can be characterized as “debris” of coups d’état in the post-independence-democratic transitional era or a reversal of the Third Wave of democracy on the continent. Building upon earlier analytical work on military coups this paper explores the concept of securitization of elections through the recruitment and prioritized treatment of political vigilante groups into the regular and specialized security agencies) as long terms risks for “debris” of coup d’états by adopting elections as a “minimalist” or “electoralist” definition of democracy.

Populism as African Fascism? Examining the Economic Freedom Fighters in Postapartheid South Africa

The twenty-first-century global resurgence in populism has raised academic contention over whether populism undermines or deepens democracy. This question is particularly relevant in postcolonial contexts such as South Africa. Populism can be of both the left and right. Fascism, one permutation of it, has been confined by leftist academics to right-radical nationalism. Contemporary South African populism in the form of the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), the country's third-largest political party, confounds neat categorization. An academic and political debate has ensued about whether the EFF presents a fascist threat to South African democracy. This article extends the scrutiny of the EFF beyond what has been undertaken thus far, to situate and analyze it in relation to economic, political, and social features of fascism, contextual and ideological conditions, and the use of rhetoric and violence.

The Western Democratic Model Facing African Political Cultures

Is there a contradiction between the socio-cultural requirements of the western democratic system and African social structures? To answer this question, this study aims to demonstrate that there are no fundamental contradictions between Africans and Westerners in terms of the democratic values to be promoted. Each people must be able to build its own model. In the first part, the study demonstrates the unsuccessful transposition of the Western democratic model to Africa. The cause is to be found in African practice, which reveals an institutional and legal duality that favors the cohabitation of legitimacies that come from the ballot box and those that do not, whose status differs and whose relationship with each other is confused and likely to provoke conflicts. This means that African democracy functions according to the Western colonial model, even if African social structures still function at the local level. The second part emphasizes the building of a true democracy through culture, whose value is recognized in the norms, institutions, rites and customs of a people. This promotion of positive African values and traditions suggests borrowing from the West only what is compatible with the deep nature of African civilization. This wise and realistic mix needs the unconditional support of the international community. We live in a time of struggle for values. All peoples, even those who were dominated, are trying to propose their values that they consider better.

God’s Diplomats. How Pentecostal Mega-Church Pastors are Transforming African Foreign Policymaking

Last decade brought further increase in popularity and outreach of Pentecostal pastors-evangelists and the expansion of new mega-churches in Sub-Saharan Africa. Media savvy and marketing-skilled charismatic “holy men” perform multiple functions, including that of political actors, increasingly influential, and indispensable in the election cycles of multiple African states, most notably Anglophone ones. Recognising the pivotal role of Pentecostal constituencies, political players, such as candidates in presidential elections seek mega-church leaders’ blessings or a favourable political prophecy. State officials reciprocate with adopting policies which resonate with their message. This mutual relationship and mainstreaming of Pentecostal discourse affects the overall political culture of young, African democracies. As the new brand of Pentecostalism grows on economic deprivation and disillusionment with the state, it also begins to foster, not just metaphorically, an alternative order and set of values. This comes with religiously driven perceptions of pastors’ powers, which makes them seem potentially more effective and legitimate than secular, democratic leaders, and state institutions. Thanks to those credentials, as well as their widely developed networks, influential pastors begin to make inroads into African foreign policymaking. The process of officialising Pentecostal actors as quasi-diplomats as well as absorbing their ideas and modus operandi into the foreign policy arena seem to contradict advancement of professionalism and transparency in diplomacy as functions of state capabilities. However, in some contexts, growth of their powers and outreach may work in favour of increasing African agency.

The Axis of Hate: Identitarianism, Afroxenophobia and Vigilantism

This is an investigation into the similarities and shared values between Identitarianism, xenophobia and vigilantism, by analyzing recent xenophobic and vigilante attacks of foreigners and migrants in Europe and Africa. Identitarianism or the European brand of the Far-Right political dogma is built on adherence to the concept of homogeneity of race or ethnicity, culture, religion, language, and the general aspiration of a body politic. This is the same as basic foundations of Pan-Africanism design. Identity Politics is typified by the systematic exclusion of people with dissimilar ethnicity, racial characteristics and disparate socio-political belief-systems. The three axis of hate, namely Identitarianism, Xenophobia and Vigilantism were conceptually analyzed using refereed papers that were freely available on the Internet to shed light on their relationships and similarities. The aim was to show how these concepts are being deployed by certain socio-political elements in Europe against Africans and other migrants or even legal immigrants. It also shows broadly, how Africans in some African nations deploy the same tools of hate and exclusion on other Africans of different nationalities by way of physical attacks, and economic sabotage and invasion of businesses owned by foreigners. Such experiences have in the past, occurred in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Uganda, Gabon, Angola, Kenya and others. Key finding is that the European brand of Identitarianism and Xenophobia; in all of its hostilities are not intrinsically different from Afro-Xenophobic foundations of Pan-Africanism and African societies even today. What is different is that Identity Politics is actively practiced within the culturally relative African democracies, where the Party in power doles out appointments and contracts to both deserving and undeserving Political Party operators, related persons and entities.

How Economic Informality Constrains Demand for Programmatic Policy

AbstractThe majority of economic actors in the developing world participate in the informal sector, and yet little is known about the political implications of this constituency. I argue that, particularly in weak‐state democracies, economic informality constrains the rise of programmatic politics. An uncertain, undocumented, and irregular economic relationship with the state conveys signals about the state that affect citizens’ demand for and ability to coordinate on programmatic policy. Novel survey evidence from urban Senegal illustrates that greater irregularity is associated with weaker perceptions of tax compliance, lower expectations of government, and weaker coordination capacity and that informality is associated with weaker programmatic demands. Experimentally providing information about a salutary fiscal policy causes some informal sector members to positively update expectations about government performance and electoral coordination capacity. Field experiments in two other African democracies increase confidence in the proposition that informality inhibits the formation of a constituency for programmatic politics.

Negotiating Offence of Fallist Proportion

The removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes at the University of Cape Town in 2015, prompted by the student Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) campaign, represents a window into how questions of race, art and inequality intertwined as they played out some twenty-five years into South African democracy. Since RMF then turned to the artwork exhibited at University of Cape Town, finding in it a collectively degraded vision of blackness − even though much of it was created in support of the anti-Apartheid struggle − this interpretive mismatch then became central to the university’s conflict. The sense of offense felt by RMF over these artworks could, in all probability, not have been negotiated at the time, leading to the abstract question of how such offense might ideally be negotiated. About this, I introduce a dialogical notion, one involving reflection on the part of both parties: the offender and the offended.

Emotional political advertising

The real possibility exists that the overemphasis of a party’s image in advertisementscould lead to the neglect of important political information for voters. Emotional andnegative advertisements could therefore be detrimental to any young democracy.Against this background this article investigates the use of emotional persuasive appealsand negative messages in political newspaper advertisements in the North-West Provinceduring South Africa's general elections in 1999.The results indicate that although all the parties in the study used emotional appeals,they mostly connected them to a policy issue. However, these policy issues were notelaborated on. The opposition parties mostly used appeals of uncertainty, fear and rage.The ruling party in the province (the ANC) concentrated on appeals of hope andachievement.The ANC virtually abstained from using negative messages, while the DP, the NNP andthe FF "attacked" one another in order to emphasise their differences. They did not harmthe sustainability of the South African democracy as such, but they also did very littleto promote it actively through their media advertisements.

Between citizen and vigilante journalism

New forms of online citizen journalism have refreshed political communication in Africa. Newinformation technologies are providing readers with previously unavailable opportunities tocomment and produce their own news and information that is able to influence political processes.However, all is not rosy about Africa’s new citizen journalism. While it has produced reliable andquality information that African democracies require, it has also produced vigilante journalism - avindictive and revengeful form of gathering and disseminating news and information. Vigilantejournalism is similar to the necklacing that was common in South African in the 1980s. The articlediscusses how, at the height of the Zimbabwe crisis (2007-2008), the news website, ZimDaily, leda vigilante campaign to publicly name and have perceived relatives and children of Zimbabweanruling party officials deported from ‘Western’ countries. The idea was to help resolve the politicaland economic crises in Zimbabwe. The editors refused to question the ethics and morality ofthe exercise. Thus, encouraged by the website’s editors, Zimbabwean users of the website tookthe law in their own hands and published addresses, telephone numbers and other personalinformation about anyone thought to be related to those in government in Zimbabwe. This blurredthe boundaries between citizen and vigilante journalism. The resultant vigilante journalism bygroups seeking instant justice was in a way similar to the necklacing, even though this was in avirtual sense. It is clear that the emerging new media spaces in Africa function like double-edgedswords able to either build or destroy democracy.

Presidential discourse, the public and recurring themes: A political communication analysis of the 2019 State of the Nation Address in Ghana

The State of the Nation Address is one of the most important public speeches of a president because it sets the tone, framework and plans of the administration in any given year. This research contributes to contemporary scholarly studies by systematically studying presidential discourse within a growing African democracy – from a communication perspective – rather than the routine generic policy analysis. Since communication is a vital aspect of governance, the present study helps to unearth the policy priorities and framework that characterized a major administration under Ghana’s democracy. From a broader perspective, the textual analysis of this speech offers a modest attempt to examine some elements of political communication within Africa’s democratization process. The major objectives of the study were twofold: (a) first, to analyse the major topics or subject areas embedded in the speech and (b) to ascertain the recurring essential thematic elements of the State of the Nation Address as postulated by Shogan. The results indicate that the social agenda (including sanitation, housing and social amenities) was the central focus of the President’s address, followed by politics, while economic affairs featured as the third predominant issue in the address. Three thematic elements – bipartisanship, past and future, and optimism – are discursively analysed. This study contributes to the study of political communication and Presidential agendas in one of Africa’s fledgling democracies.

Autocratisation, electoral politics and the limits of incumbency in African democracies

ABSTRACT The world is experiencing a new wave of autocratisation, characterised by a global democratic reversal. From 2010 to 2020, the share of the world population living in autocracies increased from 48 to 68%. Electoral autocracies are now the world's most common regime type, and along with closed autocracies they number 87 of the world's 195 states. Even during the height of the third wave of democratisation, elections in Africa rarely led to an alternation of power. Thirty years after the third wave, this special issue introduction takes stock of how many transfers of power occurred in the three crucial decades between 1991 and 2021. In this special issue, we focus on Zambia to understand some of the factors that contributed to an electoral turnover, notwithstanding the many benefits of incumbency that were enjoyed by the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) led by President Edgar Lungu. We show that the outcome of Zambia's August 2021 election demonstrates the limits of incumbency. We suggest that voters and opposition parties in countries with previous experiences of peaceful transfers of power might rely on a ‘democratic muscle-memory’, to dislodge autocrats and call for more research on when and why incumbents lose.

Toward a new political democracy index: Construction, validation, and calculation for individual societies and types of society

AbstractThe article proposes a new composite index of political democracy. It first constructs, elaborates, and rationalizes a comprehensive democracy index composed of 20 indicators and covariates. It then describes data on the democracy indicators and their sources and properties, including their metrics and range or scale which it makes uniform and detailed for precision and discrimination in index computation and estimation. It reports the results of an empirical analysis. Preliminary statistical analyses test for validation and their results indicate that the democracy indicators and index have high validity and reliability and confirm that its dimensions express the same latent variable. Exploratory substantive analyses compute present absolute and standardized democracy indexes both for individual societies such as 36 OECD countries and for types of society, specifically varieties of modern capitalism. The findings indicate wide variations among both individual societies and types of society, notably that coordinated, welfare capitalism surpasses the other varieties of capitalism in liberal political democracy. The article seeks to contribute to a better conceptualization, representation, and measurement of democracy in relation to society and its types.Related ArticlesCollins, Stephen D. 2010. “Regional Trade Agreements and Democracy Promotion: Measuring the Influence of Democracy Requirements in Regional Trade Agreements.” Politics & Policy 38(4): 737–64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2010.00256.x.Davidsson, Simon. 2020. “Modeling the Impact of a Model: The (Non)Relationship between China's Economic Rise and African Democracy.” Politics & Policy 48(5): 859–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12375.Pelizzo, Riccardo, and Zim Nwokora. 2018. “Party System Change and the Quality of Democracy in East Africa.” Politics & Policy 46(3): 505–28. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12255.

The Early Poetry of Kwesi Brew: An Evaluation

Kwesi Brew (1928-2007) had an illustrious career as a poet, diplomat, and businessman that spanned key periods of Ghana’s history, from its colonial era as the Gold Coast to its maturity as a successful West African democracy. And yet when he died, none of his four published volumes of poetry were in print, and he existed mainly in a few anthologized poems. Though some of those are well-known, the breadth of his work has almost disappeared from sight. This essay examines Brew’s early development and growth as a poet, including the specifically African influences on his themes and metaphors, and situates him in the politics and culture of his time. This essay is drawn from a larger project that is in process, namely, the creation of an edition of the Selected Poems of Kwesi Brew, to bring more of his work before the public.

Pre-colonial ethnic institutions and party politics in Africa

We examine the role of ethnic institutions on party politics in African democracies. We combine geo-referenced data from 15 countries, 32 parliamentary elections and around 2700 electoral constituencies. First, we document a strong negative association between the degree of pre-colonial ethnic institutional centralization and the local level of competition between political parties in democratic elections today. Second, to address concerns about unobservable differences in geography or history, we show that results hold true when leveraging for identification the redrawing of constituency boundaries over time. Pre-colonial ethnic institutions shape local electoral outcomes and matter for the present and future of African democracies.

Review of Prisoners of the Past: South African Democracy and the Legacy of Minority Rule

Review of Prisoners of the Past: South African Democracy and the Legacy of Minority Rule

Partisanship in a Young Democracy: Evidence from Ghana

Abstract While past studies have put forward many reasons why partisanship in young African democracies should be considered weak, I show evidence that suggests the presence of strong and stable patterns of partisanship among ordinary citizens. Based on survey data from Ghana, I exploit the variation introduced by the close general elections of 2008 to compare perceptions and attitudes of party supporters when their preferred party is in power and when it is not in a Difference-in-differences setting. The results suggest that partisanship is both meaningful and prompts motivated reasoning among citizens. On the one hand, this can be seen as evidence for a stable party landscape and thus a more mature democracy, but on the other hand, partisan polarization may also obstruct effective governance. Furthermore, the analysis of attitudes towards democratic principles uncovers a double standard that carries the potential to negatively affect efforts towards the consolidation of democracy. A simple heterogeneity analysis indicates that improving education might reduce partisan polarization but will likely not erase it. The analysis further suggests that ethnic identities seem to exist alongside partisan identities, but still, strongly determine the strength of party attachment in Ghana. Future research on political behavior needs to acknowledge the presence of these partisan motives and continue to investigate the impact of partisanship on the further development of democratic institutions in African democracies.

8 - Transformative Autonomy: Mixed Notes from Teachers to Higher Education

Transformative autonomy is ‘the form of autonomy in which school role players, such as teachers, have the urge to be involved with fellow role players in education development initiatives towards social transformation which contributes to democracy’ (Nel 2014: 790). This theoretical construct was formulated to narrow the gap between teaching practice and societal concerns since it recognizes that teachers do have a certain degree of au- tonomy over their professional practice but also a responsibility towards the evolving South African democracy. In an effort to test the veracity of transformative autonomy as a theoretical construct data was gathered from three sets of participants: twenty-six postgraduate students, thirteen rural primary school teachers and thirty-one conference delegates. Some key findings are that participants generally acknowledged their control over curriculum aspects and some degree of control over matters of discipline. A curious finding is the appearance of discipline as an aspect over which some participants felt they have control and other participants felt they had no control. These findings, and others, are discussed in the context of transformative autonomy. One of the main conclusions is that these par- ticipants display an intuitive understanding of their autonomy as teachers but that they still do not have a clear idea of how to link their expertise to societal transformation. It is lastly concluded that the issue of autonomy has epistemological implications insofar as the condition of knowledge production, reproduction and dissemination is concerned, all of which impact on teachers’ intellectual integrity. Higher education, therefore, is alerted to its responsibility in teacher training.

South African Amnesty 2.0: Incomprehensible?

The South African democracy faces a crisis of legitimacy and identity that locks it into a state of inertia. The state is proving unable to critically advance the constitutional ends of transformative democracy. It lacks the strategic concepts and arguments to do so and has subsequently become embroiled in an existential battle for the soul of the country. As a critical contribution, this essay evokes the need for politically expedient approaches and arguments. It reflects on the past, on the methodologies employed to bring about the unitary, democratic state, and on the need to look at purposeful, albeit incomprehensible, strategies that will allow transcendence beyond the current impasse. By and large, South Africa sets an example. It is a laboratory for democracy, and for that very reason, much like Athens, it will long remain an oddity, not only in Africa (as the Afro pessimists’ simplistic litany would like to have us believe) but also in global politics. South Africa is a test case for global democracy; it is a test case for rhetoric; and it is a test case for the relevance of rhetoric studies in a postmodern democracy.

The African state today and the democracy ideal: A case for a critical return

Undoubtedly, many modern nation-states seek to achieve a better form of democratic governance. The African nation-state is not an exception. However, the attempt by African nation-states to achieve the ideal form of democratic governance has been especially problematic. The real problem, as we see it, is that because of the forces of colonization and neo-colonization, Africa especially has scarcely had the opportunity to articulate and practice an uninterrupted democracy that accords with her indigenous political values and contemporary political experience. The upshot of this failure is the myriad of governance problems that plague contemporary African nation-states. Adopting both a descriptive and normative approach in this paper, we aim to uncover valuable aspects of traditional African politics which have been jettisoned in the politics of today. We further discuss why such worthwhile elements need to be refined and incorporated into contemporary African democracies. We analyze the traditional Fante governance system as a model of consensual democracy rooted in the African traditional concept of statehood that must be re-enacted to suit the practice of nation building in Africa today. Thus, we re-echo the largely held view that consensual democracy shows positive prospects for the issue of substantive representation in African politics today. Key words: African democracy, consensual, multiparty, nation-state, colonial mentality, ethnic, tradition and modernity, Fante.