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DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA:

DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA:. What progress by what means?. Outline of presentation:. 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.

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DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA:

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  1. DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA: What progress by what means?

  2. Outline of presentation: • 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

  3. The study of democratization

  4. 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”

  5. 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

  6. 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

  7. 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

  8. 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

  9. Top Ten Best and WorstSources: Freedom House Index, World Governance Indicators

  10. ”Free” Countries in AfricaSource: Freedom House Index

  11. Corruption perception indexSource: Transparency International; N=180 countries; CPI: 10 high

  12. 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

  13. 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

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