DEMOCRATIZATION IN
AFRICA:
What progress by what means?
Outline of presentation:
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The study of democratization
Africa in comparative perspective
Measuring democratization
Key features of the African scene
Where is progress taking place?
How does it happen?
Conclusions
The study of democratization
First phase:
Second phase:
Development
leads to
Democracy
Regime
transition
Fifth phase?
Third phase:
Return to
underlying
causes
Waves of
democratizatio
n
Fourth phase:
Hybrid
regimes
Measuring democratization (1)
• Conceptual challenges:
• Democracy/No democracy
• Degrees of democracy
• Sartori’s ladder of conceptualization
• Collier & Levitsky’s “democracy with adjectives”
• Data sources:
• Multiple but most commonly used:
• Freedom House Index
• Polity IV
• World Governance Indicators
• “Barometers”
Measuring democratization (2)
• Challenges:
• Biases in what is being measured
• Differences in what is being measured
• Collection of data where sampling is
difficult
• Survey data often superficial
• Analysis to conform with mainstream
concepts
Africa in comparative perspective
• Battle for independence did not translate into
democracy, only on national sovereignty
• Virtually no exposure to democracy on the
continent prior to fall of Communism
• Associational life rudimentary and often
quelled by state
• Ethnicity rather than class the backbone of
social structure
Sources on African democratization
• Main sources:
• Bratton and van de Walle: Democratic
Experiments in Africa (1997)
• Staffan Lindberg: Democracy and Elections in
Africa (2006)
• Articles in Journal of Democracy, Democratization,
Journal of Modern African Studies, Comparative
Political Studies
Key features of the African scene
• It has gotten generally better after tentative
start, some backsliding in the 1990s and early
2000s, and a recovery after 2002.
• Still significant differences among countries
with just a couple of ”star performers”
• The list of good ones is slowly growing longer
but still a long list of weak or bad ones
• Democratization takes time and involves
learning from experience
Top Ten Best and Worst
Sources: Freedom House Index, World Governance Indicators
The Best
The Worst
Botswana
Angola
Cape Verde
Chad
Ghana
Congo Republic
Lesotho
Democratic Republic of Congo
Mauritius
Equatorial Guinea
Namibia
Guinea
Sao Tomé & Principe
Ivory Coast
Senegal
Somalia
Seychelles
Sudan
South Africa
Zimbabwe
”Free” Countries in Africa
Source: Freedom House Index
1989
1995
2008
Botswana
Benin
Benin
Gambia
Botswana
Botswana
Mauritius
Cape Verde
Cape Verde
Lesotho
Ghana
Malawi
Lesotho
Mali
Mali
Mauritius
Mauritius
Namibia
Namibia
Sao Tomé & Principe
South Africa
Sao Tomé & Principe
South Africa
Corruption perception index
Source: Transparency International; N=180 countries; CPI: 10 high
Country
CPI 1998
CPI 2000
CPI 2004
CPI 2008
World ranking
Botswana
6.1
6.0
6.0
5.8
36
Cape Verde
--
--
--
5.1
37
Mauritius
5.0
4.7
4.1
5.5
41
South Africa
5.2
5.0
4.6
4.9
54
Seychelles
--
--
--
4.8
55
Namibia
5.3
5.4
4.1
4.5
61
Ghana
3.3
3.5
3.6
3.9
67
Swaziland
--
--
--
3.6
72
Burkina Faso
--
3.0
3.2
3.5
80
Madagascar
--
--
3.1
3.4
85
Senegal
3.3
3.5
3.0
3.4
85
Mali
--
--
--
3.1
96
Benin
--
--
--
3.1
96
How does it happen?
• Multiparty politics strengthens clientelism and
by extension corrupt behavior
• Supply of democracy still stronger than
demand
• Donors keep up pressure but it is weakening
• Associational life is growing stronger in some
countries (example: Kenya)
• Rule of law and constitutionalism are getting
more attention due to exposure of corruption
Conclusions
• Africa is still lagging behind Latin America and
Central & Eastern Europe
• Progress is being made but it is uneven and
slow
• Social structures with multiple horizontally
structured ethnic groups not congenial
• State remains soft and unable to lead move
toward public integrity
• Most regimes remain hybrid somewhere
between democracy and dictatorship