African Democracy Research Articles

Law, Politics and the Quality of Government in Africa

This paper examines interconnections between law, politics and the quality of government in Africa. We investigate whether African democracies enjoy relatively better government quality compared to their counterparts with more autocratic inclinations. The empirical evidence is based on Instrumental variable Two-Stage-Least Squares and Fixed Effects with data from 38 African countries for the period 1994-2010. Political regimes of democracy, polity and autocracy are instrumented with income-levels, legal-origins, religious-dominations and press-freedom to account for government quality dynamics, of corruption-control, government-effectiveness, voice and accountability, political-stability, regulation quality and the rule of law. Findings show that democracy has an edge over autocracy while the latter and polity overlap. As a policy implication, democracy once initiated should be accelerated to edge the appeals of authoritarian regimes.

Book Review: Ian Shapiro and Kahreen Tebeau (Eds), After Apartheid: Reinventing South Africa?

Ian Shapiro and Kahreen Tebeau (Eds), After Apartheid: Reinventing South Africa? University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, 2011, 376 pp., ISBN 9780813930978, ₹ 2,994.

The Liberating Potential of Oral Literature in a Globalized Context

Without sounding like a dissenter or an arch pessimist, it is pertinent to assert that indigenous African cultures are today at the brink of extinction due to marginalization and the imposition of European values made possible largely by advanced information technology that is a function of globalization. This erosive tendency, if unchecked, has the potential to obliterate African cultures and ways of life particularly given the rate at which globalizing trends that aim at international integration and interchange of world views, products and ideas, including democratic ideals, are fast enveloping African states, even at traditional levels. Already, African cultures are dubbed primitive, African democracy plastic and unsophisticated, even by Africans themselves. To attempt to reverse this trend and focus attention on the upliftment of the African image and identity, this paper explores the role oral literature can play within the current context of globalization and the attainment of democratic ideals. The paper therefore posits that the neglect of oral literature accounts for the continuous enslavement of the African mentality leading to the excessive reliance on Eurocentric paradigms for the interpretation of reality. It concludes that for Africa and Africans to impact democratically in todays globalized context, Africans should have recourse to the liberating potential of oral literature to strengthen their image and identity which can then be bandied positively in the modern capitalist market economy driven by globalization.

Governance, ‘sovereignty-state-territory triad’, human population migration and xenophobia in (South) Africa

This article seeks to examine the association of the concept of governance of international relations and, by implication, human population migration, through the rigid practices of “sovereignty-state-territory triad” with the fomentation and exacerbation of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia in Africa, in general, and South Africa, in particular. Ascriptions of the majority of population migration as “international” affirms the centrality of the operationalisation of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad” in understanding the fragmentary constructions of societal attitudes and perceptions of people resident in distinct geopolitical entities ascribed as national territories. State and non-state governance entrapments with this triad perpetuate societal stereotypes that are in concurrence with bordered-territories where populations described as citizens are stimulated to protect endowments and resources of the land against the perceived destruction associated with the conduct of the out-groups. Unsurprisingly, the theorisation of human population migration has equally been intricately involved with environmental conservation and securitisation of biodiversity that enables land dispossession of the vulnerable sections of the population through the Western economic narratives of “Peace Parks”. Simultaneously in Southern Africa, the concept of African Renaissance, inescapably embedded with “cooperation and conflict” at all scales, has offered a buzzword to be realised through “Peace Parks” that have evidently failed to deliver reaffirmation of African cultures, continental emancipation and democratisation. The preeminence of societal stereotypes, attitudes and perceptions of xenophobia and violent abuses of African immigrants in South Africa provides vivid illustrations of the inconsistencies and non-linearity of concepts such as African Renaissance and “Peace Parks”. This article asserts that measures for repairing the landscapes of xenophobia among Africans, especially in South Africa, will remain pipedreams if they are not embedded with adaptive governance designed to undermine the rigidities of the “sovereignty-state-territory triad”, prevalent in the international relations.

The Immortals in Our Midst: Why Democracies in Africa Need Them

Africa lacks the particular history of liberal institutions and values that has served as the foundation for democratic institutions in the West. Without such a foundation, prospects for well-functioning democracy in African are not good. I argue that a possible alternative basis for African democracy may be found in “civic immortals,” extraordinary individuals capable of introducing dramatic shifts in political values. Civic immortals occupy the highest rung of a hierarchy of personhood in many indigenous African cultures, each of which is considered to share in a different degree of life after physical death, and each of which corresponds to a different class of citizen. I examine three examples of African civic immortals: Nelson Mandela, Sunjata Keita (founder of the Malian empire and author of the Oath of the Hunters), and Ngonnso (the founder of the Nso dynasty). These extraordinary individuals shared an ambition to achieve lasting political change, and succeeded in transforming their political systems. Understanding the critical role that these civic immortals play in creating political change—both by directly changing political institutions and by inspiring ordinary citizens—offers us another tool for establishing stable and effective democratic institutions. It also highlights the ironically impersonal nature of contemporary liberal theory, and suggests a way that individual personalities and diversity among citizens may have a role in understanding political theory and practice.

Political Selection Method for African Democracies

This essay, having identified the failure of political leadership as the bane of economic development and democracy in Africa, has outlined mechanisms for selecting high quality leaders into public office. In the first stage of the screening process, certain elements of costs are imposed on the intending politicians so as to deter the entry of dishonest politicians into politics. This is accomplished via the inverse relationship between the degree of honest and the costs of participation. The unique thing is that separating equilibrium that makes participation costs zero for honest individuals and heavy for their dishonest counterparts could in principle be obtained. Interestingly the mechanisms that generate information about the past of intending politicians also impose heavy costs on groups which supply this information.

Rural bias in African electoral systems: Legacies of unequal representation in African democracies

Although electoral malapportionment is a recurrent theme in monitoring reports on African elections, few researchers have tackled this issue. Here we theorize the meaning and broader implications of malapportionment in eight African countries with Single Member District (SMD) electoral systems. Using a new dataset on registered voters and constituency level election results, we study malapportionment's magnitude, persistence over time, and electoral consequences. The analysis reveals that patterns of apportionment institutionalized in the pre-1990 era established a long-lasting bias in favor of rural voters. This “rural bias” has been strikingly stable in the post-1990 era, even where the ancien regime has been voted out of power. These findings underscore the importance of the urban-rural distinction in explaining electoral outcomes in Africa.

Do Citizens Reward Good Service? Voter Responses to Basic Service Provision in Southern Africa

Theories of democratic governance posit that citizens should reward politicians for good service and punish them for bad. But does electoral accountability work as theorized, especially in developing country contexts? We contribute a new empirical answer to this question. We study Southern African democracies, where infrastructural investment in basic services has expanded widely, but not universally. We first analyze whether increases in local service provision predict increases in voting returns at various levels of geographic aggregation. We then analyze geo-coded, individual-level survey data that allow us to consider the relationship between service delivery, political attitudes and voting intentions. Together, these analyses demonstrate, quite unequivocally, that citizens do not reward good service. We explore the mechanisms that may account for this surprising finding.

Review of Danielle Resnick, Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014)

Journal of International DevelopmentVolume 27, Issue 7 p. 1343-1344 Book Review Review of Danielle Resnick, Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014) Michael Bratton, Corresponding Author Michael Bratton [email protected] Michigan State University, MI, United StatesSearch for more papers by this author Michael Bratton, Corresponding Author Michael Bratton [email protected] Michigan State University, MI, United StatesSearch for more papers by this author First published: 26 October 2015 https://doi.org/10.1002/jid.3121Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume27, Issue7October 2015Pages 1343-1344 RelatedInformation

Partisan Portfolio Allocation in African Democracies

What determines partisan portfolio allocation in African democracies? Despite the vast literature on government formation in Europe and Latin America, there have been no studies of partisan portfolio allocation in Africa. Although coalition governments are increasingly common in Africa, most studies focus on national leaders, and, thus, we know little about how ministerial posts are divided among cabinet parties. Using an original dataset of coalition governments in Africa from 1990 to 2013, we show that existing theories of partisan portfolio allocation travel well to the African context. We find that African parties receive ministerial portfolios in rough proportion to their size, that formateur parties in Africa receive more ministerial portfolios than their European counterparts, and that the 'formateur bonus' is greater in Africa's presidential regimes than in its parliamentary ones. Our analyses suggest that scholars should pay more attention to coalition governments in their analyses of African politics.

Archipelagos of dominance. Party fiefdoms and South African democracy

South Africa is routinely characterised as a ‘party dominant’ polity because the governing African National Congress has won every national election since democracy was achieved in 1994. This article challenges this understanding. The system, it argues, is not one in which a single party uses its electoral majority to impose its will on society. It is better understood as one in which ‘archipelagos of domination’—which exist in a polity when more than one social group and more than one party achieve political and social domination of geographically distinct areas—shapes politics and determines who wields power. This is a consequence both of the society’s identity divisions and of the reality, often ignored by theories of ‘party dominance’, that social power—the capacity of actors in society to wield power through control of intellectual and material resources—can achieve what party dominance is said to achieve: a virtual monopoly on setting the agenda. It argues also that current literature on subnational dominance, while it offers valuable insights, ignores the role of social power and is thus unable to explain societies which have been shaped to varying degrees by the domination of one race over another.

The idea of a ‘Just State’ (Rechtsstaat) (with reference to a unique feature of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa)

In South Africa the acquisition of full political and civil rights for all rectified the former political situation of apartheid South Africa. Against the background of key developments in the political legacy of the West, including the opposing theoretical orientations of individualistic and universalistic approaches, the historical roots of those conditions which eventually were recognised as essential for the idea of a just state are highlighted. Adding a mere multiplicity of individuals (atomistic social contract theories) or postulating one or another encompassing whole (such as Rousseau's volonté générale) precludes an insight into the own inner laws of distinct societal spheres. The concept of sovereignty appears not to be sufficient to delimit state-law properly. An alternative view is introduced by Althusius (1603) with his objection to the application of the whole-parts relation to society and the state. He acknowledges ‘leges propriae’ (proper laws for each societal collectivity and thus opened up an avenue for introducing the principle of sphere-sovereignty, which leaves room for the internal spheres of law of non-political societal entities as well as for personal freedom. If the spheres of public law, civil private law and non-civil private law are intact, political freedom, personal freedom and societal freedoms are secured—the structural conditions for the just state. The Constitution of South Africa incorporates these requirements for a Rechtsstaat and in addition contains a unique equity content. The future of the South African democracy is therefore crucially dependent upon the internalisation of a truly Rechtsstaat political culture.

Finding Partisanship Where We Least Expect it: Evidence of Partisan Bias in a New African Democracy

Much of the literature on political behavior in Africa’s new semi-democracies has treated partisan affiliation as weak, purely pragmatic, or a proxy for other, more meaningful identities such as ethnicity. In this article, I dispute these conceptions by demonstrating that partisanship in an African context, like partisanship in established democracies, is a psychologically meaningful identity that can inspire voters to engage in motivated reasoning. By combining survey data with an original dataset of objective indicators of local public goods quality in Uganda, I show that supporters of the incumbent president systematically overestimate what they have received from government, while opposition supporters systematically underestimate. Partisan support precedes, rather than results from, this mis-estimation. I also show that partisans of the incumbent (opposition) are significantly more (less) likely to attribute any bad outcomes they observe to private actors rather than the government. I argue that these findings are consistent with the predictions of social identity theory: the conflict that marked many African political transitions, and the mapping of African parties onto existing social cleavages, are sufficient conditions for the creation of strong political-social identities like those that characterize partisanship in the West. My findings indicate that Africanists should take partisanship seriously as a predictor of political behavior and attitudes.

South Africa-the present as history: from Mrs Ples to Mandela & Marikana. By John S. Saul and Patrick Bond

South Africa—the present as history: from Mrs Ples to Mandela & Marikana. By John S. Saul and Patrick Bond. Woodbridge: James Currey. 2014. 302pp. Index. £40.00. ISBN 978 1 84701 092 6. Available as e-book. The initial democratic era under the presidency of the icon Nelson Mandela, between 1994 and the end of the century, allowed South Africa to score big in terms of international reputation. Inherited flaws in the structural legacy of the country and a reformist government reluctant to transform the economy were largely overlooked—if not even considered as positive realpolitik. Mandela's successor, the technocrat and foreign policy-maker Thabo Mbeki, personified more obviously the limits to emancipation than the charismatic Mandela. Mbeki's ousting from office and—after a short interim period—the takeover by his rival Jacob Zuma, was another step in the country's decline. As regional hegemon and junior member of the BRICS, South Africa increasingly faced challenges and problems both at the domestic front and in its role as a power with geostrategic influence on the continent. The 20 years of South African democracy therefore offer plenty of opportunity for reflection. This book takes a closer look at the domestic front and provides a brutally frank, if not devastating, verdict.

English

In Senegal, as in other emerging African democracies, political corruption remains rampant. While all experts on Africa acknowledge the profound impact of widespread corruption on politics, there is disagreement on the role corruption plays on average citizens' behavior. Does corruption affect participation in Africa, and if so, does it do so because powerful patrons compel or bribe Africans to vote? Or, are Africans motivated to vote because they dislike corruption and want to punish or remove corrupt leaders? Using a field based experiment set in Senegal, we study the effect of perceptions of national-level corruption on political participation. We find that as perceived corruption increases, subjects are more likely to vote. We replicate these findings with Round 3 of the Afrobarometer survey. Key words: Corruption, voting, turnout, ethnicity, participation.

The Influence of Aid Changes on African Election Outcomes

Many African democracies experience highly variable aid flows. This article examines the influence of aid changes on presidential incumbent advantage in Africa. Aid changes influence the odds of incumbents winning reelection, with aid increases helping incumbents, but this effect is only present when the aid change occurs in the year before an election. Aid changes in earlier or later time periods have no influence. Case studies of elections in Ghana and Malawi reveal causal mechanisms linking aid changes to incumbent advantage and support the finding that aid changes have a limited window of influence.

A Tribute to Bernard Magubane

I owe my present position as the executive director of the South African Democracy Education Trust (SADET) to both Professor Makhosezwe Bernard Magubane and Dr Yvonne Muthien, who convinced me to j...

Post-liberation Democratic Authoritarianism: The Case of Namibia

Namibia is praised as one of the most laudable democratic societies in Sub-Saharan Africa. But it also displays strong tendencies of autocratic political rule and intolerance with regard to views dissenting from the official ‘patriotic history’ under the former liberation movement, the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO of Namibia), since Independence transformed into SWAPO Party. This article summarises and seeks to explain the underlying social currents for this situation. By doing so, it also illustrates that a formally intact democratic system does neither produce a fully democratic political culture—nor democrats, for that matter. A truly democratic breakthrough for a pluralist society based on mutual respect despite different political opinions seems, under the given circumstances of the Namibian society, an unlikely development in the near future, notwithstanding the good marks the political system receives in international rankings for African democracies.

Teaching Masculinities in a South African Classroom

In terms of gender equity the first two decades of South African democracy have seen substantial change – at least where legislation is concerned. In terms of daily lived realities however, such change seems to have had little or no impact. South African women continue to take primary responsibility for reproductive work and continue to dominate the ranks of the poor. Levels of gender based violence remain amongst the highest in the world. The last decade or so has seen scholars offer a range of overlapping and intersecting explanations for the slow pace of change, with some pointing to the lack of significant political commitment and the roles of ‘custom’ and ‘tradition’. Others have suggested that change requires working more directly with boys and men. Despite these observations – and concomitant interventions - movement towards gender equity remains slow. In this paper I hope to contribute to the debate around resistance to change by drawing on student engagement with, and understandings of, an introduction to gender studies course between 2013 and 2014 at the University of the Western Cape. In the paper I reflect on ways in which teaching gender through a focus on men and masculinities offers insights into resistance to gender equity as well as possibilities for challenging such resistance.

It’s My Party (And I’ll Do What I Want To)?: Internal Party Democracy and Section 19 of The South African Constitution

South Africa’s democracy has both representative and participatory elements. The participatory aspect of democracy enhances the civic dignity of citizens by empowering them to take part in decisions that affect their lives. However, the overbearing role that political parties play in the South African democracy runs the risk of limiting the ability of citizens to participate effectively in decisions that impact on their lives. This is because the leaders of political parties (especially of governing parties) may wield enormous power and influence inside their respective parties and in the legislature and executive. Where the ordinary members of parties have little or no direct say about the formulation of the policies of the party they belong to or the election of its leaders or those who will stand for election as public representatives at national and provincial level, the ability of such members to participate in democratic processes and decisions are limited. To facilitate the participation of party members in the activities of a political party to ensure the enhancement of their civic dignity s 19(1)(b) of the Constitution guarantees the right of every citizen freely to make political choices, including the right to participate in the activities of, or recruit members for, a political party. In Ramakatsa v Magashule the majority of the Constitutional Court affirmed the importance of the right of party members to participate freely in the activities of the political party they belong to and also found that the constitutions of political parties have to ensure this happens. Provisions of a political party’s constitution can be declared invalid if it fails to comply with the provisions of the Bill of Rights (including s 19(1) (b)). This article contends that Ramakatsa can be interpreted to place a positive duty on the legislature to pass a ‘party law’ that sets minimum requirements to protect the democratic participation of party members in the activities of the party – including about the formulation of party policies, the election of party office bearers and the selection of the party’s candidates for election as public representatives.