Satisfaction with Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Assessing the Impact of System and Government Performance
Svend-Erik Skaaning (skaaning@ps.au.dk)
Assistant Professor, PhD
Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus
Paper prepared for the NOPSA Conference, Tromsø, August 6-9, 2008
1
Satisfaction with Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa:
Assessing the Impact of System and Government Performance
Abstract
This paper examines explanations of cross-national differences in satisfaction with democracy across
Sub-Saharan African countries. On the basis of directly comparable survey data from the third round of
Afrobarometer from 2005, it investigates the impact of performance-based factors on the degree of
satisfaction in two steps. The first is a country-level analysis using ‘objective’ or ‘expert based’
indicators of economic and political performance as explanatory variables. The second is a pooled
individual level analysis of the importance of performance perceptions, also including a number of
standard control variables. The results emerging from both analyses suggest that system performance is
indeed related to levels of satisfaction with democracy. Moreover, they indicate that among the
objective/expert based explanations, the level of civil liberty – freedom of expression, belief, assembly,
and association – has the highest influence on satisfaction. Concerning the disaggregated analysis, the
citizens’ evaluations of election quality and of how well the government manages the economy show
the strongest association with the outcome in question. Overall, the results indicate that system and
government performance in general and certain types of performance in particular account for
significant parts of the differences in satisfaction with democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa.
2
Low levels of citizen support can pose serious problems for political regimes. With regard to
democratic systems it has forcefully been argued that both their functioning and the maintenance
are intimately and systematically linked with citizens’ diffuse and specific support for democratic
governance (Lipset, 1994; Powell, 1982; cf. Easton, 1965). This is not only the case for the wellestablished, ‘old’ democracies. The claim is equally – and probably even more – true and relevant
for political systems with recent experiences with more or less complete democratic transitions in
(e.g.) Sub-Saharan Africa. The main reason why popular support for democratic governance is
important for emerging democracies is that citizens’ support is needed for the stability of emerging
democratic institutions. Understanding why countries differ in their degree of citizen satisfaction
with democracy thus important from the perspectives of democratic consolidation (cf. Diamond,
1999) and democratic quality (cf. Diamond & Morlino, 2005). In fact, Diamond and Morlino (2005:
xxxi) suggest that one can infer their principal dimension1 of democratic quality, that is,
responsiveness, from citizen satisfaction with the way democracy works.
Around the world the principle of democracy as an ideal form of government is given
overwhelming and almost unexceptional support; a view even shared by people living under
undemocratic and semi-democratic regimes (Klingemann, 1999). In contrast, there is significant
cross-national and cross-regional variation in support for actual democratic governance. For
example, citizens in Latin American and the new EU membership countries are generally more
dissatisfied than those in the Western Europe – with the notorious exceptions of Greece and Italy –
while people living in the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Scandinavian countries tend
to express relatively high levels of satisfaction (Anderson, 1998; Fuchs et al., 1995; Klingemann,
1999).
Hitherto most research on the topic has focused on the mature democracies of Western
Europe and North America (Anderson, 1998: 2) because data availability has put severe limitations
on the investigation of similar questions in the context of second and third world countries.
However, the recent emergence of regional surveys, such as the New Europe Barometer, Latino
Barometro, Asian Barometer, Afrobarometer, and Arab Barometer, has changed the pattern and
allows this study to explore the citizens’ satisfaction with democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Out of eight – the others are the rule of law, participation, competition, vertical accountability, horizontal
accountability, freedom, and equality.
1
3
Also in this region flagrant dissimilarities exist. At least, this is the pattern revealed if we rely
on the directly comparable data collected in eighteen countries from this region in 2005, which has
been carried out under the framework of the third round of Afrobarometer. Figure 1 shows that, on
an aggregated level, the percentage of people expressing that they are very or fairly satisfied with
the way democracy works in their respective countries is virtually spread over the whole
continuum, ranging from an impressive maximum of 70% in Ghana and to an expected minimum of
14% in Zimbabwe. Among the other countries, we find Nigeria, Madagascar, Zambia, and Malawi
in the lower end, South Africa and Namibia in the higher end, and the remaining countries placed
somewhere in-between showing support levels from 37% to 59%.
Figure 1 about here
In previous studies that have sought to account for such differences, system performance has
been emphasized as one of the most important theoretical explanation. In other words, proponents
of this perspective have argued that variation in system outcome is a prominent source when it
comes to the explanation of the differences in citizen satisfaction with the way democracy works
(Anderson, 1998; Anderson & Guillory 1997; Harmel & Robertson, 1986; Wagner et al., 2003;
Weatherford, 1987). This study places itself in this tradition as it investigates the effect of different
kinds of system performance on the level of satisfaction with democracy across countries and
individuals. After a brief discussion of the measurement of political satisfaction and the
operationalization of the explanatory variables, two separate examinations are presented. The first
evaluates the relationship between the percentage of satisfied citizens on the national level with
‘objective’ measures of economic growth and inflation on the one hand and expert assessments of
political, civil, and legal liberty on the other. The second is a pooled, individual-level analysis
focusing on the impact of personal performance perceptions, besides standard control variables.
The Meaning and Measurement of Satisfaction with Democracy
The concept of political support is a multi-dimensional phenomenon, depending on the objects or
levels of abstraction that it refers to. David Easton (1965) drew a line between support for the
political community, regime, and authorities, but refined distinctions are needed in order to avoid
the confusion of various aspects. Building upon the Estoanian conceptual framework, Pippa Norris
4
(1999) has proposed a fivefold conceptualization, making a distinction between the political
community, regime principles, regime performance, regime institutions, and political actors.
According to Norris (1999: 9-10), “these levels can be seen as ranging in a continuum from the
most diffuse support for the nation-state down through successive levels to the most concrete
support for particular politicians.” While the distinctions can be blurred in practice, the adjustment
is justified by the fact that, in practice, citizens do seem to distinguish between different levels of
the regime. They can, for example, believe faithfully in democratic values, and simultaneously be
very critical of the practical functioning of democracy.
The meaning of political community is the same as Easton’s original concept, indicating a
fundamental attachment to a particular political system or nation and, thus, goes beyond current
governmental institutions. However, the supplementary distinction between regime principles and
regime performance is essential in order to separate position on the best form of government from
opinions about the way democracy works in practice, that is, at a given point in time in a particular
country (cf. Linde & Ekman, 2003).
On the fourth level of abstraction, Norris places support for and trust in core political
institutions, such as the parliament, the military, and the courts, while the support to and trust in
concrete groups or persons (e.g., the president, the prime minister, concrete parties) constitutes the
fifth, and most specific, level (Norris, 1999: 9-12).
As it should be clear from the title of this paper and from the introduction, this study
addresses the third level: citizen evaluations of how the (democratic) political system functions in
practice. This ‘intermediate’ level of support is often difficult to measure, though, because of its
ambiguity. In short, different interpretations are possible with regard to the question used to capture
the issue in previous studies, namely asking how satisfied citizens are with the way democracy
functions in their country (Canache et al., 2001). Nevertheless, research in this field has shown that
respondents tend to link the question to regime performance rather than principles (Klingemann,
1999; Linde & Ekman, 2003). Thus, for comparative purposes, and missing a clear and available
alternative, I rely upon the answers on a similar item provided by the Afrobarometer survey (Q47)
in the operationalization of the dependent variable.
Concerning the aggregate analysis, the percentage of people answering very satisfied or fairly
satisfied is used. The scale of raw scores – reflecting whether people were very satisfied (4), fairly
satisfied (3), not very satisfied (2), not at all satisfied (1), or stated that their country is not a
democracy (0) – is employed in the individual-level analysis.
5
Construction and Operationalization of Models
Having chosen satisfaction with democracy item to make up the dependent variable, the next step is
to select explanatory variables expected to play a significant role. The general hypothesis of this
study is that system performance influences the level of satisfaction. However, this claim is very
crude and some may think of it as close to self-evident. Therefore distinctions between different
kinds of performance are needed in order to achieve a more nuanced and interesting view of the
relationship.
As to the aggregate analysis, assessing the association between satisfaction with democracy
and ‘objective’ and ‘expert-based’ measures, economic performance is measured by the use of two
standard variables: economic growth and inflation.2 Political performance is divided into three
dimensions, namely political freedom, civil liberty, and rule of law. The two first of these refer to
different aspects of Robert Dahl’s (1989: 221) polyarchy criteria. Their operationalization employs
the combined (addition), disaggregated Freedom House (2008) scores3 of the subcategories
matching Dahl’s conditions, that is, electoral process plus political pluralism and participation, on
the one hand, and freedom of expression and belief plus associational and organizational rights on
the other. Both measures go from 0 (low freedom/liberty) to 28 (high freedom/liberty). The last
dimension corresponds to Guillermo O’Donnell’s (2005) supplement to the Dahlian perspective,
namely rule of law, which is measured using the scores from corresponding Freedom House
subcategory. The range of this index ranges is 0 to 16, 16 indicates the highest level of rule of law.
Whereas no control variables are included in the aggregate model (thus far), a number of
standard variables not directly reflecting any kind of performance take part in the individual level
analysis. Inspired by previous studies (Cho, 2004; Bratton & Mattes, 2000; Wagner et al., 2003),
the factors selected to play this role are: gender, age, education, and interest in public affairs. 4
Moving on to the variables indicating system performance, a distinction is once more made between
performance in the areas of economy, political freedom, civil liberty, and rule of law.
2
The data apply to year 2004 and are taken from the World Bank (2008) Development Indicators.
The scores apply to year 2005 and are taken from the Freedom in the World survey 2006.
4
The original scores linked to the coding of answers are used. For all the variables, including the ones addressed below
don’t know answers, refusals to answer, and missing are treated as missing values. Unfortunately, data on another
relevant and commonly used candidate, that is, personal income, is not provided by the dataset and its possible impact
on the results thus cannot be examined.
3
6
Concerning economy, the operationalization makes an additional distinction between an
evaluation of the present economic condition of the citizen’s country (Q4A) and a description of
his/her own present living conditions (Q4B). This is dome in order to uncover whether satisfaction
with democracy relies more on personal well-being/interest than concern for general condition of
the country and fellow citizens – or the other way round.
The personal political performance perception is measured by questions asking about the
respondents’ ratings of the freeness and fairness of the latest national election (Q45), how often
people have to be careful of what they say about politics (Q53A), and how often people are treated
unequally under the law (Q53D). They are all measured on four-point scales that assign low values
to positive assessments.
Finally, the dataset offers no less than eleven questions on appraisal of the national
government’s performance in handling certain matters. They address a broad range of issues
(Q65A-K) that tap into two latent dimensions, as indicated by the results from an explorative
principal components factor analysis (see table 1).5
Table 1 about here
Generally speaking, the first factor tends to reflect perceptions of the current government’s
non-economic performance (factor 1), and the second covers economic performance (factor 2). On
the basis of this finding, I construct two aggregate indices using simple addition. Alpha
(Cronbach’s) values of 0.80 and 0.83, respectively, indicate that both of them constitute strong
scales where high values signify positive citizen evaluation of the government’s performance.
Empirical Analyses
The results of the aggregated, cross-national regression models, examining the association between
satisfaction with democracy and objective/expert based indicators, are shown in table 2. Zimbabwe
5
Factor loadings (principal components) linked to rotated (oblique) solution. The first factor accounts for 46% of the
variance (eigenvalue=5.05), whereas the second accounts for about 10% (eigenvalue=1.13).
7
is excluded from the analysis because statistical tests show that the extreme values of the
independent variables linked to this case distort the general picture. The survey data from
Zimbabwe, however, is used in the subsequent disaggregated analysis since the problem is not
prevalent on the lower level of abstraction.
Among the economic variables, model 1 indicates that only inflation is significantly
associated with satisfaction with democracy. On the other hand, the strength of the relationships
change when the political performance indicators are included in models 2-4; growth gains – and
inflation looses – significance.
Table 2 about here
The political performance measures are employed in a stepwise manner because of high mutual
correlations between political freedom, civil liberty, and rule of law. Thus, it is not advisable to
assess their relative strength in a combined, statistical model. What we can see is that they all show
strong association with the dependent variable in the expected direction and clearly increase the
level of variance accounted for, as indicated by the (adjusted) R-square values. Furthermore, these
values indicate that economic performance has less impact on satisfaction with democracy than
political performance and that, among the various aspects of the latter, civil liberty shows the
highest explanatory power and rule of law the lowest.
Moving on to the next analysis, it is interesting to see whether the relationship between
objective and expert based performance indicators and the general level of satisfaction with
democracy on the national level corresponds to the findings between performance perceptions and
satisfaction on the individual level. Table 3 shows that if the performance items are separately
tested in a model including a battery of standard control variables, they are all significantly linked
to the outcome in the theoretically anticipated way. Positive evaluations of the country’s economic
condition and personal living conditions are associated with high levels of satisfaction with
democracy, while negative perceptions of election quality (political freedom), freedom of speech
(civil liberty), and treatment under the law (rule of law) feed dissatisfaction.
8
Table 3 about here
Even thought the relationships are strongly significant, the very high N should make us more
cautious about the interpretation. In line with this warning, the variation accounted for is rather low
and only reaches a maximum of 0.18 for models 7, including the variable election quality. In fact,
none of the R-square values linked to the models assessing the importance of personal living
conditions, unequal treatment under the law, and freedom of speech are higher than 0.07.
This pattern is somewhat improved when it comes to the indices covering citizen assessments
of the government’s work (see table 4). Both the index covering the government’s non-economic
performance and the index reflecting the government’s economic performance are strongly and
positively related to the satisfaction with the country’s democracy, the latter a little more than the
former. This means that not only system performance but also the more concrete government
performance on both economic and non-economic issues adds to the explanation of
(dis)satisfaction.
Table 4 about here
If we combine all the independent variables in the same model, four interesting findings
emerge. First, the factors personal living conditions and freedom of speech no longer show a
significant impact while, on the other hand, the significance of the remaining relationships persists.
Second, both economic and non-economic system performance and economic and non-economic
government performance influence satisfaction with democracy. Third, among these, the
standardized coefficients (not reported) – together with the initial results – support that the factors
election quality (cf. Alemika, 2007) and the government’s economic performance have the highest
impact. Fourth, the degree of explained variance increases to 0.33 meaning that about one third of
the differences in satisfaction with democracy between individuals in Sub-Saharan Arica are
captured by the combined model.
9
Conclusion
Differences in satisfaction with democracy clearly exist across and within Sub-Saharan African
countries. This paper has examined the impact of different kinds of system and government
performance on the degree of satisfaction with democracy – as measured by the use of an item from
the 2005 Afrobarometer survey. The empirical analysis was carried out in two steps. First, a
country-level analysis was carried out. It employed objective indicators of economic performance
(growth, inflation) and expert based evaluations of political performance (political freedom, civil
liberty, rule of law) as explanatory variables. This analysis showed that growth (but not inflation)
and all the political factors are significantly associated with the percentage of very and fairly
satisfied citizens. Among the political variables that were too highly interconnected to include in the
same model, the degree of civil liberty – freedom of expression, belief, assembly, and association –
showed the strongest relationship with satisfaction.
The second analysis focused on the association between individual levels of performance
perceptions and satisfaction with democracy. It also made a distinction between different aspects of
performance – now in the form of citizen perceptions and including items directly addressing
government rather than system performance. The findings emphasized election quality and the
government’s management of the economy as the most important contributors to (dis)satisfaction.
Also the general economic condition of the country, unequal treatment under the law, and the
government’s ability to handle non-economic issues survived the significance tests. Personal living
conditions and freedom of speech, however, did not – at least this was the conclusion from the
analysis of the combined model.
Overall, the results indicate that differences in satisfaction with democracy in Sub-Saharan
Africa are connected to performance in general. The attempt to disentangle performance into more
specific and distinguishable subtypes revealed that certain types of both political and economic
performance play more important roles for the degree of satisfaction with democracy than others.
The question now becomes whether the relationships are solid which opens up for further studies of
the topic addressing whether the conclusion remains the same if: 1) further controls, such as
institutional variables, are included in the model; 2) more and/or other countries/regions are
examined; 3) other methods are employed, the most obvious being a proper multi-level analysis.
10
References
Alimika, Etannibi E. (2007). Quality of Elections, Satisfaction with Democracy and Political Trust
in Africa, Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 84.
Anderson, Cristopher J. (1998). Political Satisfaction in Old and New Democracies, Working
Paper, Center on Democratic Performance: Binghamton University.
Anderson & Guillory (1997). “Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy”, American
Political Science Review, Vol. 91, No. 1, pp. 66-81.
Bratton, Michael & Robert Mattes (2000). Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or
Instrumental, Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 1.
Canache, Damarys; Jeffrey J. Mondak & Mitchell A. Seligson (2001). “Meaning and Measurement
in Cross-National Research on Satisfaction with Democracy”, Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol.
65, No. 4, pp. 506-528.
Cho, Wonbin (2004). Political Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa,
Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 39.
Dahl, Robert A. (1989). Democracy and Its Critics, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Diamond, Larry (1999). Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation, Baltimore: The Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Diamond, Larry & Leonardo Morlino (2005). “Introduction”, pp. ix-xliii in Larry Diamond &
Leonardo Morlino (eds.), Assessing the Quality of Democracy, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Easton, David (1965). A Framework for Political Analysis, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
Freedom House (2008). Freedom in the World, www.freedomhouse.org
Fuchs, Dieter; Giovanni Guidorossi & Palle Svensson (1995). “Support for Democratic Systems”,
pp. 323-353 in Hans-Dieter Klingemann & Dieter Fuchs (eds.), Citizens and the State,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Harmel, Robert & John D. Robertson (1986). “Government Stability and Regime Support”, Journal
of Politics, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 1029-1040.
Klingemann, Hans-Dieter (1999). ”Mapping Political Support in the 1990s: A Global Analysis”, pp.
31-56 in Pippa Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global Support for Democratic Governance,
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
11
Linde, Jonas & Joakim Ekman (2003). “Satisfaction with Democracy: A Note on a Frequently Used
Indicator in Comparative Politics”, European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 42, No. 3,
pp. 391-408.
Lipset, Seymour (1994). “The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited”, American Sociological
Review, Vol. 59, No. 1, pp. 1-22.
Norris, Pippa (1999). “Introduction”, pp. 1-28 in Pippa Norris (ed.), Critical Citizens: Global
Support for Democratic Governance, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O’Donnell, Guillermo (2005). “Why the Rule of Law Matters”, pp. 3-17 in Larry Diamond &
Leonardo Morlino (eds.), Assessing the Quality of Democracy, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins
University Press.
Powell, G. Bingham (1982). Contemporary Democracies: Participation, Stability and Violence,
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wagner, Alexander F.; Mathias Dufour & Friedrich Schneider (2003). Satisfaction not Guaranteed:
Institutions and Satisfaction with Democracy in Western Europe, CESIFO Working Paper
No. 910.
Weatherford, M. Stephen (1987). “How Does Government Performance Influence Political
Support?”, Political Behavior, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 5-28.
World Bank (2008). World Development Indicators, www.worldbank.org
12
0,00
Ghana
Namibia
South Africa
Botswana
Mozambique
Mali
Senegal
Kenya
Uganda
Benin
Cape Verde
Lesotho
Tanzania
Malawi
Zambia
Madagascar
Nigeria
Zimbabwe
Satisfied with democracy (%)
Figure 1: Levels of Satisfaction with Democracy in Sub-Saharan African Countries
100,00
80,00
60,00
40,00
20,00
Country
13
Table 1: Factor Loadings of Government’s Performance Indicators
Factor 1
Factor 2
Health
0.822
0.015
Education
0.820
0.048
HIV/AIDS
0.754
0.118
Crime
0.557
-0.189
Household water
0.530
-0.168
Corruption
0.469
-0.297
Income gaps
-0.064
-0.847
Jobs
-0.035
-0.827
Prices
-0.032
-0.824
Economy
0.180
-0.650
Food
0.290
-0.522
14
Table 2: OLS Estimation of Aggregate-level Model with Satisfaction with Democracy as
Dependent Variable
Model 1
Model 2
Model 3
Model 4
Constant
43.886***
(9.063)
-1.245
(17.150)
-31.202
(22.827)
4.945
(21.784)
Growth
2.423
(1.904)
3.454*
(1.578)
3.550*
(1.465)
3.495*
(1.828)
Inflation
-1.292*
(0.606)
-0.997*
(0.499)
-0.624
(0.494)
-0.726
(0.626)
Political freedom
1.895*
(0.651)
Civil liberty
2.947**
(0.855)
Rule of law
3.073*
(1.590)
R2 (adjusted)
0.14
0.44
0.52
0.28
N
17
17
17
17
Note: *significant at the 0.1-level, **significant at the 0.01-level, ***significant at the 0.001-level.
15
Table 3: OLS Estimation of Individual-level Model with Satisfaction with Democracy as
Dependent Variable
Model 5
Model 6
Model 7
Model 8
Model 9
Constant
1.708***
(0.030)
1.853***
(0.032)
3.116***
(0.031)
0.022***
(0.032)
2.622***
(0.032)
Gender (male)
0.023
(0.014)
0.032*
(0.015)
0.018
(0.014)
0.022
(0.015)
0.027
(0.015)
Age
0.003***
(0.001)
0.003***
(0.001)
0.001*
(0.000)
0.003***
(0.001)
0.002***
(0.001)
Education level
-0.051***
(0.004)
-0.056***
(0.004)
-0.015***
(0.004)
-0.038***
(0.004)
-0.039***
(0.004)
Interest in public
affairs
0.117***
(0.007)
0.136***
(0.007)
0.097***
(0.007)
0.139***
(0.007)
0.126***
(0.007)
Economic condition
of country
0.254***
(0.006)
Personal living
conditions
0.180***
(0.006)
Poor election
quality
-0.367***
(0.006)
Restrictions on
Freedom of speech
-0.044***
(0.007)
Unequal treatment
under the law
-0.200***
(0.007)
R2 (adjusted)
0.12
0.07
0.18
0.03
0.07
N
20573
20831
19682
20227
19449
Note: *significant at the 0.05-level, **significant at the 0.01-level, ***significant at the 0.001-level.
16
Table 4: OLS Estimation of Individual-level Model with Satisfaction with Democracy as
Dependent Variable
Model 10
Model 11
Model 12
Model 13
Constant
0.831***
(0.039)
1.084***
(0.033)
1.719***
(0.050)
1.729***
(0.048)
Gender (male)
0.019
(0.015)
0.029*
(0.014)
0.026
(0.015)
Age
0.002***
(0.001)
0.001**
(0.001)
0.001**
(0.001)
0.001*
(0.001)
Education level
-0.032***
(0.004)
-0.036***
(0.004)
-0.025***
(0.004)
-0.023***
(0.004)
Interest in public affairs
0.106***
(0.007)
0.095***
(0.007)
0.060***
(0.007)
0.062***
(0.007)
Economic condition of country
0.083***
(0.007)
0.087***
(0.006)
Personal living conditions
0.010
(0.007)
Poor election quality
-0.250***
(0.007)
Restrictions on Freedom of speech
-0.009
(0.006)
Unequal treatment under the law
-0.069***
(0.007)
-0.069***
(0.007)
0.028***
(0.002)
0.028***
(0.002)
0.130***
(0.002)
0.068***
(0.003)
0.068***
(0.003)
Government’s non-economic performance
0.098***
(0.002)
Government’s economic performance
-0.252***
(0.007)
R2 (adjusted)
0.16
0.21
0.33
0.33
N
18124
18651
15176
15367
Note: *significant at the 0.05-level, **significant at the 0.01-level, ***significant at the 0.001-level
17