Political Liberalization In Africa Research Articles

Extraversion, vulnerability to donors, and political liberalization in Africa

In seeking to maintain their power, many African regimes rely on strategies of extraversion, converting their dependent relations with the external world into domestic resources and authority. This article assesses the relationship between extraversion and political liberalization, a dimension of African democratization that has been somewhat underappreciated in recent empirical studies. African countries vary in their extraversion portfolios, or the dimensions of their relations to the outside world that they can instrumentalize, and these variations correspond both to different degrees of vulnerability to the demands of foreign donors and to different preferences from the donors themselves. We find four quantitative measures of extraversion vulnerability to be statistically associated with the initial transitions of the 1989–1995 period and with the ‘consolidations’ at different levels of democracy observable between 1995 and 2011. These findings shed new light on both democratic and hybrid regime trajectories in Africa. MOST EMPIRICAL STUDIES of the determinants of political liberalization in Africa have focused on domestic variables, such as protest, the institutional features of previous regimes, the number of elections, the availability of oil rents, or the nature and structure of political parties. Few, in *Caryn Peiffer (caryn.peiffer@cgu.edu) is a Ph.D. candidate at Claremont Graduate University and Pierre Englebert (penglebert@pomona.edu) is professor of African politics at Pomona College. 1. On protest and the features of pre-existing regimes, see Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1997), pp. 159–232, and Robert Bates, When Things Fell Apart: State failure in late-century Africa (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2008); on elections, see Staffan Lindberg, Democracy and Elections in Africa (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MA, 2006), pp. 122–3; and Staffan Lindberg, ‘The power of elections revisited’ (paper presented at the conference on ‘Elections and Political Identities in New Democracies’, Yale University, 28– 29 April 2007); on mineral and oil rents, see Nathan Jensen and Leonard Wantchekon, ‘Resource wealth and political regimes in Africa’, Comparative Political Studies 37, 7 (2004), pp. 816–41, and Luc Desire Omgba, ‘On the duration of political power in Africa: the role doi: 10.1093/afraf/ads029 © The Author 2012. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved 1 African Affairs, 00/00, 1–24 African Affairs Advance Access published June 11, 2012

Political Liberalization in Africa after Ten Years

Political Liberalization in Africa after Ten Years

Pilfering the Public: The Problem of Land Grabbing in Contemporary Kenya

Political liberalization in Africa is a more problematic process than earlier thought. Powerful actors will attempt to maintain patrimonial control by developing creative counter-strategies to change. When faced with declining patronage resources, they will find alternative sources, often amplifying corruption and violence in the process. This paper provides a concrete example of this dynamic through an examination of Kenya's land grabbing-the irregular privatization of public lands. It argues that president Moi and his clients are increasingly and violently turning to public lands, which are less fettered by international scrutiny, as a patronage resource and instrument to maintain control. In response, many Kenyans are resisting this form of corruption and in the process are constructing a notion of the public that challenges the rules of the patrimonial game.

A Few Considerations on Democracy in Africa

Recent moves towards greater political liberalization in Africa, with the widespread introduction of multi-party elections in many states since 1989, do not necessarily constitute evidence of successful democratization. In particular, the focus on elections to the exclusion of other essential features of a properly functioning democracy has vitiated much recent analysis of the ‘democratic transition’ in Africa. By examining in turn the roots, meaning and limits of democratization in Africa, the author shows that a focus on accountability rather than on democracy per se would be more appropriate.

Sustaining economic reform under political liberalization in Africa: Issues and implications

Structural adjustment programs in sub-Saharan Africa have resulted in only partial economic successes, but have played a significant role in facilitating political liberalization. Economic reforms can be deepened however, if policies which sustain economic and political reform efforts are more explicitly linked. The gains to be reaped from economic reforms will only be fully realized in conjunction with improvements in governance and expansion of democratic representation. In particular, there are four key dimensions for facilitating the sustainability of economic reform in the context of political liberalization in sub-Saharan Africa: changing government behavior and strengthening government capacity; enhancing the political capacity for effective policy implementation; nurturing civil society and increasing nongovernment organization (NGO) participation; and fostering the necessary institutional foundations for markets.

Critical Notes on Political Liberalization in Africa

This article warns observers not to "pop up the champagne" yet, in celebration of the renaissance of democracy in Africa, for the excitement of democratic opening in the continent could be shortlived. This is so because of the power of the anti-democratic forces that seek to further their group interest at the expense of liberalization.

Critical Notes on Political Liberalization in Africa

This article warns observers not to pop up the champagne yet, in celebration of the renaissance of democracy in Africa, for the excitement of democratic opening in the continent could be shortlived. This is so because of the power of the anti-democratic forces that seek to further their group interest at the expense of liberalization.