Routledge Handbook of Democratization in Africa 9781315112978, 9781351623643, 9781351623636, 9781351623629, 9781138081246

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Information
Table of contents
Illustrations
List of Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction: Democracy in practice—diversity and complexity
The significance of elections
The role of institutions
Diverse actors
Democracy and “the people”
Conclusion: democratic realities
Notes
References
Part I The politics and paths of regime development
1 Neopatrimonialism and democracy
Democracy with one adjective
Neopatrimonial democracy?
Measuring neopatrimonialism
How neopatrimonial are African regimes?
Regional trends
Variation across African countries
Neopatrimonialism across regime types
Does neopatrimonialism constrain democracy?
Conclusion
Notes
References
2 Pathways to democracy
Approaches to path dependency
The 1990s as a critical juncture
Transitions reevaluated
Conclusion
Notes
References
3 Post-conflict democratization and power-sharing
Setting the contexts
The problems of power-sharing
Elite-centrism
Sidelining of political parties
Unintended consequences of both temporary and permanent power-sharing
Creation of perverse incentives to engage violently in politics
Conclusion
Notes
References
4 The impact of foreign aid
The conditional political impacts of foreign aid
Foreign aid as incumbency support
The rise of democracy assistance
The decline and fall of political conditionality
Towards neo-modernization theory?
Conclusion
References
5 Natural resources
Conceptualizing the oil–politics nexus
Oil politics in Nigeria
The militarization of oil politics in the Niger Delta
Oil politics and civil society
Conclusion
References
Part II Institutional dynamics
6 Federalism and devolution
The promise of decentralization
The decentralization experiment in Africa
Decentralization undermined
Political interference with decentralization
Decentralization to recentralize power
Ethnicizing the polity
Conclusion
Notes
References
7 The struggle for presidential term limits
Evolution of term limits
The effects of presidential term limits on African politics
The campaigns against term limits
Arguments for removing term limits
Outcomes of the efforts to remove term limits
The future of term limits in Africa
Conclusion
Notes
References
8 Executive power and horizontal accountability
Horizontal accountability
Insights on horizontal accountability
Benin
Ghana
Liberia
Malawi
The way forward on executive power and horizontal accountability
Note
References
9 The politics of legislative development
Colonial origins of territorial legislatures
Making imported legislatures work under autocracy
African legislatures since 1990
Conclusion
Notes
References
10 Judicial power
The mixed record of African judiciaries
Perspectives on the empowerment of African courts
External accounts: formal rules and political strategy
Internal accounts: judicial strategy and norms
Towards a historical understanding of judicial power
Thinking about judges, off-bench activities, and informal networks
Conclusion
Notes
References
11 Militaries
The military’s role in launching democratization
Democratization by coup?
Democratization by defection?
Civil–military pathologies in fledgling African democracies
Continued coup threat
Faustian bargains
Authoritarian legacies
Democratic consolidation and the challenge of reform
Conclusion
Notes
References
12 Electoral administration
The origins and diffusion of electoral management bodies in Africa
Electoral bodies in Africa: types and impact on democratization
Classifying electoral bodies
Electoral bodies and democratization: case studies
Electoral bodies in their environment
Côte d’Ivoire 2010: organizing presidential elections in a violent political context
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part III Political mobilization and voting dynamics
13 Voting behavior
How do voters decide?
Ethnicity
Preferences and transaction costs
Ethnic cues
Testing and measuring ethnic voting
Performance and policy
Retrospective evaluations
Prospective evaluations
Testing and measuring performance voting
Data and methodology
Quantitative analyses
Experimental analyses
Qualitative analyses
Conclusion
Notes
References
14 Clientelism
The many faces of clientelism
Brokers and networks in political clientelism
Democratization and the need to look beyond vote buying
Patronage and prebendalism in emerging African democracies
Overcoming clientelism: deliberation, information, and institutions
Conclusion
Notes
References
15 Campaign strategies
The actors
Types of campaign strategies
Campaign rallies
Door-to-door canvassing
Interactions with community leaders and organizations
Campaign advertising through new and traditional media
“Vote buying” and clientelism
Violence and voter intimidation
Communication strategies
Incumbent versus opposition party strategies
Conclusion
Notes
References
16 Political parties and party systems
Party system characteristics
Fragmentation
Institutionalization
Polarization
The reliability of flexible party systems
Party typologies and the persistence of the ethnic narrative
Prospects of programmatic political parties in Africa
Conclusion
Notes
References
17 Opposition coalitions
Why coalesce?
Coalitions literature in established democracies
Coalitions literature in Africa
Electoral systems
Ethnicity
Methodological considerations
Coalitions and democratization in Africa
Conclusion
Notes
References
18 The use of electoral violence
Measuring electoral violence
Measurement issues
Causes: root and proximate
The electoral cycle and violence
The pre-election period
The election period
The post-election period
Effectiveness of election violence and consequences for democratic development
Preventing electoral violence
Changing attitudes
Reinforcing institutional capacity
Election monitoring
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part IV The politics of identity
19 Christianity and democracy
The mission churches: the push for multiparty democracy and beyond
Political engagement by Pentecostals
Political actors embrace Pentecostal language and rituals
Pentecostals in the political sphere
Conclusion
Notes
References
20 Islam and democracy
Perceptions of Islam and democracy in Africa
Do Muslims support democracy?
Islam, secularism, and legacies of state control
“Democratizing” the Muslim public sphere or promoting radicalization?
Conclusion
Notes
References
21 Gender politics
Political liberalization and women’s role in politics
Regime type and women’s descriptive representation
Beyond the legislature
Competitive elections and persistent barriers to gender parity
Political party bias and candidate selection
Socioeconomic status
Sociocultural norms
Quotas and substantive representation for women in African democracies
Conclusion
Notes
References
22 Ethnic politics
Understanding and measuring ethnic politics
The political salience of ethnic identities
Limitations of non-ethnic mobilization strategies
The appeal of ethnic mobilization
Variation in ethnic politics across Africa
Conclusion
Notes
References
23 Generational dynamics and youth politics
Youth, nationalism, and postcolonial politics
Incorporating the youth into democracy
The impact(s) of youth incorporation
The youth and political party growth
Promoting democratic quality
Human rights
Equality/inclusion
Accountability
Responsiveness
Participation
Marginalized youth, popular politics, and the threat of violence
Youth, protests, and deeper accountability
The dangers of violence
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part V Social forces from below
24 Public opinion and democratic legitimacy
Do Africans want democracy?
Cross-national variation
What do Africans understand as “democracy”?
Open-ended questions
Closed-ended questions
Forced choices among proffered definitions
Where does demand for democracy come from?
Demand for democracy over time
Do Africans think they are getting democracy?
Dissatisfied democrats
Conclusion
Notes
References
25 Civil society
Civil society and the democratization of Africa: revisiting the 1990s
Civil society in the contemporary context
Does civil society matter?
The limits of civil society
The meta critique remains
Ongoing conceptual and analytical challenges
Some pathways forward
Conclusion
References
26 Digital media, networked spaces, and politics
Digital media and citizen engagement
Critiquing Africa’s digital media and network spaces
State response to the politics of cyberspace
Conclusion
References
27 Popular protest and accountability
The third wave of protest in Africa
Pitfalls of interpreting contemporary African protests
Revolutions without revolutionaries?
Advice for policymakers
Conclusion
Notes
References
28 Urban politics
Urbanization and inequality
Urbanization and democratization
Voting behavior and protests
Politician responses
Decentralization and party contestation
Variations in decentralized institutions
Cities as a stronghold for opposition parties
Intergovernmental relations and urban service delivery
Strategies of subversion
Implications for urban development and service delivery
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part VI The consequences of democracy
29 Economic growth and development
Regimes and development in the African context
The democratic wave and economic change
Understanding the relationships between regimes and development
The development regime debate redux
Conclusion
Notes
References
30 Corruption
Definitions in the midst of competing normative orders
The public domain in African politics
What corruption is, and is not
Democratization and corruption
Conclusion
Notes
References
31 Sexual minority rights
Sexual minorities: past and present
Factors driving homophobia
The case of Ghana
Using the law courts as a safeguarding strategy
Conclusion
Note
References
32 Citizenship
Exclusionary citizenship: governing through political instrumentalization
Normative citizenship: making the good citizen
Insurgent citizenship: holding the state to account?
Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

i

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA

This volume explores the issues and debates surrounding the ongoing processes of democratization in sub-​Saharan Africa, illuminating the central dynamics characterizing Africa’s democratic experiments, and considering the connections between democratization and economic, social, and cultural developments on the continent. Reflecting the diverse and rich nature of this field of study, the Handbook of Democratization in Africa features more than thirty contributions structured into six thematic sections: • • • • • •

The politics and paths of regime development Institutional dynamics Political mobilization and voting dynamics The politics of identity Social forces from below The consequences of democracy.

Chapters offer overviews of the key scholarship on particular topics, including central insights from the latest research, and provide suggestions for those interested in further inquiry. The material includes attention to broad cross-​continental patterns, for example with respect to public opinion, political violence, or the role of different institutions and actors. It also includes rich case material, drawing on and highlighting the experiences of a diverse collection of countries. Encouraging a comprehensive view of key concerns and enhancing understanding of particular issues, the Handbook of Democratization in Africa represents a critical resource for experts and students of African politics, democratization, and African studies. Gabrielle Lynch is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Warwick, UK. Peter VonDoepp is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, USA.

ii

iii

ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF DEMOCRATIZATION IN AFRICA

Edited by Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

iv

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data Names: Lynch, Gabrielle, editor. | VonDoepp, Peter, 1967– editor, author. Title: Routledge handbook of democratization in Africa / edited by Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp. Description: New York : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019010056 (print) | LCCN 2019012911 (ebook) | ISBN 9781315112978 (Ebook) | ISBN 9781351623643 (Adobe Reader) | ISBN 9781351623636 (Epub) | ISBN 9781351623629 (Mobipocket) | ISBN 9781138081246 (hardback) Subjects: LCSH: Democratization–Africa, Sub-Saharan. | Democracy–Africa, Sub-Saharan. | Africa, Sub-Saharan–Politics and government–1960– Classification: LCC JQ1879.A15 (ebook) | LCC JQ1879.A15 R69 2019 (print) | DDC 320.967–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010056 ISBN: 978-​1-​138-​08124-​6  (hbk) ISBN: 978-​1-​315-​11297-​8  (ebk) Typeset in Bembo by Newgen Publishing UK

v

CONTENTS

List of illustrations  List of contributors  Acknowledgments 

ix xi xvii

Introduction: democracy in practice—​diversity and complexity  Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp PART I

1

The politics and paths of regime development 

15

1 Neopatrimonialism and democracy  Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg

17

2 Pathways to democracy  Nic Cheeseman

38

3 Post-​conflict democratization and power-​sharing  Andreas Mehler

52

4 The impact of foreign aid  Tessa Devereaux Evans and Nicolas van de Walle

63

5 Natural resources  Cyril Obi

78

v

vi

Contents PART II

Institutional dynamics 

89

6 Federalism and devolution  Mai Hassan

91

7 The struggle for presidential term limits  Boniface Dulani

104

8 Executive power and horizontal accountability  Landry Signé

117

9 The politics of legislative development  Ken Ochieng’ Opalo

131

10 Judicial power  Rachel Ellett

147

11 Militaries  Kristen A. Harkness

161

12 Electoral administration  Mamoudou Gazibo

174

PART III

Political mobilization and voting dynamics 

189

13 Voting behavior  James D. Long

191

14 Clientelism  Jorge Gallego and Leonard Wantchekon

205

15 Campaign strategies  Eric Kramon

217

16 Political parties and party systems  Alexander Stroh

232

17 Opposition coalitions  Nicole Beardsworth

246

18 The use of electoral violence  Dorina A. Bekoe and Stephanie M. Burchard

258

vi

vii

Contents PART IV

The politics of identity 

273

19 Christianity and democracy  Amy S. Patterson

275

20 Islam and democracy  Brandon Kendhammer

289

21 Gender politics  Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

302

22 Ethnic politics  Dominika Koter

317

23 Generational dynamics and youth politics  Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

329

PART V

Social forces from below 

343

24 Public opinion and democratic legitimacy  Robert Mattes

345

25 Civil society  Peter VonDoepp

364

26 Digital media, networked spaces, and politics  Wisdom J. Tettey

378

27 Popular protest and accountability  Lisa Mueller

392

28 Urban politics  Danielle Resnick

404

PART VI

The consequences of democracy 

417

29 Economic growth and development  Peter M. Lewis

419

vii

viii

Contents

30 Corruption  Dominic Burbidge and Mark Philp

434

31 Sexual minority rights  Kuukuwa Andam and Marc Epprecht

448

32 Citizenship  Sara Rich Dorman

460

Index 

473

viii

ix

ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 1.1 Regional trends in Neopatrimonialism index  1.2 Regional trends in Clientelism index  1.3 Regional trends in Presidentialism index  1.4 Regional trends in Regime Corruption index  1.5 Neopatrimonialism index 2015 scores  1.6 Clientelism and presidentialism, 2015  1.7 Clientelism and regime corruption, 2015  1.8 Presidentialism and regime corruption, 2015  1.9 Neopatrimonialism and regime type in Africa, 1960–​2015  1.10 Predicted change in Polity2 in democratic and non-​democratic countries, 1990–​2015  2.1 African transition trajectories  4.1 Foreign aid in the governance sector: commitments, 1991–​2013  9.1 Colonial legislatures and political development in Africa  9.2 The decline and rise of African legislatures  9.3 Trends in tolerance of multipartyism  9.4 Age matters: de facto and de jure legislative powers  9.5 Divergent trends in legislative electoral outcomes  15.1 The percentage of adults who report working for a campaign in the previous election  15.2 The percentage of adults who report attending a campaign rally in the previous election  15.3 The percentage of adults who report attending a campaign meeting in the previous election  15.4 The percentage of adults who report that voters receive bribes during elections 

ix

23 24 24 25 26 27 28 28 29 33 43 68 134 136 138 141 143 218 219 222 224

x

Illustrations

15.5 The percentage of adults who fear violence or intimidation during elections  226 16.1 Democratic dominant-​party systems in Africa  235 16.2 Major Burkinabè parties on the left-​to-​r ight scale  242 18.1 Electoral violence in sub-​Saharan Africa, 1990–​2017  259 18.2 The electoral cycle  263 21.1 Average proportion of women in African states’ lower legislative house by regime type, 1980–​2015  303 21.2 Average proportion of women in African ministerial cabinets by regime type, 1980–​2005  303 24.1 Attitudes toward the democratic regime, thirty-​six countries, 2014–​15  347 24.2 Attitudes toward vertical and horizontal accountability, thirty-six countries, 2014–​15  348 24.3 Attitudes toward democratic citizenship, various rounds  349 24.4 Demand for democracy, thirty-​six countries, 2014–​15  350 24.5 Demand for democracy over time, 2002–​15  354 24.6 The perceived supply of democracy, thirty-​five countries, 2014–​15  356 24.7 Perceived supply of democracy, thirty-​six countries, 2014–​15  357 24.8 The perceived supply of democracy over time, sixteen countries, 2002–​15  358 24.9 Public ratings of the extent of democracy and selected expert ratings, 2011–​13  359 24.10 Dissatisfied democrats and the fate of democracy, 2011–​17  360 27.1 Protest frequency in sub-​Saharan Africa, 1997–​2016  394 29.1 Regime transition and economic performance (excluding states in conflict)  426

Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 4.1 7.1 9.1 12.1 16.1 20.1 21.1

Descriptive statistics for constituent indicators  Neopatrimonial indices summary statistics (all countries, 1900–​2016)  Effects of neopatrimonialism on democratic survival  Effects of neopatrimonialism on democratic advancement  Aid flows to Africa, 1991–​2013  Presidents that have stepped down due to term limits in Africa, 1990–​2017  Control over legislative calendars  Electoral bodies in Africa by type (in 2017)  Fragmentation of African party systems, simplified summary, as of beginning of 2018  Religious demographics of sub-​Saharan Africa (selected)  African countries ranked by proportion of women in the lower house of the legislature, 2015 

x

22 22 31 32 69 107 140 176 234 290 307

xi

CONTRIBUTORS

Kuukuwa Andam is a PhD candidate at Queen’s University, Canada, working on the use of technology by sexual minorities for activism. She has worked with diverse legal aid organizations across Ghana and the US, clerked with the Chief Justice of Ghana, worked as a country conditions expert for human rights and asylum related cases in the UK and US, is a member of the Ghana Bar Association, and member of the board of directors of CEPEHRG—​a non-​governmental human rights organization that provides services to sexual minorities in Ghana. Her research interests include human rights law, international law, labor and employment law, feminist legal studies, and gender and sexuality. Nicole Beardsworth is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of York, UK. Nicole’s research focuses on political parties, opposition coordination, governance, democratization, and elections in southern and eastern Africa. She has published articles in African Affairs, the Journal of Eastern African Studies, and the Journal of Southern African Studies. Dorina A.  Bekoe is a research staff member with the Africa program at the Institute for Defense Analyses. Her areas of expertise include Africa’s political development, conflict resolution, peacebuilding, electoral violence, and institutional reform. She is the editor of Voting in Fear: Electoral Violence in Sub-​Saharan Africa (2012) and has published articles in the African Studies Review, International Peacekeeping, and World Politics Review. Dominic Burbidge is Research Director at the University of Oxford, UK, and Advisor to the Templeton World Charity Foundation. His work focuses on moral norms and their relation to local governance and citizenship. He is the author of The Shadow of Kenyan Democracy: Widespread Expectations of Widespread Corruption (2015) and An Experiment in Devolution: National Unity and the Deconstruction of the Kenyan State (2019). Stephanie M. Burchard is a research staff member with the Africa program at the Institute for Defense Analyses. Her research focuses on comparative political institutions, elections and voting behavior, gender, comparative democratization, and conflict. She is the author of Electoral Violence in Sub-​Saharan Africa: Causes and Consequences (2015) and has published articles

xi

xii

Contributors

in various journals including the African Studies Review, Comparative Political Studies, Diaspora Studies, and the Journal of Refugee Studies. Nic Cheeseman is Professor of Democracy and International Development at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Democracy in Africa (2015), co-​author of How to Rig an Election (2018) and Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective (2018), editor of African Politics: Major Works (2016), and Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments (2018), and co-​editor of Our Turn to Eat: Politics in Kenya since 1950 (2010), The Routledge Handbook of African Politics (2013), and three special issues of the Journal of Eastern Africa Studies. He is the founder and co-​editor of www.democracyinafrica.org. Sara Rich Dorman is Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and an ESRC-​ AHRC-​FCO Knowledge Exchange Fellow (2018–​20). Her research focuses on post-​liberation states and the politics of nationalism, citizenship, state-​building, and urban politics in the Horn of Africa and Southern Africa. She is the author of Understanding Zimbabwe: From Liberation to Authoritarianism (2016) and has published articles in numerous journals including African Affairs, Citizenship Studies, Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Current History, the Journal of Southern African Studies, Nations and Nationalism, and Third World Quarterly. She is a former editor and book reviews editor of African Affairs, and currently senior editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies. Boniface Dulani is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at Chancellor College of the University of Malawi. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Michigan State University. He is actively involved in survey research and is a senior member of the Afrobarometer, a pan-Africanist research network that undertakes a series of public opinion surveys on governance, democracy, markets, livelihoods and other related topics in more than thirty-​five African countries. He has published in Electoral Studies, African Affairs, Africa Insight, and several edited volumes. Rachel Ellett is Associate Professor of Political Science at Beloit College, USA. Her research interests lie at the intersection of law and politics in eastern and southern Africa. She is the author of Pathways to Judicial Power in Transitional States (2013) and has published articles in numerous journals including Comparative Politics, the Journal of Law and Courts, and Law and Social Inquiry. Marc Epprecht is Professor of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University, Canada. He has published extensively on the history of gender and sexuality in Africa including Hungochani: The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa (2004; winner of the 2006 Joel Gregory Prize), Heterosexual Africa? (2008; runner-​up for the Mel Herskovitz prize), Sexuality and Social Justice in Africa (2013), and Welcome to Greater Edendale: Environment, Health, and the History of Development in an African City (2016). Tessa Devereaux Evans is a PhD student at Cornell University. Her research focuses on African politics, democracy, colonial institutions, and the relationship between conflict and gender. Prior to her doctoral program, she received her Master’s degree at Oxford University. Jorge Gallego is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Universidad del Rosario, Colombia. His research focuses on political and economic development in Latin America, with a special emphasis on clientelism, civil conflict, state capacity, and the resource curse. Jorge has published articles in Conflict Management and Peace Science, Electoral Studies, and the Journal of Theoretical Politics. xii

xiii

Contributors

Mamoudou Gazibo is Professor of Political Science at the University of Montreal, Canada. His research focuses on comparative politics with an emphasis on comparative methods, democratization and governance, and China–​Africa relations. In 2010, he chaired the Niger constitution drafting committee and served as special counselor to the Prime Minister. He is the author of Introduction à la Politique Africaine (2010), co-​author of La Politique Comparée: Fondements, Enjeux et Approches Théoriques (2015) and Un Nouvel Ordre Mondial Made in China? (2011), and co-​ editor of Le Politique en Afrique: État des Débats et Pistes de Recherche (2009), Neopatrimonialism in Africa and Beyond (2012), Growing Democracy in Africa: Elections, Accountable Governance and Political Economy (2016) and Repenser la légitimité de l’État africain à l’ère de la gouvernance partagée (2017). Ransford Edward Van Gyampo is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for European Studies (CES) at the University of Ghana. His research focuses on youth politics, democratic development, and natural resource management in Africa. He has several academic publications to his credit in both local and internationally refereed journals. Kristen A.  Harkness is Senior Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews, UK. Her research interests lie at the intersection of ethnic politics, conflict studies, and democratization with a regional focus on Africa. She is the author of When Soldiers Rebel: Ethnic Armies and Political Instability in Africa (2018) and has published articles in numerous journals including Democratization, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, the Journal of Peace Research, and the Journal of Strategic Studies. Mai Hassan is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Michigan, USA. Her research, which focuses on authoritarian and hybrid regimes, the state, devolution, land, and ethnic politics with a regional focus on sub-​Saharan Africa, has been published by various outlets including the American Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and the Journal of Peace Research. Martha C.  Johnson is Associate Professor of Political Science at Mills College, USA. Her research interests include women’s political representation, particularly in Francophone West Africa, as well as bureaucratic politics and development. Martha has published in numerous journals including Africa Today, the American Journal of Political Science, Development and Change, Development Policy Review, and the Journal of Modern African Studies. Brandon Kendhammer is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the International Development Studies program at Ohio University, USA. His research focuses on Islam and politics in West Africa. He is the author of Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy and Law in Northern Nigeria (2016) and co-​author of Boko Haram (2018). Dominika Koter is Associate Professor of Political Science at Colgate University, USA. She is the author of Beyond Ethnic Politics in Africa (2016) and her work has also appeared in journals such as African Affairs, the Journal of Modern African Studies, and World Politics. She received the Gregory Luebbert award for best article in Comparative Politics and the African Politics Conference Groups’ award for best article published on African politics in 2013. Eric Kramon is Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at George Washington University. He received his PhD in political science from UCLA and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law (CDDRL) at Stanford University. His research focuses on electoral politics, clientelism, and ethnic politics in xiii

xiv

Contributors

sub-​Saharan Africa. His book Money for Votes:The Causes and Consequences of Electoral Clientelism in Africa was published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. Peter M. Lewis is Director of African Studies and Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). His work focuses on politics and development in sub-​Saharan Africa. He has written extensively on economic adjustment, democratization, and civil society in Africa; democratic reform and political economy in Nigeria; public attitudes toward reform and democracy in West Africa; and the comparative politics of economic change in Africa and South-​East Asia. He earned a BA at the University of California, Berkeley, and an MA and PhD at Princeton University. Staffan I. Lindberg is Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, one of five principal investigators for Varieties of Democracy (V-​Dem), and a Wallenberg Academy fellow. He is the author of Democracy and Elections in Africa (2006), editor of Democratization by Elections: A New Mode of Transition? (2009), and has published on various topics including party and electoral systems, elections and democratization, executive–​legislative relationships, civil society, women’s empowerment and representation, popular attitudes, and sequence analysis methods. James D.  Long is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Washington, USA. His research in sub-​Saharan Africa and Afghanistan focuses on elections, including the determinants of voting behavior, the dynamics of electoral fraud, the impact of ICT and digital media on corruption monitoring, and the effects of civil war and insurgency on state-​building. He has published articles in numerous journals including the American Economic Review, Comparative Politics, International Politics, the Journal of Eastern African Studies, and the Journal of Democracy. Gabrielle Lynch is Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Warwick, UK. She is the author of I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin of Kenya (2011), Performances of Injustice: The Politics of Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Kenya (2018), and more than thirty articles and book chapters. Gabrielle co-​edited Democratization in Africa: Challenges and Prospects (2012), a special issue of Democratization (2011), and of the Journal of Eastern African Studies (2014, 2019). She is also deputy chair of the Review of African Political Economy editorial working group and a member of Democratization’s editorial board. Robert Mattes is Professor of Government and Public Policy at the University of Strathclyde, UK, and Honorary Professor at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. His research focuses on the development of democratic attitudes and practices in South Africa and across sub-​ Saharan Africa. He is the co-​editor of Growing up Democratic: Does it Make a Difference? (2016) and author of more than eighty book chapters and journal articles. He is a co-​founder of, and senior adviser to, Afrobarometer –​a groundbreaking regular survey of public opinion in thirty-​ five African countries. Andreas Mehler is Director of the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute and Professor of Political Science at Freiburg University, Germany. Andreas was director of the GIGA Institute of African Affairs (2002–​15) in Hamburg and Senior Researcher at the Conflict Prevention Network in Berlin (2001–​02). He is the President of the Executive Council of the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), co-​editor of the Africa Yearbook, and co-​edited Africa Spectrum (2009–​18). Andreas has published extensively on conflict and security, state and statehood, power-​sharing, French policy on Africa, and democratization. xiv

xv

Contributors

Lisa Mueller is Assistant Professor of Political Science at Macalester College, USA, and a 2018–​19 Residential Fellow of the Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study. She is the author of Political Protest in Contemporary Africa (2018) and has published articles in various journals including African Affairs and the African Studies Review. Cyril Obi is a program director at the Social Science Research Council, USA, leads the African Peacebuilding Network and Next Generation Social Science in Africa programs, and is a research associate at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is the co-​editor of The Rise of China and India in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Critical Interventions (2010) and Oil and Insurgency in the Niger Delta: Managing the Complex Politics of Petro-​Violence (2011), and has published numerous book chapters and articles on natural resources, security, and international relations in Africa. Ken Ochieng’ Opalo is Assistant Professor at Georgetown University, USA. His research interests include the politics of legislative development, the political economy of public policy and economic development, and electoral accountability under devolved government. He is the author of Legislative Development in Africa: Politics and Postcolonial Legacies (forthcoming) and has published articles in numerous journals including the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Democracy, and the Journal of Eastern African Studies. Amy S.  Patterson is the Carl Gustav Biehl Professor of International Affairs at the University of the South (Sewanee), USA. Her research focuses on religion, youth mobilization and advocacy, and health policies in Africa. She has published in journals such as African Affairs, Global Public Health, International Affairs, and the Journal of International Development. She is the author or editor of six books, including the most recent Africa and Global Health Governance (2018). Melanie L. Phillips is a PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, USA, studying candidate selection and women’s representation in sub-​Saharan Africa. Her dissertation looks at the unique barriers that party-​controlled candidate selection poses to women’s political ambition in Zambia. Mark Philp is Professor of History and Politics at the University of Warwick, UK, and Emeritus Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford. He has worked extensively in the fields of political corruption, standards in public life and realist political theory, the history of political thought, and late eighteenth-​and early nineteenth-​century European history. His publications include Political Conduct (2007) and Reforming Political Ideas in Britain: Politics and Language in the Shadow of the French Revolution (2013), and the co-​edited volume Re-​Imagining Democracy in the Mediterranean (2018). Danielle Resnick is Senior Research Fellow and Governance Theme Leader at the International Food Policy Research Institute, USA. Her research focuses on the political economy of development, urban service delivery, democratization and political participation, and foreign aid effectiveness. She is the author of Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies (2014), and co-​editor of Democratic Trajectories in Africa: Unravelling the Impact of Foreign Aid (2013) and African Youth and the Persistence of Marginalization: Employment, Politics, and Prospects for Change (2015). She has published articles in numerous journals including Comparative Political Studies, Comparative Politics, Democratization, Party Politics, Political Geography, Studies in Comparative and International Development, and World Development. xv

xvi

Contributors

Rachel Sigman is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Naval Postgraduate School, USA, and Program Manager for State Capacity and Exclusion at the V-​Dem Institute. Her research focuses on the challenges of state-​building in African democracies, politics of African bureaucracies, and measurement of state capacity and related concepts. Landry Signé is a distinguished fellow at Stanford University, a Rubenstein fellow at the Brookings Institution, the founding chairman of the Global Network for Africa’s Prosperity, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage, USA. His research focuses on the political economy of development, governance, and African political, security, regional, and economic processes. He is the author of Innovating Development Strategies in Africa:The Role of International, Regional, and National Actors (2017) and African Development, African Transformation: How Institutions Shape Development Strategy (2018). Alexander Stroh is Junior Professor of Political Science and founding member of the cluster of excellence “Africa Multiple” at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. His research focuses on democratization, political parties, and elections in sub-​Saharan Africa, as well as on relational judicial politics. He is the author of Erfolgsbedingungen Politischer: Parteien im Frankophonen Afrika (2014) and has published articles in various journals including Democratization, the International Political Science Review, and the Journal of Contemporary African Studies. Wisdom J. Tettey is Professor of Political Science and Principal of the University of Toronto Scarborough, Canada. He is also Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences and the author of several publications on Africa, which focus on information technology and diaspora networks; the media, voice, and civic engagement; and citizenship, rights, and representation. Nicolas van de Walle is the Maxwell M.  Upson Professor of Government at Cornell University, USA. His teaching and research focuses on the political economy of development, with a special focus on Africa, on democratization, and on the politics of economic reform. He is the author of Overcoming Stagnation in Aid-​Dependent Countries (2005) and African Economies and the Politics of Permanent Crisis, 1979–​1999 (2001), the co-​author of Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspectives (1997) and Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity in Change (2018), and co-​editor of Democratic Trajectories in Africa: Unraveling the Impact of Foreign Aid (2013). Peter VonDoepp is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Vermont, USA. His research on African politics has focused on judicial development and state–​media relations. He is the author of Judicial Politics in New Democracies: Cases from Southern Africa (2009) and co-​ editor of The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions (2005). His research has been supported by a number of different institutions and been published in a variety of political science and area studies journals. Leonard Wantchekon is Professor of Politics at Princeton University. His research focuses on democratization, clientelism and redistributive politics, the resource curse, and the long-​term social impact of historical events. He has published articles in numerous journals including the American Economic Review, the American Political Science Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and World Politics. He is the founder of the African School of Economics in Benin, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science and the Econometric Society.

xvi

xvi

newgenprepdf

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Andrea Scheibler for her outstanding editorial work, which extended far beyond the usual copyediting to include comments on argument and analysis. We would also like to thank the team at Routledge, particularly Leanne Hinves and Henry Strang; all of our contributors for their patience and quick responses; Nic Cheeseman for his comments on the introduction, and everyone who—​in one way or another—​has enabled and enriched the research that has gone into each and every chapter.

xvii

xvi

1

INTRODUCTION Democracy in practice—​diversity and complexity Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

Teaching a course on democracy in sub-​Saharan Africa at the turn of the twentieth century, one could have easily introduced or framed the discussion with reference to optimistic versus pessimistic perspectives. Pessimists—​whether drawing on the idea of democratic prerequisites (Decalo 1992) or apparent challenges on the ground (Kaplan 1994)—​offered a dire forecast, even in the context of emergent pro-​democracy movements and transitions to multiparty politics.1 Optimists, on the other hand, adopted more of a “bias for hope,” and focused on the very real changes taking place and the possibilities that they presented (Chege 1994). As an increasing number of countries came to hold regular multiparty elections during the 1990s and early 2000s, variations of this debate continued as attention turned from the prospects of transition to democratic regime types and trajectories. During these years it became increasingly clear that incumbents often sought to use elections as a means to legitimize their leadership and to quiet and divide opposition forces (Adebanwi and Obadare 2011). These included authoritarian leaders—​such as Daniel arap Moi in Kenya—​who, despite bowing to domestic and international pressure to introduce multiparty politics, had clearly not become committed democrats overnight (Bratton 1998). It also included many self-​declared democrats—​such as Frederick Chiluba in Zambia and Abdoulaye Wade in Senegal—​who won elections (in 1991 and 2000, respectively) only to then manipulate “the mechanisms of democracy” to bolster their own positions (Huntington 1996, 8; also Mbow 2008; Mwenda 2007; Prempeh 2008). Given these realities, scholars came to speak of “the end of the transition paradigm” (Carothers 2002) and emergence of new “hybrid regimes” (Levitsky and Way 2002) or of “democracy with adjectives” (Collier and Levitsky 1997). This discussion of new and varied regime types went hand-​in-​hand with discussions of democratic trajectories. However, while some adopted broadly pessimistic or optimistic positions—​by speaking, for example, of the rise of “illiberal democracy” (Zakaria 1997) or of “democratization by elections” (Lindberg 2006)—​others emphasized divergence and complexity (Osaghae 1999; Gyimah-​Boadi 2004; Opalo 2012). In this vein, Diamond (2010, x) talked of “both democracy on the march and democracy in retreat.” Lynch and Crawford (2011) reached the more cautiously optimistic conclusion that—​while the story of democratization in Africa was mixed and more needed to be done to secure both civil and socioeconomic rights and citizens’ physical security—​on the whole, democratic progress during the first twenty years of the “third wave” outweighed the setbacks. 1

2

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

Such discussions drew upon, and also fed into, several other key areas of debate.This included topics such as the demands and expectations of ordinary citizens (for example, see Karlström 1996; Schaffer 1998); the relationship between democratization and development (for example, see Harding and Stasavage 2013; Lewis 2010; Masaki and van de Walle 2014); and the role of culture, structure, informal and formal institutions, and individual agency (for example, see Adebanwi 2012; Ake 2000; Barkan 2008; Chabal and Daloz 1999; Obadare and Adebanwi 2016; Omotola 2010; Posner and Young 2007). As with discussions of regime types and trajectories, these debates shifted over time from conversations that could broadly be characterized as optimistic versus pessimistic, to ones in which questions of complexity and difference took center stage. The emergent perspective suggested that understanding democratic trajectories required looking more closely at histories, contexts, and interactive dynamics. Examples of this turn include Villalón and VonDoepp’s (2005, 11)  collection on the fate of Africa’s democratic experiments, which emphasized the “multiple tendencies and diverse hybridities” operating in new democracies; or Cheeseman’s (2018, 373) call “to pay careful attention to the great variety of relationships that exist between the formal and informal realm” and to “the informal foundations of formal structures, and the ways in which the official rules of the game shape informal processes.” This shift to look at complexity and interactive dynamics has built upon and further fostered a burgeoning literature that examines how various actors and institutions actually work. For example, scholars have come to look at how political parties have evolved, function, and campaign (see, for example, Bob-​Milliar 2012; Elischer 2013; LeBas 2011; also Beardsworth; Kramon; Stroh, this volume); at key democratic institutions—​such as legislatures, judiciaries, and electoral management bodies (Opalo; Ellet; Gazibo, this volume); and at the complexity of ethnic and patronage politics (Oucho 2002; Koter; Gallego and Wantchekon, this volume). Others have taken a less organizational or institutional approach and looked, for example, at voting behavior (Weghorst and Lindberg 2013; Eifert, Miguel, and Posner 2010; Long, this volume); new political movements (Resnick 2013, and in this volume); the status of key political and social rights (VonDoepp and Young 2013, 2016; Grossman 2015; Kang 2015; Andam and Epprecht, this volume); and relationship between democracy and development (Gyimah-​Boadi and Prempeh 2012; Lewis, this volume). At the same time, more attention is given to how the different elements of democracy—​such as judicial institutions, elections, and press freedoms—​have varying levels of significance across the continent and how these different elements may not always operate in harmony with each other (Cheeseman 2018). This shift has also been fueled by scholarship from the continent, which (among many strengths) often provides richly textured analysis2 and avoids a tendency, sometimes characteristic of scholarship from the “West,” to draw continental-​wide conclusions from a handful of country case studies.This has gone hand-​in-​hand with increased attention to different voices—​ from a range of scholars in different disciplines and places to the insights provided by blogs, activists, artists, musicians, and survey data (for example, Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-​Boadi 2005; Nyairo and Ogude 2005; Omanga 2019). For this burgeoning literature from the African continent and beyond that takes agency, institutions (both formal and informal), complexity, diversity, context, and different perspectives seriously, the question of “how democracies are faring (and why)” is less central than it was to most scholars of African democracy in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is not to suggest that such concerns have disappeared. On the contrary, much of this work is interested in the operation and status of key institutions, support mechanisms, and processes precisely because of their presumed connections to democratic progress, survival, or backsliding (see, for example, Cheeseman and Klaas 2018). However, it is rarely now the main research question, and for some is of only passing concern. Instead, the common theme is that to study democracy in Africa (as elsewhere) one must approach the topic with an understanding that the reality is complex 2

3

Introduction: democracy in practice

and belies broad evaluative summary statements, and that one must analyze what is actually happening rather than rest on tired assumptions. The field of scholarship on African democracy has thus grown tremendously and continues to expand in new and exciting ways. Indeed, taking stock of the array of scholarship reflected in the pages of this volume, it is striking how wide and rich the conversation about democracy in Africa has become. In this respect, the effort to teach a course on democracy should be different from the late 1990s. Rather than begin with pessimism verses optimism, and then proceed with a consideration of regime types and trajectories, the scholar approaching this field confronts a diverse set of conversations on a range of topics that speak to a complicated reality. The scholar, especially if based outside of the continent, should also be much more aware of the need to engage with analysis—​both scholarly and otherwise—​ from the African continent itself. This is a good thing. It indicates that scholars are addressing a broader array of concerns in comparative politics and ensures that African experiences are part of a much wider set of conversations about developments and solutions. It has also undermined the idea of African exceptionalism and suggests that democracy is functioning well enough in places that the scholarly community can not only explore, but can have rich discussions about issues ranging from legislative development to campaign strategies to municipal budgets. To be sure, the scholarly community is also discussing challenges facing democracies such as electoral manipulation, violence, and corruption—​yet these themes no longer dominate the discourse to the same extent. This volume is an effort to illuminate this field of study. Chapters offer overviews of the key scholarship on particular topics, including the latest research, and provide insights and suggestions for those interested in further inquiry. Our hope is that the specific chapters allow the reader to engage with the scholarly conversations on important issues and that the volume as a whole provides an appreciation of the richness and diversity of this field. With this in mind, the chapters include attention to broad cross-​continental patterns, for example with respect to public opinion or political violence (see chapters by Mattes; or Bekoe and Burchard), as well as to the role and experience of difference actors—​from key institutions to religion, youth groups, and party activists (for example, see chapters by Opalo; Ellett; Harkness; Gazibo; Gyampo; Kramon; Patterson; Kendhammer; Tettey; Mueller; and Resnick). They also draw on the experiences of a variety of cases. This includes countries that have been the focus of a considerable amount of research over the years, such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, but also others such as Burkina Faso, Benin, and the Central African Republic, that are too often ignored or downplayed. Rather than try to summarize—​and thus unintentionally simplify—​these conversations and insights from the volume, this introduction offers an overview of some particularly important and interesting themes that emerge, with sections on the significance of elections, the role of formal and informal institutions, the diversity of actors, and the relationship between democracy and citizenship. The overarching lesson is that we need to pay even more attention to how things actually work in practice and why, as well as guard against lazy assumptions or overgeneralizations, if we are to fully capture and understand continuities and change, and similarities and differences, across a diverse subcontinent.

The significance of elections The role of elections has been at the heart of much academic inquiry about democracy and democratization. This is unsurprising for those who adopt a minimalist understanding of democracy as regular free and fair elections (Schumpeter 1942), but it likewise holds for those who 3

4

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

view elections not just as a means to install democratic governments, but also “as a necessary prerequisite for broader democratic consolidation” (Bratton 1998, 52). In the African context, this perspective gained support most centrally from Lindberg’s research (2006). According to his initial thesis, regular multiparty elections are not only a constitutive part of democracy, but serve to promote democracy through their “positive effects on the spread and deepening of civil liberties in the society” (Lindberg 2006, 3).This idea of “democratization-​by-​elections” stimulated much debate as critics pointed, for example, to the ways in which manipulated elections could strengthen autocrats, fuel violence, and create crises (as occurred, for example, in Zimbabwe in 2008). Overall trends in Freedom House ratings of civil and political liberties—​an initially positive upward trend, which had provided a basis for Lindberg’s optimistic conclusions in the early 2000s—​also began to see a reversal from 2006 (Lynch and Crawford 2011, 280). In the face of such complex realities, Lindberg has revised his original position to explicitly recognize how election quality conditions “the democratising power of elections” such that “electoral practices are often reproduced over time” allowing for both “democratisation-​ by-​elections” and “stabilisastion by autocracy” (van Ham and Lindberg 2018, 229–​34). This latter possibility complements a broader literature, which outlines how incumbents in authoritarian or hybrid regimes tend to use elections as a means to divide the political opposition and bolster their national and international legitimacy, while simultaneously drawing upon a “menu of manipulation” (Schedler 2002) to ensure their victory (Adebanwi and Obadare 2011; Obi 2011). As a result, elections can augment the probability of an authoritarian incumbent’s survival, while also opening up the possibility for the removal or weakening of incumbents (Schedler 2009, 292). Elections therefore matter because they help to strengthen autocrats in certain contexts, and bring about regime change in others. However, elections also matter for a number of other reasons.They help to construct—​or question—​a state separate from society (Willis, Lynch, and Cheeseman 2017); and they can provide a peaceful means for determining political outcomes, but also be associated with significant malpractice and violence. At the same time, as unpredictable political processes that various actors—​from aspirants and activists to diplomats, religious leaders, and voters—​invest much time and energy in, elections can tell us much about the level and nature of democracy and provide an informative window onto broader political trends and realities. Intertwined with the question of whether and how elections affect regime consolidation are the issues of electoral integrity and stability. With respect to electoral integrity, most now appreciate the need to look beyond the processes of voting, counting, and tallying, to the entire electoral cycle. As the work of Cheeseman and Klaas (2018, 26) reveals, the “menu of manipulation” now involves a wide array of tactics and a more “sophisticated and sinister” use of existing strategies that incumbents in particular can use to rig elections.These include the more strategic uses of violence to cow journalists and opponents, the employment of social media to misinform citizens, and misuse of new electoral technology. In addition to the fact that such tactics are frequently deployed in the service of consolidating authoritarian incumbents, they also deserve consideration in light of the potential relationship between electoral malfeasance and violence. Concerns about electoral integrity have certainly cascaded into violent episodes, especially in the aftermath of contests. More generally, however, and as Bekoe and Burchard explain in their chapter, violence can be used by a diversity of actors during an electoral cycle to achieve different ends—​with pre-​election violence often used to intimidate or disenfranchise, and post-​ election violence often used to reject official results or punish particular groups of people. Yet manipulation and violence are not the only factors that determine the outcome, quality, and impact of elections. Indeed, even where incumbents (or ruling party candidates) draw from 4

5

Introduction: democracy in practice

a “menu of manipulation,” they also invest significant amounts of time and energy in building coalitions and undertaking political campaigns (Ayee 2011; Lynch 2014).The strategies adopted by opposition politicians also matter. As Bunce and Wolchik (2010, 47) have shown in Eastern Europe, if one wants to explain cases of electoral continuity and change, one not only needs to look at “whether regimes [are] ready to depart” but also at “whether the opposition [is] ready to defeat them.” This includes the degree of opposition coordination, which as Beardsworth reminds us in her contribution, “is one of the most important predictors for electoral turnover in competitive authoritarian regimes.” The strategies of incumbents and opponents also matter because, as various contributions to this volume make clear (see especially Koter; and Long), politicians cannot simply rely on ethnic, regional, or religious blocs for support, nor can they simply “buy votes” (as detailed in chapters by Burbidge and Philp; Kramon; and Gallego and Wantchekon). Instead, if politicians are to mobilize the level of support that they need to win (or to not too obviously rig) an election, they must consider policy preferences, popular issues, and people’s expectations of assistance and fears of marginalization, as they seek to persuade people to vote for them and against “others” (see also Lynch 2011). At the same time, campaign dynamics are often more complicated than they may at first appear. For example, what might appear as “vote buying” often reflects a more complex strategy whereby candidates seek to establish connections with targeted voters and communities and “make their campaign promises more credible” (as argued in Kramon’s chapter). Similarly, patronage may take various forms over the course of an electoral cycle, and thus require the involvement of different kinds of structures, party workers, and brokers, and have different socioeconomic and political impacts (see Gallego and Wantchekon’s chapter). The implication is that to explore African elections and understand their outcomes and what they reveal about the level and nature of democratic politics, we must look at multiple issues. These include—​but are not necessarily limited to—​the types of manipulation deployed; the use and chronology of violence; party structures; campaigns (including the use of music and performance); and the role of opinion leaders. Stepping back from the more “micro” issues of campaign strategies and voter choices, the outcome of elections can also reflect more macro-​level or contextual factors. As Cheeseman argues in his contribution, the removal of incumbents from power in “founding elections” was most likely in contexts “where economic decline had been particularly severe, civil society … [was] united and powerful, and international actors were willing to push for change.” Cheeseman uses these factors to explain different trajectories over time, but also recognizes how “pathways are not set in stone and remain subject to disruption by new economic conditions, international contexts, and changes in leadership.” As a result, his chapter adds to a literature on historical institutionalism, but also provides more general insights as to the range of factors that might encourage “democratisation-​by-​elections” or “stabilisation by autocracy” (van Ham and Lindberg 2018). In turn, Obi’s contribution focuses on one of these factors and discusses how struggles over natural resource wealth “framed as a ‘winner-​takes-​all game,’ tend to undermine … free and fair elections.” While studies of elections are sometimes focused squarely on presidential elections, this volume also points to the importance of lower-​level elections for both their direct and indirect effects on democratization. This includes the ways that competitive races allow for legislative accountability and a stronger opposition (Opalo), but also for how parliamentary campaign strategies can also rely on patronage (Gallego and Wantchekon) and violence and mobilization against “the other” (Bekoe and Burchard). Indeed, as Hassan reminds us, the devolution of power to subnational units can simply lead to a localization of corruption and exacerbation of ethnic tensions and conflicts (also Suberu 2001). 5

6

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

Several chapters also alert and remind us to guard against the assumption that elections necessarily enhance the overall quality of democracy. Indeed, recalling the theme of complexity that informs our discussion, while competitive and credible elections are an essential part of democracy, they can also be compatible with—​and actually help to encourage—​less democratic tendencies. This includes the role of elections in helping to legitimize authoritarian leaders (Obi 2011), fuel violence (Bekoe and Burchard), and cultivate a culture of campaign handouts that can encourage corruption (Burbidge and Philp) and an inefficient distribution of state resources (Gallego and Wantchekon). It also includes the ways in which competitive elections might encourage populist politics that work against gender equality (Johnson and Phillips) and the rights of sexual minorities (Andam and Epprecht). Similarly, the high turnover rates of MPs witnessed in many elections can help to promote accountability, but can also undermine “the accumulation of institutional memory, investment in specialized committee systems, and the ability [of legislatures] to politically balance presidents” (Opalo). Critically, the same holds for the relationship between elections, democracy, economic growth, and development, which, as Lewis shows in his chapter, may have less to do with nominal regime type than with the “quality of state institutions, the commitments of leadership, and the nature of political coalitions with producer groups.” In short, the relationship between regular multiparty elections, equality, and poverty reduction is shown to be even weaker than that between electoral regimes and macroeconomic stabilization. Such complex realities are important for understanding elections and democratization, but also for understanding what elections reveal about the broader political economy and culture, and the relative power, role of, and relationships between various informal and formal institutions and actors. For example, much can be understood about a country’s judiciary by looking at how they oversee election petitions, or about state security services by looking at how they police protests or demonstrations. This, in turn, highlights the importance of institutions for democracy.

The role of institutions Scholars have increasingly come to recognize the importance of both formal and informal institutions in African politics, and how formal institutions help to shape informal institutions and vice versa (Cheeseman 2018). A number of our chapters offer reviews of the research on particular institutions. This includes institutions that have attracted significant attention over the years—​such as legislatures (Opalo), judiciaries (Ellett), militaries (Harkness), and devolved government (Hassan)—​as well as others—​such as term limits (Dulani), electoral management bodies (Gazibo), and municipal governments (Resnick)—​which have received far less attention. Several of these chapters affirm important insights about the rising significance of formal institutions and their potentially positive effects on democratization processes. Term limits, as Dulani details, are not only increasingly common on the African continent, but they continue to expand and enjoy widespread popular support despite attempts to reverse or undermine them. Moreover, they have positive effects on democracy, contributing especially to executive turnover, which in turn can contribute to the deepening of democracy in a variety of ways (Cheeseman 2010). In a similar fashion, Signé suggests that horizontal accountability mechanisms have enhanced democratic regimes via their role in constraining executive power. However, certain chapters also reveal how an investigation of institutions can reveal potentially surprising and even counterintuitive findings about their relationships with democracy. For example, one might assume that proper institutional design, such as the putting in place of 6

7

Introduction: democracy in practice

legal provisions to ensure the autonomy and authority of key institutions, would contribute to their ability to help promote accountability and deepen democracy. Yet, several chapters indicate that the performance of key institutions may be more historically and contextually rooted than is often assumed. In this way, Ellett illuminates how historical legacies substantially shape the character and behavior of courts in the contemporary era. Thus, despite the constitutional empowerment of courts in the 1990s, they must still overcome their legacies as subservient institutions deployed in the service of autocratic executives. This helps to explain the varied pattern whereby judicial institutions can be harnessed in efforts to preserve and enhance executive dominance, but also to promote democratic outcomes. In a related argument, Opalo’s chapter on legislatures reveals their varied ability to serve as checks on executives and how this is in large part shaped by the historical evolution of these bodies during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Similarly, one of the key insights from Gazibo’s chapter on electoral management bodies is that institutional design is but one factor alongside a host of others connected to the domestic and international context that affects the performance of these bodies and, ultimately, the integrity and success of elections. This again reminds us of the complexity that confronts the investigation of important aspects of democratization processes. At the same time, several chapters detail how formal institutions that are often believed to help promote democracy can undermine the same. In this vein, Hassan details how devolution—​ which is sometimes cast as a means to undermine a divisive “winner-​takes-​all politics”—​can go hand-​in-​hand with powerful presidents, or even enable the re-​centralization of power, as well as potentially further heighten inter-​communal tensions and conflicts. Moreover, while much of the established literature on democracy presumes that stable, institutionalized party systems are a benefit to democracies, Stroh’s chapter ably demonstrates how this may not be true in all African contexts, and how some emerging democracies may be better served by party systems characterized by some level of “reliable flexibility.” Mehler’s chapter, in turn, outlines the potentially detrimental impacts of power-​sharing—​an institutional design that is often used to try and promote conflict in post-​conflict settings. The story is complicated still further by the complex ways in which these institutions interact with broader contexts—​with judicial institutions, for example, sometimes showing greater independence in more authoritarian societies (see Ellett, this volume). Critically, this picture of complexity and the calling into question of the presumed status and roles of various institutions also extends to informal institutions. Thus, while the presumed neopatrimonial character of African politics is often used to explain the continent’s hybrid regimes, Sigman and Lindberg show how, “for much of the period since independence, African regimes have not been significantly more or less neopatrimonial than regimes in other parts of the world.” Just as importantly, they show that neopatrimonialism may not be a major hindrance to democratization and democratic survival. Its effects, instead, are “likely to be contingent on a host of other regime factors.” Similarly, Burbidge and Philp suggest that the behavior of public officials, and especially the distributive practices in which they engage, are best understood with reference to their connections to multiple normative networks operating in African societies. This calls up the importance of a range of other informal institutions, from moral codes to taboos. Collectively, these insights show how the relationship between these institutions and democracy is far from clear-​cut, and how many of the common presumptions that have characterized the study of African politics are misguided or overly simplistic. Moreover, they highlight how much more attention still needs to be given to local realities, the informal institutions that operate within those contexts, the relationship (in practice) between formal and informal institutions, and the role and experience of various groups of people. 7

8

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

Diverse actors Regarding people, contributions point to the complex role played by an increasingly diverse array of actors in African democracies. For example, although much of the literature dealing with national-​level contestation has focused on political elites and, more specifically, presidential aspirants, chapters in this volume point to the importance of other political actors—​ from local politicians (Beardsworth; Resnick), political workers (Kramon), brokers (Gallego and Wantchekon), and bloggers (Tettey); to military officers (Harkness), judges (Ellet), donors (Evans and van de Walle), civil society (VonDoepp), and students (Gyampo). For example, Beardsworth’s discussion of opposition coalition-​building looks not only at the experiences and expectations of prominent politicians, but also at the ways in which the vested interests and political aspirations of local-​level politicians can help to make or break national-​level coalitions. From another angle, Resnick shows how mayors have become important political players not just at the local level, for example in service delivery for urban residents, but also due to their engagement in, and impact on, national politics. Militaries have also (re)emerged as important actors. With the advent of multiparty politics and the attendant decline of the coup as a form of political change, these actors seemingly receded from the center stage of African political life. Yet, as Harkness reminds us in her chapter, Africa’s militaries remain highly important players in democratic contexts, for example, by making demands on policy and even claiming some level of autonomy vis-​à-​vis efforts to address security concerns. In turn, while significant attention has been given to the role of the international community in democratization—​from the relative significance of domestic and international pressures for reform (Bratton and van de Walle 1997; Gyimah-​Boadi 1996) and tendency for the international community and observers to pull their punches and to accept substandard elections and prioritize stability and development (Brown 2001; Obi 2011)—​the chapter by Evans and van de Walle helps to further nuance this debate and bring it up-​to-​date. More specifically, they show how, while targeted democracy support initiatives can help to promote democracy, generic development assistance tends to strengthen incumbents. Their analysis also points to the importance of donor interests and influence. While Africa’s substantial aid dependence in the early 1990s facilitated Western political leverage, the resumption of growth and the concomitant decline of debt, increased competition with other non-​African states, most notably China, and the struggle against global terrorism, have all conspired to lower Western leverage and have lessened their governments’ commitment to democratic reform. Moreover, while the interests and influence of donors is critical, contributions also point to the importance of other international actors—​from the role of multinational companies involved in natural resource exploitation (Obi), to international non-​ governmental organizations (VonDoepp). Turning attention to African societies, an increasing and diverse collection of groups and actors have emerged to make claims on public life. Part of this reflects the expansion of spaces and opportunities for engagement created by political liberalization. Yet it also reflects economic changes, demographic developments, and globalization. For example, the transformation of Africa’s economies over the past twenty years has facilitated the rise of a more independent middle class. As detailed by Mueller (2018), individuals from this section of society were often in the leadership of the protest movements that shook Africa starting in 2010. Moreover, Africa’s 8

9

Introduction: democracy in practice

“youth bulge” has shaped the character of politics, as young people are variously incorporated into political networks and organizations and have also taken advantage of the spaces created by political liberalization to carve out their own independent roles. As Gyampo shows in his chapter, student connections to political parties have enriched democratic engagement in many respects, while the incorporation of marginalized youth into political networks of powerful political actors has sometimes facilitated their becoming agents of violence and instability. Changes in the media climate are also significant in this regard. On the one hand, popular activism and engagement have been facilitated by increased access to mobile phones and Internet connections. On the other hand, new players such as citizen journalists and bloggers have emerged to shape politics. As Tettey points out in his chapter, such developments can sometimes serve to generate accountability, but they may also have pernicious effects on civic life. The growth and diversification of faith communities in Africa is also a manifestation of similar dynamics.The dramatic spread of neo-​Pentecostal teachings and imagery in Africa since the early 1990s has entailed not only an increase in the sheer numbers of individuals joining these faith communities, but also their public presence, economic power, and political significance (Obadare 2018). As Patterson details in her contribution, they now represent a potent political force that is shaping public discourse and policies. In turn, while Islam has not witnessed a similar numerical growth in adherents or cultural visibility, it has witnessed what Kendhammer described as “fragmentation and informalization.” One outcome of this is a diversification and empowerment of new religious groups. In this context, established Islamic authorities and groups remain important players in public life, but so too are “new participants, ideologies, and identities” (Kendhammer, this volume) that engage in electoral politics and policy advocacy through democratic processes. Finally, the return to multiparty politics has also witnessed a dramatic growth in the number of civil society organizations (Brass et  al. 2018, 136). Moreover, while civil society engagement may at times appear supportive of the consolidation, and even deepening, of democratic regimes, VonDoepp raises concerns about the ambiguous record of civil society groups in this regard. He also highlights how much more attention has been given to organizations than to citizens and their manifold social connections, and how more attention to the latter can likely reveal important insights about how Africans think and talk about politics, as well as how they engage in the public sphere. The proliferation of media outlets that has accompanied political liberalization, and the opportunities these present for citizens to articulate themselves (see Tettey, this volume), makes this consideration all the more pressing.

Democracy and “the people” The issue of how citizens connect and relate to democratic systems of government remains centrally important, especially in light of their envisioned role in such regimes. One key issue concerns whether these regimes enjoy popular support, and whether and how citizens’ attitudes and expectations shape the course of political life. As we learn from Mattes’ chapter, the picture here is complicated. Africans as a whole are supportive of democratic systems of government and the mechanisms of horizontal and vertical accountability that accompany them. At the same time, there is wide variety between countries with respect to this support, and across most of the continent citizens see democracy as “undersupplied.” This takes on special significance in light of Mattes’ finding that countries with larger proportions of dissatisfied democrats are more likely to witness democratic backsliding. However, attitudes capture only one dimension of citizen engagement with democratic politics; behavior represents another. Voting is, of course, the central political act of democratic citizens. Beyond this, citizen engagement with democratic systems is apparent through 9

10

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

a range of activities—​from protest to their involvement with parties, civil society groups, and the media. Important questions arise here. Protests were central to the democratic transitions that took place in the early 1990s (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), and became a central feature of African politics from 2010 forward, sometimes appearing to arise to challenge efforts by incumbents to entrench their authority and tamper with constitutions.Yet, it is not entirely clear whether such activity represented the defense of democracy by “the people” or developed and gained momentum in the context of other factors—​issues that are addressed by Mueller in her chapter. As previous sections have highlighted, attention also needs to be given to the tangible connections between citizens and political institutions, players and processes, and to the ways in which people’s expectations, demands, and actions help to shape and constrain the behavior of various actors and thus—​together with politicians and other “elite” actors—​help to co-​produce political outcomes. As Kramon’s work on electoral clientelism has shown, popular expectations of assistance encourage the distribution of campaign handouts as aspirants seek to “demonstrate that they are a redistributive type … [and] are electorally viable” (2017, 11, emphasis in original). The implication is that one can only ever fully understand political campaigns, patronage politics, and corruption when we look at both elite strategies and the expectations and demands of ordinary citizens, and at how these play out in local contexts (Burbidge and Philp; Kramon, this volume). Similarly, Gyampo’s contribution highlights how, to understand the political effects of Africa’s burgeoning youth populations, we need to consider how they relate to political actors and organizations. Finally, as we raise the question of how citizens relate to democracy, we need to consider the status and lived socioeconomic, cultural, and political experiences of people vis-​à-​vis the political system. As Dorman effectively demonstrates, part of this involves questions about the legal standing of groups of individuals, and how that standing has been the target of manipulation in the context of democratic competition. But it extends beyond this, since, as Dorman shows, citizenship also involves normative expectations of what constitutes a “good citizen.” These can involve behavioral expectations and ascriptive dimensions. Those who fail to approximate such standards can face exclusion, marginalization, and denial of rights associated with democratic citizenship. Consider, for instance, the experience of non-​heterosexual persons (Andam and Epprecht, this volume) or the challenges encountered by women who are perceived to have violated gender norms in their pursuit for political office (Johnson and Phillips, this volume). Consideration of citizen experiences also extends to the economic sphere and the particular question of whether democracy brings economic growth and greater human security and equality (Lewis, this volume).

Conclusion: democratic realities By drawing on the contributions to this volume, this introductory chapter has highlighted the diversity of institutions and actors that need to be considered to fully understand democracy in Africa. It also reveals how no single institution or actor has a clear-​cut relationship with democratization—​either positive or negative—​and how roles are instead shaped by a complex mix of history and expectations; individual and collective agency; generational, demographic, ethnic and religious identities and relations; formal and informal institutions; and developments at the local, national, regional, and global level. Appreciating such complexity is critical as it helps us to better understand different trajectories, both within and between countries, and surprising developments—​from the eruption of violence in some areas or neighborhoods and not in others, to democratic erosion in Zambia, 10

11

Introduction: democracy in practice

the fall of Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe, and a period of significant reform in Ethiopia. It also helps to ensure that studies of democracy make new contributions to knowledge on specific topics, such as political campaigning, while also helping to develop a more nuanced understanding of African history, politics, and society in a broader sense. It is also critical as it has important implications for initiatives to support democracy. For example, if cash handouts are not simply a means to “buy votes” but rather a display of capacity and generosity, then civic education campaigns that call upon citizens not to “sell their vote” will have limited impact. Similarly, if the workings of formal institutions are shaped by histories, key actors, and informal institutions, then efforts at “institutional design” need to move away from a tendency to suggest a “one-​size-​fits-​all” response to look at local realities and different possible scenarios and trajectories. Moreover, even while the volume covers a diverse range of issues, many remain under-​ or unexplored. Some of this may reflect the way in which the experience of particular countries—​such as Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria—​have been especially influential in shaping debates in and about the continent. However, it also reflects how certain issues lie somewhat outside the boundaries of conventional political science research or may be challenging to investigate with the predominant tools and methods employed by the discipline. This includes the more performative aspects of democracy, such as the kind of state and regime that elections help to perform and construct (Willis, Lynch, and Cheeseman 2017), or the importance of public performance in mobilizing support and constructing a sense of “us” and “them” (Nyairo 2015). It also includes the broader structural and cultural contexts informing democratic experiences, such as the role of global, regional, and local capitalism (Cheru and Obi 2010; Wiegratz, Martiniello, and Greco 2018), the impact of music and art (Nyairo and Ogude 2005), and the nature of discourses of underdevelopment and insecurity (Abrahamsen 2000). Beyond this, the importance of certain actors, institutions, and developments demand greater attention. Notable in this regard is the role of the police (Ruteere 2011) and election observation groups (Hyde 2017), the impact of various democracy promotion activities, such as civic education programs and peace messaging (Lynch, Cheeseman, and, Willis 2019), and the evolving strategies through which politicians—​ particularly incumbents, but also opposition politicians—​seek to manipulate multiparty elections (Cheeseman and Klaas 2018). In turn, future research would benefit from looking beyond the usual cases and voices and at the insights provided by political analysis more broadly speaking (including voices from the arts, music, and literature), at how different actors and institutions interact, and at how attitudes, expectations, and behaviors are actually produced and evolve in different contexts. This includes further analysis of people’s experiences of democracy and associated processes and institutions—​most notably, the experiences of different socioeconomic classes and of a diverse range of actors such as political activists, financiers, public relations teams, the police, artists, and international companies. It also requires greater investment in and attention to analysis from the continent. This would help enrich all analysis, but also tackle the deep-​rooted structural inequalities in the production of knowledge and associated biases that follow in terms of what is researched, how, and with what conclusions. The implication from the scope of both what is—​and is not—​included in this volume in terms of topics, countries, and voices is that divergence, difference, and contradictory trends are to be expected. It also means that, while the academic literature on democracy in Africa is vast and growing, it is still far from covering the full range of issues and dynamics that demand attention across the subcontinent.

11

12

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp

Notes 1 For a useful review, see Lemarchand (1992) or Shaw and Adibe (1995). 2 For a few examples from Kenya, see Chweya (2002); Murunga and Nasong’o (2007); Mutua (2008); Njogu and Wekesa (2015).

References Abrahamsen, Rita. 2000. Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa. London: Zed Books. Adebanwi, Wale. 2012. Authority Stealing: Anti-Corruption War and Democratic Politics in Post-Military Nigeria. Durham, NC: Caroline Academic Press. Adebanwi, Wale, and Ebenezer Obadare. 2011. “The Abrogation of the Electorate: An Emergent African Phenomenon.” Democratization 18, no. 2: 275–​310. Ake, Claude. 2000. The Feasibility of Democracy in Africa. Dakar: CODESRIA. Ayee, Joseph R.A. 2011. “Manifestos and Elections in Ghana’s Fourth Republic.” South African Journal of International Affairs 18, no. 3: 367–​84 Barkan, Joel. 2008. “Legislatures on the Rise?” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 2: 124–​37. Bob-​Milliar, George M. 2012. “Party Factions and Power Blocs in Ghana: A Case Study of Power Politics: The National Democratic Congress.” Journal of Modern African Studies 50, no. 4: 573–​601. Brass, Jennifer N., Wesley Longhofer, Rachel S. Robinson, and Allison Schnable. 2018. “NGOs and International Development: A Review of Thirty-​five Years of Scholarship.” World Development 112: 136–​49. Bratton, Michael. 1998. “Second Elections in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 9, no. 3: 51–​66. Bratton, Michael, Robert Mattes, and Emmanuel Gyimah-​Boadi. 2005. Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bratton, Michael, and Nicolas van de Walle. 1997. Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in a Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, Stephen. 2001. “Authoritarian Leaders and Multiparty Elections in Africa: How Foreign Donors Help to Keep Kenya’s Daniel arap Moi in Power.” Third World Quarterly 22, no. 5: 725–​39. Bunce, Valerie J., and Sharon L. Wolchik. 2010. “Defeating Dictators: Electoral Change and Stability in Competitive Authoritarian Regimes.” World Politics 62, no. 1: 43–​86. Carothers, Thomas. 2002. “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 1: 5–​21. Chabal, Patrick, and Jean-​Pascal Daloz. 1999. Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Oxford: James Currey. Cheeseman, Nic. 2010. “African Elections as Vehicles for Change.” Journal of Democracy 21, no. 4: 139–​53. —​—​—​, ed. 2018. Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cheeseman, Nic, and Brian Klaas. 2018. How to Rig an Election. New Haven:Yale University Press. Chege, Michael. 1994. “What’s Right with Africa.” Current History 93, no. 583: 193–​97. Cheru, Fantu, and Cyril Obi, eds. 2010. The Rise of China and India in Africa: Challenges, Opportunities and Critical Interventions. London: Zed Books. Chweya, Ludeki, ed. 2002. Electoral Politics in Kenya. Nairobi: Claripress. Collier, David, and Steven Levitsky. 1997. “Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovations in Comparative Research.” World Politics 49, no. 3: 430–​51. Conroy-​Krutz, Jeffrey, and Carolyn Logan. 2012. “Museveni and the 2011 Ugandan Election: Did the Money Matter?” Journal of Modern African Studies 50, no. 4: 625–​55. Decalo, Samuel. 1992. “The Process, Prospects and Constraints of Democratization in Africa.” African Affairs 91, no. 362: 7–​35 Diamond, Larry. 2010. “Introduction.” In Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat, edited by Larry Diamond and Marc F. Plattner, ix–​xxviii. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Eifert, Benn, Edward Miguel, and Daniel N. Posner. 2010.“Political Competition and Ethnic Identification in Africa.” American Journal of Political Science 54, no. 2: 494–​510. Elischer, Sebastian. 2013. Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grossman, Guy. 2015. “Renewalist Christianity and the Political Saliency of LGBTs:Theory and Evidence from Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Journal of Politics 77, no. 2: 337–​51.

12

13

Introduction: democracy in practice Gyimah-​Boadi, E. 1996. “Civil Society in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 7, no. 2: 118–​32. —​—​—​, ed. 2004. Democratic Reform in Africa:The Quality of Progress. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Gyimah-​Boadi, E., and H. Kwasi Prempeh. 2012. “Oil, Politics, and Ghana’s Democracy.” Journal of Democracy 23, no. 3: 94–​108. Harding, Robin, and David Stasavage. 2013. “What Democracy Does (and Doesn’t Do) for Basic Services: School Fees, School Inputs, and African Elections.” Journal of Politics 76, no. 1: 229–​45. Huntington, Samuel P. 1996. “Democracy for the Long Haul.” Journal of Democracy 7, no. 2: 3–​13. Hyde, Susan D. 2017. The Pseudo-​Democrat’s Dilemma:Why Election Observation Became an International Norm. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kang, Alice. 2015. Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kaplan, Robert. 1994. “The Coming Anarchy: How Scarcity, Crime, Overpopulation, Tribalism, and Disease are Rapidly Destroying the Social Fabric of our Planet.” The Atlantic 273, no. 2: 44–​77. Karlström, Mikael. 1996. “Imaging Democracy: Political Culture and Democratisation in Buganda.” Africa 66, no. 4: 485–​505. Kramon, Eric. 2017. Money for Votes:The Causes and Consequences of Electoral Clientelism in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. LeBas, Adrienne. 2011. From Protest to Parties: Party-​Building and Democratization in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lemarchand, Rene. 1992. “Africa’s Troubled Transitions.” Journal of Democracy 3, no. 4: 98–​109. Levitsky, Steven, and Lucan Way. 2002. “The Rise of Competitive Authoritarianism.” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2: 51–​65. Lewis, Peter. 2010. “Growth Without Prosperity in Africa.” In Democratization in Africa: Progress and Retreat, edited by Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner, 88–​102. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lindberg, Staffan. I. 2006. Democracy and Elections in Africa. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Lynch, Gabrielle. 2011. I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. —​—​—​. 2014. “Electing the ‘Alliance of the Accused’: The Success of the Jubilee Alliance in Kenya’s Rift Valley.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, no. 1: 93–​114 Lynch, Gabrielle, Nic Cheeseman, and Justin Willis. 2019. “From Peace Campaigns to Peaceocracy: Elections, Order and Authority in Africa.” African Affairs. Lynch, Gabrielle, and Gordon Crawford. 2011. “Democratization in Africa 1990–​2010: An Assessment.” Democratization 18, no. 2: 275–​310. Masaki, Takaaki, and Nicolas van de Walle. 2014. “The Impact of Democracy on Economic Growth in Sub-​Saharan Africa, 1982–​2012.” UNU–​WIDER Working Paper No. 2014/​057, March 2014. Mbow, Penda. 2008. “Senegal: The Return of Personalism.” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 1: 156–​69. Mueller, Lisa. 2018. Political Protest in Contemporary Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murunga, Godwin, and Shadrack W. Nasong’o. 2007. Kenya:The Struggle for Democracy. London: Zed Books. Mutua, Makau. 2008. Kenya’s Quest for Democracy:Taming Leviathan. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. Mwenda, Andrew M. 2007. “Personalizing Power in Uganda.” Journal of Democracy 18, no. 3: 23–​37. Njogu, Kimani, and Peter Wafula Wekesa, eds. 2015. Kenya’s 2013 Election: Stakes, Practices and Outcomes. Nairobi: Twaweza Communications Ltd. Nyairo, Joyce. 2015. “The Circus Comes to Town: Performance, Religion and Exchange in Political Party Campaigns.” In Kenya’s 2013 Election: Stakes, Practices and Outcomes, edited by Kimani Njogu and Peter Wafula Wekesa, 124–​43. Nairobi: Twaweza Communications Ltd. Nyairo, Joyce, and James Ogude. 2005. “Popular Music, Popular Politics: Unbwogable and the Idioms of Freedom in Kenyan Popular Music.” African Affairs 104, no. 415: 225–​49. Obadare, Ebenezer. 2018. Pentecostal Republic: Religion and the Struggle for State Power in Nigeria. London: Zed Books. Obadare, Ebenezer, and Wale Adebanwi, eds. 2016. Governance and the Crisis of Rule in Africa: Leadership in Transformation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Obi, Cyril. 2011. “Taking Back Our Democracy? The Trials and Travails of Nigerian Elections since 1999.” Democratization 18, no. 2: 366–​87. Omanga, Duncan. 2019. “WhatsApp as ‘Digital Publics’: The Nakuru Analysts and the Evolution of Participation in County Governance in Kenya.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 13, no. 1: 175–​91. Omotola, J. Shola. 2010. “Elections and Democratic Transition in Nigeria under the Fourth Republic.” African Affairs 109, no. 437: 535–​53.

13

14

Gabrielle Lynch and Peter VonDoepp Opalo, Ken Ochieng’. 2012. “African Elections: Two Divergent Trends.” Journal of Democracy 23, no. 3: 80–​93. Osaghae, Eghosa. 1999. “Democratization in Sub-​Saharan Africa: Faltering Prospects, New Hopes.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 17, no. 1: 5–​28. Oucho, John O. 2002. Undercurrents of Ethnic Conflicts in Kenya. Leiden: Brill. Posner, Daniel, and Daniel Young. 2007. “The Institutionalization of Political Power in Africa.” Journal of Democracy 18, no. 3: 126–​40. Prempeh, H. Kwasi. 2008. “Progress and Retreat in Africa: Presidents Untamed.” Journal of Democracy 19, no. 2: 109–​23. Resnick, Danielle. 2013. Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ruteere, Mutuma. 2011. “More than Political Tools: The Police and Post-​Election Violence in Kenya.” African Security Review 20, no. 4: 11–​20. Schaffer, Frederic Charles. 1998. Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press Schedler, Andreas. 2002. “The Menu of Manipulation.” Journal of Democracy 13, no. 2: 36–​50. —​—​—​. 2009. “The Contingent Power of Authoritarian Elections.” In Democratization by Elections: A New Mode of Transition, edited by Staffan Lindberg, 291–​313. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1942. Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Shaw,Timothy, and Clement Adibe. 1995. “Africa and Global Developments in the Twenty-​First Century.” International Journal 51, no. 1: 1–​26. Suberu, Rotimi. 2001. Federalism and Ethnic Conflict in Nigeria. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press. van Ham, Carolien, and Staffan Lindberg. 2018. “Elections: The Power of Elections in Multiparty Africa.” In Institutions and Democracy in Africa: How the Rules of the Game Shape Political Developments, edited by Nic Cheeseman, 213–​37. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Villalón, Leonardo A., and Peter VonDoepp, eds. 2005. The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. VonDoepp, Peter, and Daniel Young. 2013. “Assaults on the Fourth Estate: Explaining Media Harassment in Africa.” Journal of Politics 75, no. 1: 36–​51. —​—​—​. 2016. “Holding the State at Bay: Understanding Media Freedoms in Africa.” Democratization 23, no. 7: 1101–​21. Weghorst, Keith, and Staffan Lindberg. 2013. “What Drives the Swing Voter in Africa?” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 3: 717–​34. Wiegratz, Jorg, Giuliano Martiniello, and Elisa Greco, eds. 2018. Uganda:The Dynamics of Neoliberal Transition. London: Zed Books. Willis, Justin, Gabrielle Lynch, and Nic Cheeseman. 2017. “‘A Valid Electoral Exercise?’: Uganda’s 1980 Elections and the Observers’ Dilemma.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 59, no. 1: 211–​38. Zakaria, Fareed. 1997. “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy.” Foreign Affairs 76, no. 6: 22–​43.

14

15

PART I

The politics and paths of regime development

16

17

1 NEOPATRIMONIALISM AND DEMOCRACY Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg1

Amid the “third wave” of democratization, Collier and Levitsky (1997) famously warned of the “growing scholarly confusion” resulting from the proliferation of concepts related to democracy, or what they call “democracy with adjectives.” While the literature on democracy in sub-​Saharan Africa has certainly contributed its share of new adjectives, one adjective in particular has dominated theoretical discussions surrounding regime trajectories on the continent: neopatrimonial. Neopatrimonial rule, in Africa or elsewhere, combines strong presidents, clientelistic linkages between citizens and politicians, and the use of state resources for political legitimation (Bratton and van de Walle 1997).These features may be present across different regime types, from highly competitive democracies to highly closed authoritarian regimes. They may be embedded in formal political rules, such as the Ghanaian president’s constitutional right to appoint every mayor in the country, or they may reflect less formal practices such as political favoritism in the distribution of state resources. While the notion of strong presidents engaging in patronage-​ based distribution of resources and eschewing institutional constraints to their power seems highly inimical to the idea of democratic rule, Africa, perhaps more than any other region, provides strong evidence that neopatrimonialism does not necessarily hinder the adoption or survival of democratic institutions. In fact, there is now considerable evidence that democratization, even in neopatrimonial contexts, can bring about expansions in civil rights and political freedoms (Lindberg 2006; Edgell et al. 2017), the institutionalization of constitutional rule (Posner and Young 2007), improvements in governance (Alence 2004), and wider distributions of public goods and services (Stasavage 2005; Burgess et  al. 2015). Moreover, some have argued that patrimonialism may actually promote democracy (Pitcher, Moran, and Johnston 2009) and developmental governance (Crook 1989; Booth and Golooba-​Mutebi 2012; Kelsall 2013). The main goal of this chapter is to delineate to what extent, and in what specific ways, African regimes live up to their neopatrimonial reputation. To do so, we develop a multidimensional measure of neopatrimonialism that enables us to explore the varying ways that neopatrimonialism manifests itself in political regimes across Africa, and the extent to which neopatrimonial rule acts as an actual impediment to democracy. Our investigation reveals several important problems with common assumptions about neopatrimonialism in African political regimes. First, we find that, on average, regimes in Africa 17

18

Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg

are not considerably more neopatrimonial than those of other regions of the developing world. Second, there is a large amount of variation in neopatrimonialism across African political regimes, both in terms of the level of neopatrimonialism across countries and the specific configurations of the three main dimensions of neopatrimonial rule. Finally, we show that neopatrimonialism does not act as a particularly strong or consistent impediment to the advancement or survival of democracy. Together, these observations suggest the need to further question widespread assumptions about the exceptional, undemocratic qualities of neopatrimonial rule in Africa.

Democracy with one adjective Both states and politics in Africa are commonly described as neopatrimonial. At its broadest level, this term reflects the idea that patrimonial forms of authority permeate modern institutional structures. In patrimonial contexts, the right to rule is vested in the person; the legitimacy of this person’s authority is derived from popular acceptance of the norms, customs, or beliefs commonly associated with traditional familial or household structures (Weber 1946). Unlike rational-​legal authority, which is based on impersonal, formally proscribed or natural laws, patrimonial authority vests the power to rule in a specific individual. Patrimonialism is also distinct from Weber’s notion of charismatic authority, which is based not on law, custom, or tradition, but on the perception that a leader has some extraordinary ability to rule. A patrimonial system is “held together by the oath of loyalty, or by kinship ties (often symbolic and fictitious) rather than by a hierarchy of administrative grades and functions” (Clapham 1985, 48). Neopatrimonialism differs from patrimonialism in at least two important ways. First, the most basic distinction is the presence of institutions with the “trappings” of modern, legal-​rational structures (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), even if authority remains highly personalized (Clapham 1985; Eisenstadt 1973; Zolberg 1966). As Clapham (1985, 48) explains, “officials hold positions in bureaucratic organizations with powers which are formally defined but exercise those powers, so far as they can, as a form not of public service but of private property.” Second, the traditional basis of patrimonial authority may be less pronounced in neopatrimonial settings than in more purely patrimonial ones (Roth 1968). Rather than practicing loyalty, tribute, or reciprocity, all of which tend to be rooted in shared customs or beliefs, neopatrimonial relationships may take on a more transactional character. As Erdmann and Engel (2007) note, this transactional nature of power effectively divorces patrimonialism from the economic or political contexts (i.e., feudalism) in which specific customs and traditional beliefs were theorized to originate. To this end, Scott’s (1972) account of the decline of more traditional, longstanding patron–​client relationships in the face of modernization and democratization in South-​East Asia resonates with the way that many contemporary scholars tend to view neopatrimonialism. Although the concept of neopatrimonialism is used widely throughout scholarship on the politics and development of Africa (and elsewhere), it has not gone uncriticized. As a number of pieces have persuasively argued, the concept is deployed so broadly that it tends to cloud the large variation in economic and political outcomes across the continent (Bach 2011; Mkandawire 2015; Crook 1989;Theobald 1982). Another critique, advanced by Pitcher, Moran, and Johnston (2009), points out that contemporary applications of the concept often fail to appreciate Weber’s view of (neo)patrimonialism as a form of legitimate authority characterized by reciprocity, voluntary compliance, and checks on rulers. Their insights suggest in particular that neopatrimonialism is not specific to any regime type. Contrary to the dominant

18

19

Neopatrimonialism and democracy

perspectives, these works show how neopatrimonialism can be a force for democracy, social cohesion, redistribution, administrative effectiveness, and development. Likewise, increasing attention to “developmental” forms of patrimonialism in places like Rwanda (Kelsall 2013; Booth and Golooba-​Mutebi 2012) and Angola (Croese 2017) are helping to challenge the more conventionally negative views of the concept.

Neopatrimonial democracy? When, in the 1990s, the third wave of democratization reached sub-​Saharan Africa, the concept of neopatrimonialism was rather quickly adopted to explain why both transitions and the resulting regimes appeared, in a number of ways, different from those of other regions of the world (Bratton and van de Walle 1997). In many cases, the adoption of the neopatrimonial adjective to describe African democracy was accompanied by pessimism about both its depth and durability. Many concluded that changes in formal political institutions were unlikely to fundamentally transform the deep-​seated structures feeding the “politics of the belly” (Bayart 1993) and entrenched forms of “personal rule” (Jackson and Rosberg 1982) in most, if not all, African countries. “The advent of elections,” as Bratton and van de Walle (1997, 9) wrote, “marked a scramble for political positions and an intensification of tendencies to quickly make the most of the benefits of office-​holding.” In short, in focusing on the neopatrimonial character of newly installed democratic regimes, many predicted a quick return to the chaotic and often predatory “Big Men” politics that dominated the 1970s and 1980s (Schatzberg 2001), since this is what “works” in Africa (Chabal and Daloz 1999). This sense of pessimism about regime change in Africa was based on a set of ideas suggesting that, in neopatrimonial contexts, personalistic authority is, by nature, at odds with the workings of formal democratic institutions. One path to this conclusion runs through O’Donnell’s observations about democracy in Latin America suggesting that “systems of privatized power” operating in so-​called “brown spots” render ineffective the rights and guarantees of democratic legality” (O’Donnell 1993, 1359). Such conditions constitute fertile ground for anti-​ system movements and can seriously reduce the prestige and authority of democratic leaders (O’Donnell 1993, 1365). Many concluded that such dynamics weaken democratic regimes and make them vulnerable to various types of challengers. Such was the case, for example, in Joseph’s (1987) account of “prebendal” democracy in Nigeria where the prevalence of competition, prebendalism, and clientelism together accelerated the “ethnicization” of Nigerian politics, which itself is more divisive and destabilizing than, for example, politics of class or ideology. Summing up this perspective, Joseph asks (1987, 49): “How can competitive and open politics be encouraged and pursued in Nigeria in the full knowledge that it generates the very forces which represent such a threat to the stability of that same system?” In addition to generating more divisive forms of competition, both personal rule and clientelism are likely to skew, or render ineffective, the state’s provision of public goods and services in ways that can undermine the consolidation or survival of democracy (Linz and Stepan 1996). Sandbrook and Barker (1985), for instance, described the “downward spiral” involving state decay, economic decline, and the rise of a predatory ruling elite. He and others (e.g., van de Walle 2001; Bates 2008) have documented how declining state capacity resulting from predatory forms of patrimonial rule have contributed to both authoritarianism and regime instability throughout the postcolonial period. Another perspective emphasizes the ways that patrimonial authority enables leaders, especially presidents, to undermine the checks and balances typically associated with democratic

19

20

Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg

rule. By monopolizing access to resources, incumbents coopt or coerce the opposition, thereby tilting the political playing field to their advantage (van de Walle 2003). To the extent that leaders do so in a way that seriously undermines free and fair competition, we are likely to see a reversion to, or persistence of, electoral authoritarian regimes.2 While a number of studies have shown that leaders can be quite successful in pursuing such strategies (Joseph 2008; van Cranenburgh 2008), there is considerable variation in the extent to which presidents in African countries have both tried to pursue this strategy, and been successful in doing so. In some cases, legislative or judicial institutions have exerted serious constraints on such efforts (Opalo 2012; VonDoepp 2005); while in other cases popular uprising, fueled by the “movement legacy” of African politics, has played an important role (Cheeseman 2015). Although there is no shortage of anecdotes to substantiate these theorized links between neopatrimonialism and democratic instability, it is surprising that the widely predicted negative effects of neopatrimonial rule on democracy are not observed more systematically. What earlier observers of democracy in Africa may have missed is that both the global and domestic contexts in which new democratic regimes were operating had changed in important ways. The end of the Cold War was particularly consequential. Western aid flowed more freely to African countries and donors were now able to make credible threats of democratic conditionality (Dunning 2004), even if they did not actually follow through in practice. At the same time, greater “linkage” to the West (Levitsky and Way 2005) in the form of trade, communication, and transnational NGO networks reinforced democratic norms and ideals among both citizens and elites. Thus, even if democratic legal authority was weaker than in Western contexts, international support for such authority had become stronger. At the domestic level, structural conditions became more favorable to democracy as well. Economies began growing again in the 1990s and the proportion of populations living in cities in sub-​Saharan Africa grew from about 18 percent in the 1970s to over 30 percent in the late 1990s (World Bank 2017). With help from international donors, advances in average years of schooling (Barro and Lee 2013) and key health indicators also rose.3 While researchers are still investigating the effects of these changed conditions on democratization and democratic durability, the underlying point here is that although neopatrimonial forms of rule may have persisted through regime changes, the environment in which African countries have been “experimenting” with democratic institutions is considerably more favorable than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Based on the experiences of patrimonial democracies outside of Africa (i.e., Italy or the US in the nineteenth century), it seems reasonable to assume that democratic institutions, even if rooted in patrimonial authority, can indeed survive in such favorable conditions. This assumption becomes even more credible if we take seriously the perspectives of Pitcher, Moran, and Johnston (2009), Mkandawire (2001), Médard (2000), and others that patrimonialism constitutes not only a mechanism of predation, but also a potential force for meaningful regulation and progress. Our challenge then, is not solely to understand if “neopatrimonial democracy” reflects a lesser and more vulnerable form of democracy (although that is certainly important), but also to better understand when and how democratic institutions may survive and even flourish in contexts characterized by neopatrimonial rule. As a necessary first step in this endeavor, the remainder of this chapter investigates empirically the extent to which, and the ways in which, patrimonialism pervades the range of Africa’s political regimes which, as Young (2012) notes, are becoming increasingly more varied in Africa. We do so by constructing a multidimensional index of neopatrimonialism, comparing this index cross-​regionally and cross-​nationally, and assessing how, if at all, neopatrimonialism undermines the advancement of democracy. 20

21

Neopatrimonialism and democracy

Measuring neopatrimonialism Assuming that patrimonialism is a form of (legitimate) authority that exists across different types of political regimes (Pitcher, Moran, and Johnston 2009; Schatzberg 2001), we measure neopatrimonialism in a way that reflects the idea that formal political institutions are to some extent infused with a patrimonial character. Following Bratton and van de Walle (1997), we adopt the idea that neopatrimonial polities often contain three common patterns of observable behavior: clientelistic exchanges, presidentialism, and the use of public resources for private or political benefit. Clientelism reflects the targeted contingent exchange of goods and services for political support (Kitschelt and Wilkinson 2007; Stokes et al. 2013). Presidentialism means the “systemic concentration of political power in the hands of one individual who resists delegating all but the most trivial decision making tasks” (Bratton and van de Walle 1997, 63). The third dimension—​state resources for political legitimation—​captures the extent to which politicians treat public office as a private resource (Bratton and van de Walle 1997, 66). Following this conceptual outline, we use indicators from the Varieties of Democracy (V-​ Dem) dataset to construct an index of neopatrimonial rule. The V-​Dem dataset (Coppedge et al. 2017a) includes measures of both de jure and de facto aspects of political regimes. The large selection of de facto indicators is particularly helpful for our purposes since, by definition, neopatrimonialism implies de facto practices guided by norms or informal rules that differ from those typically associated with the formal institutions in place. The V-​Dem indicators (approximately 350 in total) are based on assessments by experts who are based both within and outside each country. The dataset is currently based on data submitted by almost 3,000 country experts and covers 176 countries, including all sub-​Saharan African countries, from 1900 to 2016.4 We include indicators capturing three main dimensions of neopatrimonial rule: clientelism, presidentialism, and regime corruption (which we equate to the private use of state resources). In addition to an overall index measuring the latent concept of neopatrimonial rule predicted by indicators across these three dimensions, we also produce sub-​indices for each of the three dimensions.The sub-​indices permit finer-​grained analysis to better understand patterns of variation across the three dimensions and how the different dimensions relate to one another. A list of indicators used to construct the indices appears in Table 1.1. All variables are scaled such that higher scores represent higher “neopatrimonial” values of the variable.5 In the Clientelism index we include an indicator of the frequency of vote buying in the last election, a measure of whether public spending tends to be more targeted (particularistic) or more encompassing, and an indicator measuring whether party–​voter linkages tend to be more programmatic or more clientelistic. The Presidentialism index includes a number of indicators measuring the extent to which executive, legislative, judicial, and electoral management bodies are, de facto, autonomous from the chief executive, and to what extent these institutions constrain the power of the executive. The Regime Corruption index includes indicators measuring the extent of executive embezzlement, executive bribery, legislative corruption, and judicial corruption. We specifically exclude V-​Dem’s measures of public sector corruption since, in many cases, public sector workers may not be directly linked to those elected or appointed to office. Each of the four indices is derived using a Bayesian factor analysis (BFA) implemented using MCMCpack in R (Martin, Quinn, and Park 2011).6 One distinct advantage of this method is that it produces confidence intervals for each estimate, taking rater accountability and uncertainty of the MCMC analysis into account. The BFAs estimate the latent concepts from the means of the posterior distributions of each of the V-​Dem indicators included in each dimension. The overall Neopatrimonial index uses the BFA technique on the pool of sixteen indicators employed in the three sub-​indices. The BFA results for all countries are presented in Table 1.2. 21

22

Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg Table 1.1  Descriptive statistics for constituent indicators

Indicator

Mean

SD

Min

Max

N

Clientelism Vote Buying Particularistic v. Public Goods Clientelistic Parties

0.14 0.01 –0.02

1.33 1.39 1.38

–​2.97 –3.39 –3.03

3.65 3.13 3.29

13862 17600 17431

Presidentialism Executive Respects Constitution Executive Oversight Legislature Controls Resources Legislature Investigates Executive High Court Independence Lower Court Independence Compliance with High Court Compliance with Judiciary Electoral Management Body Autonomy

0.18 –​0.75 –​0.50 –​0.75 0.01 0.18 0.24 0.17 –​0.20

1.39 1.79 1.58 1.83 1.35 1.40 1.40 1.38 1.62

–3.29 –2.98 –​2.31 –​3.00 –​3.28 –​3.49 –​3.83 –​3.42 –​2.84

3.52 3.23 2.33 3.68 3.56 3.61 3.11 3.11 3.89

17494 17604 17604 17604 17539 17539 17441 17441 17437

0.25 0.19 0.16 0.42

1.47 1.47 1.34 1.35

–​3.02 –​3.15 –​3.23 –​3.14

3.44 3.73 3.42 3.28

17494 17497 14998 17524

Regime Corruption Executive Embezzlement Executive Bribes Legislative Corruption Judicial Corruption

Table 1.2  Neopatrimonial indices summary statistics (all countries, 1900–​2016)

Index

Mean

St. Dev.

Min

Max

N

Clientelism Presidentialism Regime Corruption Neopatrimonialism

–​0.17 0.37 0.00 0.07

0.89 0.97 0.97 0.98

–​2.42 –​1.93 –​2.26 –​2.24

2.25 2.30 2.18 2.31

13838 17274 14953 13724

How neopatrimonial are African regimes? With these four measures, we can assess the extent to which African regimes live up to their neopatrimonial reputations. We do so first by comparing trends in the four indices across regions of the world, then by examining variation across African countries and, finally, across regime types.

Regional trends Figure  1.1 shows post-​World War II trends in the Neopatrimonialism index across regions of the world.7 Several patterns stand out. First, except for Western Europe/​North America, most regions remain just around 0.5 for much of their postwar history. The non-​Western regions begin to diverge a bit more in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at which point Eastern Europe/​ Central Asia, Latin America, and East Asia break away from the other regions and become 22

23

Neopatrimonialism and democracy

Figure 1.1  Regional trends in Neopatrimonialism index

slightly less neopatrimonial. For much of the 1990s and 2000s, scores for African regimes were indistinguishable from those of the Middle East/​North Africa (MENA), South-​East Asia, and South Asia. In recent years South-​East Asia’s scores have decreased, although their confidence intervals (not depicted in the graph) still overlap with those of Africa. In short, the continent seems much less “exceptionally neopatrimonial” than much of the literature on African politics has usually assumed. Turning to regional trends for each of the sub-​indices, it becomes clear that the difference between Africa and other regions are, in general, not driven by major differences in levels of clientelism. In Figure 1.2 we see that all regions outside of the West again tend to cluster, this time just above the mean. Eastern Europe/​Central Asia becomes more clientelistic (lower scores on the Clientelism index) since the fall of the Soviet Union, while East Asia is the only non-​ Western region to show significant improvement over time. Yet, it is also true that Africa may be the most clientelistic in the current period, although the confidence intervals suggest some murkiness in that regard. With respect to the Presidentialism index (Figure 1.3), two patterns stand out. First, Africa is not significantly more or less “presidentialistic” than many other non-​Western regions. Again, this goes against much of the received wisdom in scholarship on African politics. Developments follow somewhat predictable trajectories: decreasing levels of presidentialism around the time of independence in the early 1960s when many countries were holding elections and adopting democratic forms of rule. Another period of decreasing levels of presidentialism in Africa comes at the outset of the “third wave” in the early 1990s, with a trend downwards since then. Additionally, levels of presidentialism fluctuate over time to a somewhat greater extent than the 23

24

Figure 1.2  Regional trends in Clientelism index

Figure 1.3  Regional trends in Presidentialism index

25

Neopatrimonialism and democracy

Figure 1.4  Regional trends in Regime Corruption index

other indices.This fluctuation suggests that factors other than neopatrimonialism may be at play, something we explore in greater detail below. Finally, in Figure 1.4 we see a relatively consistent upward trend in the Regime Corruption index for Africa, with slight improvements in the past several years. On this dimension, Africa seems to stand out more in comparison with the rest of the world. With the exception of Eastern Europe/​Central Asia, other regions tend to improve on this index, especially East Asia and Latin America since the early 1990s. Slight increases since 2010 across the remaining regions (including Africa) suggest, perhaps, the existence of some global trend that coincides with the launch of anti-​corruption campaigns in many countries. These graphs indicate several important realities about the global trajectories of neopatrimonial rule. First, contrary to widespread assumption, for much of the postwar period Africa has not varied significantly from other regions of the world on any of the three dimensions, or in the overall Neopatrimonial index. Where divergence among non-​Western regions is evident, it appears in most cases to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Second, African regimes today are not, for the most part, significantly more presidentialistic than those in most other non-​Western regions. Third, neopatrimonialism in Africa has remained relatively constant over time, with slight improvements in some areas, since the wave of democratization and regime transitions of the 1990s and early 2000s. Taken together, these observations challenge the more pessimistic views that tend to accompany discussions of neopatrimonial rule in Africa, or assume that Africa is both unique and extreme in its extent of neopatrimonialism.

25

26

Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg

Figure 1.5  Neopatrimonialism index 2015 scores

Variation across African countries We next explore the extent to which neopatrimonialism varies across African countries. Figure 1.5 shows estimates and confidence intervals for the Neopatrimonial index for African countries in 2015. Clear differences are visible not only between those with the highest scores (i.e., Chad and Eritrea) and those with the lowest scores (i.e., Cape Verde, South Africa, Botswana), but also between those hovering around the seventy-​fifth percentile (i.e., Angola and Madagascar) and those around the twenty-​fifth percentile (i.e., Tanzania and Ghana). We further explore patterns underlying the Neopatrimonialism index in African countries by plotting country scores for the three sub-​indices. Figure 1.6 plots countries according to their 2015 scores on the Clientelism and Presidentialism indices. While there is a clear positive correlation, we see quite a few countries falling far from the best-​fit line. The variance is especially high with countries above the best-​fit line where we see a number of countries scoring relatively low on the Clientelism index yet higher or average on the Presidentialism index. Rwanda (RWA) and Ethiopia (ETH), among others, stand out in this regard. These regimes combine high levels of presidentialism with low levels of clientelism. Developmental policies in Rwanda and Ethiopia, for example—​whereby governments provide an array of public goods and services, perhaps in lieu of particularistic ones—​suggest that high levels of presidentialism may not always couple with the types of patronage we tend to associate with neopatrimonial regimes. On the other end of the spectrum, well below the best-​fit line, are countries like Benin (BEN) and Ghana (GHA), whose levels of presidentialism are relatively low but whose scores on the Clientelism index suggest high levels of vote buying, particularistic goods distribution, and clientelistic party linkages. These two sets of deviant cases 26

27

Neopatrimonialism and democracy

Figure 1.6  Clientelism and presidentialism, 2015

may provide important clues about when and why clientelism and presidentialism are not necessarily associated with each other in ways in that theories of neopatrimonial rule tend to predict. The positive relationship between the Clientelism index and the Regime Corruption index is stronger, as shown in Figure  1.7, but with some important exceptions. Those countries with higher levels of clientelism tend to cluster at higher levels on the Regime Corruption scale. Included in this group are Chad (TCD), Democratic Republic of Congo (COG), Burundi (BDI), and others. There are a number of deviant cases, however, clustered at middling levels of clientelism and relatively high levels of corruption including, such as Burkina Faso (BFA), Zambia (ZMB), and Senegal (SEN).8 These countries, while practicing high levels of political patronage, appear to have prebendal types of arrangements in greater check than do many other countries where clientelism and corruption may mutually reinforce each other. If we look for Burkina Faso (BFA), Zambia (ZMB), and Senegal (SEN) in Figure  1.8, which plots the Regime Corruption and Presidentialism indices, we see that all three countries are clustered at the bottom left, meaning low levels of both regime corruption and presidentialism.9 We thus have at least a small cluster of countries with higher-​than-​average levels of clientelism, relatively low levels of presidentialism, and relatively low levels on the Regime Corruption index. Another larger clustering, composed of Ghana (GHA), Benin (BEN), Tanzania (TZA), Nigeria (NGA), among others, display lower-​than-​average levels of presidentialism with middling levels of corruption and relatively high levels of clientelism. These different clusters suggest that relationships between the three dimensions are likely to be conditional on other factors, and that we do not see all dimensions of neopatrimonial rule developing in tandem. 27

28

Figure 1.7  Clientelism and regime corruption, 2015

Figure 1.8  Presidentialism and regime corruption, 2015

29

Neopatrimonialism and democracy

We conclude from this section that African regimes demonstrate important variation—​both qualitative and quantitative—​in their embodiment of neopatrimonial rule. While there exists a strong relationship between clientelism and regime corruption, there are nonetheless some important instances in which politicians may get elected using programmatic forms of mobilization, yet use their offices for private benefit, or vice versa. Deviant cases, such as Burkina Faso and Zambia, may help to provide clues as to when and why these two facets of neopatrimonial rule do not coincide. The relationship between presidentialism and the other two indices is more varied. More clientelistic and corrupt regimes tend to be found in presidentialistic contexts, where power is more centralized around the president. However, there is considerably greater variance in clientelism and corruption where power is less centralized around the president. Since, as we discuss in greater detail below, presidentialism is the dimension of neopatrimonialism that is most closely—​but inversely—​related to democracy itself, these uneven relationships suggest that patterns of patrimonial authority are likely to differ across democratic and authoritarian regimes. We explore this relationship in greater depth in the next section.

Neopatrimonialism across regime types As described above, pessimism about democracy in Africa is often driven by the notion of continuity in neopatrimonial rule despite changes in formal regime institutions. We investigate this idea of neopatrimonial continuity by simply comparing average scores across different regime types in Africa from 1960 to 2016, as seen in Figure 1.9.10

Figure 1.9  Neopatrimonialism and regime type in Africa, 1960–​2015

29

30

Rachel Sigman and Staffan I. Lindberg

It is clear from Figure 1.9 that closed autocracies are, on the whole, most neopatrimonial while liberal democracies are least so. The three sub-​indices, however, differ considerably in their levels across the different regime types. Most notably, average scores on the Presidentialism index have the largest difference between authoritarian and democratic regimes, with a clear linear relationship from the most “presidentialistic” in closed autocracies, to the least in liberal democracies. While this is not surprising given the close association between autocracy and unconstrained rulers, it also suggests that concerns about democracies in Africa remaining highly presidentialistic may be overstated. The graphs also illustrate that average scores on the Clientelism index are considerably lower in liberal democracies than in electoral democracies, while scores on the Regime Corruption index remain relatively high (hovering around 0)  in liberal democracies. Together, these observations suggest that while democratization may not fundamentally change behavior regarding the private use of public office, it does appear to have some kind of relationship to decreasing levels of both clientelism and presidentialism.

Does neopatrimonialism constrain democracy? Finally, we use the indices to investigate whether and how neopatrimonialism may act as an impediment to democracy in Africa. To do so, we present results for regression models estimating the effects of the neopatrimonial indices on democratic survival and advancement. The presence of a negative effect of neopatrimonialism would provide support for the conventional wisdom that neopatrimonialism hinders democratization. A positive or null effect would challenge this perspective, thereby suggesting that neopatrimonialism is not necessarily incompatible with democracy. We first estimate the effects of the neopatrimonial indices on the probability that a democratic regime in Africa, once in place, survives for five subsequent years.11 We estimate two sets of dynamic probit models, one with random effects and a battery of control variables, the other with country fixed effects and no control variables.12 Our dependent variable—​five-​year survival—​is constructed using an updated version of Boix, Miller, and Rosato’s (2007) dichotomous coding of regime type. Independent variables are the neopatrimonialism indices, employed in different models to parse out the effects of different dimensions of neopatrimonialism. Control variables include the log per capita GDP, GDP growth, log per capita official development assistance (ODA), measures of fuel dependence, and democracy age from Graham, Miller, and Strøm (2017), state capacity (Hanson and Sigman 2013), ethno-​linguistic fractionalization from Alesina et al. (2003), and a dummy variable for post-​Cold War years. Table 1.3 shows the results. In models 1 and 4, we see that the high levels of neopatrimonialism as measured by the Neopatrimonial index have a very strong, statistically significant negative effect on the probability of five-​year democratic survival—​just as the conventional wisdom would predict. When we break down the Neopatrimonial index into its constituent dimensions, however, as seen in models 2, 3, 5, and 6, it becomes clear that the negative relationship seen in models 1 and 4 is driven primarily by the Presidentialism index. Neither clientelism nor regime corruption have consistent negative effects on the probability of democratic survival. Since the definition of presidentialism is itself closely related to regime type, the results provide little evidence that patrimonial forms of authority, rather than regime type itself, act as a consistent impediment to democracy.13 We next examine whether neopatrimonialism limits advancements in the level of democracy. In this set of tests, we use time-​series cross-​sectional OLS regression with fixed effects to measure the effects of neopatrimonialism in time t on five-​year subsequent changes in Polity2 scores.14 Again, as seen in Table 1.4, only presidentialism has a statistically significant negative effect on the change in Polity2 score. However, this relationship between presidentialism and 30

31

Neopatrimonialism and democracy Table 1.3  Effects of neopatrimonialism on democratic survival

(1) Neopatrimonialism

(2)

(3)

–​4.788*** (–​3.94)

Clientelism

(5)

Regime Corruption

0.132 –​0.24 –​.443*** –​0.887** (–​3.33) (–​2.66) –​1.153**

–​2.277*** (–​3.33) –​0.587 (–​0.79)

Log Per Capita GDP

0.555

(–​3.27) 1.209**

–​2.59 –​0.023 (–​1.84) –​0.025 (–​1.21) –​0.087

–​1.57 0.021 –​0.74 0.070* –​2.04 0.125

–​2.700 –​0.031* (–​2.04) –​0.021 (–​0.98) –​0.184

(–​0.46) –​3.274** (–​2.95) –​0.092*** (–​3.57) –​0.23 (–​0.52) 1.441*** –​3.67 –​3.656 (–​0.88) 301 28 0.416 No

–​0.5 –​0.145 (–​0.18) 0.028* –​2.25 –​0.575 (–​1.41) 0.757 –​1.76 –​5.973 (–​1.29) 285 28 0.26 No

(–​0.88) –​3.345** (–​3.07) –​0.091*** (–​3.44) –​0.366 (–​0.78) 1.674*** –​3.64 –​3.499 (–​0.81) 301 28 0.43 No

1.050**

Oil Dependence GDP Growth Log Per Capita ODA ELF Democracy Age Capacity Post-​Cold War Constant   N N (Countries) Pseudo R-​Sq Country-​Fixed Effects

–​0.588 (–​1.11) 142 28 0.219 Yes

(6)

–​1.604*** (–​4.10) –​1.797 (–​1.86) –​2.067** (–​3.03)

Presidentialism

(4)

–​0.977 (–​1.57) 142 28 0.203 Yes

–​0.499 (–​0.62) 142 28 0.188 Yes

Note: * p < 0.1, ** p < 0.5, *** p 99.0 98.4 98.3 96.9 96.4 95.1 94.4 84.4 78 61.6 55.3 48.8 35.2 34.6 18 9.7

Source: Data taken from Pew Research Center (2017).

it (sometimes with trepidation and well-​founded concerns) where it does. More importantly, new research also argues that when Muslims engage with the questions of what sort of government is best for them and how to live in diverse societies, they do so in ways that clearly resemble the political reasoning strategies that exist in democracies around the world. Second, beginning with a wave of political openings and cautious liberalizations in the 1990s, this demand has begun to remake not only the ways in which Muslims mobilize for democracy, but their ideas about and expectations of “good” democratic practice, with mixed results. How are we to understand why these outcomes have varied so widely? Aside from the obvious differences of demographics and local context, there are several important themes that have shaped how African Muslims have engaged with democratization movements and their own democratic aspirations. One is the legacy of colonial policymaking around Islam, where patterns of coopting religious leaders into state affairs continue to shape how contemporary Muslim activists can (and cannot) effectively challenge authoritarian regimes and mobilize for participation in electoral politics. Another is a region-​wide trend, with its roots in the response to the collapse of democracy in the 1960s and rising ethnic and religious conflict in the 1970s and 1980s, towards bans or limitations on ethnic, religious, and sectarian political parties. Finally, while an increasing number of African Muslims have found it possible to take part in frank and productive conversations about how to “make democracy work” in their communities, tentative democratization has also tested the limits of religious toleration in some of Africa’s most plural societies. Meanwhile, the growth of politically active Salafi2 movements and the rise of Islamic violent extremism on the continent have also posed (different, but related) challenges to building and sustaining democracy.These challenges contributed to the collapse of the seemingly stable Muslim-​majority democracy in Mali in 2012, and how they might be addressed is among the most important political questions on the continent today. 290

291

Islam and democracy

Perceptions of Islam and democracy in Africa How (and how much) does Islam shape politics and the prospects for democratization in sub-​ Saharan Africa? This is a hard question, one made harder by a long scholarly legacy that regards “African Islam” as exceptionally “moderate” by virtue of its alleged dilution by indigenous values and traditions, and exceptionally vulnerable to influence—​and especially radicalization—​ by outside forces originating in the Middle East. As Soares argues, research on Islam and politics in Africa has long suffered from intellectual siloing into case studies of “local Islams” that focus on local idiosyncrasies and cultural dynamics, while ignoring the fact that most African Muslims see themselves as participants in a global community of faith (Soares 2000, 278–​9). Much of the existing literature also perpetuates the stereotype that Islam is a timeless, static faith with a single orthodoxy against which all Muslim communities should be implicitly measured, rather than a set of traditions, symbols, texts, and discourses that all Muslims share, but whose meanings are contested and negotiated. Over the past several decades,a range of research has punctured these myths and misconceptions, demonstrating how African Muslims construct their religious identities and negotiate the relationship between their faith and their political values, beliefs, and priorities in democratic (and semi-​democratic) contexts. This research has shown simply—​but importantly—​that African religious identities (and the societal cleavages they represent) are unevenly salient across the continent, and whether or not Muslims (and Christians) mobilize politically along religious lines seems to depend more on local political context than piety (McCauley and Posner 2019). The fact that conflicts over land, resource control, and access to power in places like Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Nigeria, and Burkina Faso can and do shift between those perceived as primarily religious or ethnic (McCauley 2017) speaks to the power of local circumstances and the strategic calculations of political elites, rather than to the ineffable “essences” of religions. What about democracy specifically? Do Muslim-​majority countries on the continent suffer from less democracy than their neighbors? As Stepan and Robertson (2003) have argued, the “democratic deficit” often attributed to Muslim-​majority countries is an artifact of the Arab-​ majority countries of the Middle East and North Africa and their economic and political histories  —​notably, the role of oil and gas in their national economies and their geopolitical circumstances. Meanwhile, although in absolute terms there are no consolidated democracies among Muslim-​majority nations in sub-​Saharan Africa, countries like Senegal and Niger have often been relative “over-​performers” compared to their level of economic prosperity, a variable that nearly all research agrees plays a significant role in delineating democratic potential. To be clear, these (now fifteen-​year-​old) findings do not tell us much about how Islam actually does matter (positively or negatively) in shaping the field of democratic possibilities in sub-​Saharan Africa. But despite recent high-​profile democratic setbacks in Mali and Gambia’s continued democratic struggles in the wake of Jammeh’s surprising exit from power in 2016, there is little evidence that Muslim-​majority countries do any better or worse than the rest of the continent when it comes to democratization. Similarly, Africa’s Muslim-​majority competitive autocracies and authoritarian states clearly share many of the same basic political and governance challenges as their Christian-​majority neighbors. Equally importantly, a growing body of work on Muslim politics in sub-​Saharan Africa has drawn attention to the fact that much of the political activity, activism, and mobilization undertaken by Muslims on the continent is structured by the same dynamics that impact all African politics generally. From the proliferation of Islamic NGOs in the wake of the structural adjustment era of the late 1980s (Adama 2007) to the importance of Muslim women’s mobilization and democratic activism following the liberalization wave of the early 1990s (Alidou 2005), 291

292

Brandon Kendhammer

Muslim politics around issues of democracy and democratization have paralleled more general regional patterns. To be sure, a growing literature also suggests that the region’s evangelical and Pentecostal populations differ from Muslims in important ways with respect to their democratic political engagement (Kalu 2008; but see Obadare 2016 for evidence of the emergence of a “charismatic Islam” in Nigeria that borrows directly from the organizational and discursive models of Pentecostal Christianity). Yet from their common internal debates over the utility of direct political action in bringing about God’s kingdom to their movements’ frequent capture by “Big Men” who depend on cozy relationships with state elites, both communities have experienced similar ups and downs in their efforts to carve out new space for political engagement in the continent’s increasingly competitive public spheres.

Do Muslims support democracy? What do Muslims in sub-​Saharan Africa say about democracy? Although we lack important information about long-​term trends in beliefs, attitudes, and opinions, survey-​based research beginning in the early 2000s paints a picture of both widespread personal piety among Muslims and favorable attitudes towards, and support of, democratic government. This is in turn consistent with a growing body of comparative research that finds Muslims demand democracy to roughly the same degree and with the same intensity as Christians and members of other religious traditions (Bratton 2003). The available research largely rejects any suggestion that Muslims on the continent are “exceptional” in their political attitudes and values, particularly when compared to their Christian neighbors. Although there’s significant variation across countries, Muslims in Africa self-​report exceptionally high religiosity (upwards of 96 percent report that religion is “somewhat” or “very” important to them), numbers that are at time of writing roughly in line with the continent’s equally pious evangelical Christian communities, and slightly (but significantly) higher than Catholics and mainline Protestants. As in many other regions, there is at least some evidence suggesting that personal piety and involvement in religious life is correlated with greater interest in public affairs, but little that this interest translates into either support for or criticism of democratic institutions. Muslims are as likely as Christians and other non-​Muslims to express frustration and dissatisfaction with existing democratic institutions on the continent, suggesting that longstanding efforts by African governments of all types (authoritarian, hybrid, and new and uncertain democracies) to play up their religious credentials do not prevent ordinary citizens from recognizing the flawed democracies in their midst (McCauley and Gyimah-​Boadi 2009). Another important realm in which African Muslims have proven to be unexceptional is political and social tolerance, issues that are widely recognized as central to democratic politics. Globally, one of the few areas in which survey research finds actual differences between Muslims and non-​Muslims is in their tolerance of morally “controversial” behavior, including divorce, homosexuality, and abortion. Yet while we lack the evidence to directly compare, intolerance towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) communities in Africa seems to be a trait shared by Christians and Muslims, who have both proven willing to engage in inter-​faith cooperation to adopt laws and public policies that expand official discrimination against homosexuals in countries like Nigeria and Uganda (Obadare 2015). Moreover, new evidence suggests that increased political competition and democratization have made anti-​gay sentiments worse, as politicians see them as wedge issues to mobilize voters struggling to navigate an increasingly competitive electoral environment (Grossman 2015). This mixed record extends to broader questions of how African Muslims think about social pluralism in democratic contexts. As the Pew Research Center (2010) has found, large numbers 292

293

Islam and democracy

(including majorities in Niger, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, among others) of African Muslims express strong support for the proposition that their countries be governed according to the Sharia. Not surprisingly, these findings have often been interpreted as a sign that Muslims reject liberal values, democracy, and coexistence with their non-​Muslim neighbors. However, research by Dowd (2015) and Vinson (2017), who both focused on local communities and experiences in an effort to delve behind the headlines, found that Muslims (and Christians) who live in religiously plural communities, know their neighbors, and are embedded in multi-​religious social and business networks are more likely to participate in democratic politics, and that their communities are less likely to experience violence between religious groups. In practice, piety and devotion do not seem to actually prevent Muslims from cooperating and sharing power with Christians, even as they continue to demand a greater role for Islam and Islamic values in political life. Research on northern Nigeria, sub-​ Saharan Africa’s largest single Muslim-​ majority community (albeit within an incredibly religiously diverse nation in which Muslims are likely not a majority), illustrates many of the complexities associated with these dynamics (Kendhammer 2016). This research’s focus was on the co-​incidence of two major transformations in Nigerian politics in the late 1990s: a widely supported return to democratic rule after the death of military dictator Sani Abacha; and the rise of a popular, grassroots movement to implement a strict, literal version of Islamic law (Sharia) in twelve Muslim-​ majority federal states. Although they may appear as incompatible or even contradictory goals, the analysis of public debate surrounding Nigeria’s “Sharia controversy” found that a surprisingly large proportion of Muslim discourse around the issue presented Sharia and democracy as compatible projects, both seen as possible strategies for remedying the country’s longstanding history of economic inequality, corruption, and poor government service provision. How did Nigerian Muslims come to demand both democracy and Sharia? Drawing on research from American public opinion scholarship and the sociology of religion and based on data from a unique set of peer group interviews with working-​class Muslims in 2007 and 2008, one study found that Muslims in Nigeria think and talk about democracy by relying on a combination of personal experiences, cues from their friends, family, and neighbors, and the messages supplied by political elites via the media (Kendhammer 2016). In other words, their engagement with the question of Islam’s “compatibility” with democracy was driven not simply by theology, but by a process of political reasoning that included their practical experiences with government and political participation, and which reflected a keen sense of how both God’s law and democratic processes might work together to hold their country’s wealthy and powerful elites to account. To be clear, the vision of democracy these respondents articulated was not entirely liberal, nor was it always tolerant of non-​Muslims (very few interviewees saw any reason for a Muslim-​majority state government not to favor Muslims and their interests over those of local Christians). But it was also not overdetermined by any particular theological standpoint or interpretation, and their religious values and commitments did not prevent them from articulating a wide range of opinions and views about democracy’s actual performance, even in the hands of the same Muslim leaders they were counting on to implement Sharia. In other words, the “relationship” between Islam and democracy is a social construct, shaped by regional histories and local political dynamics, bounded by a shared commitment to participation in a transnational Islamic community, and influenced by an entirely human desire to solve the governance problems that have plagued many African countries since independence. 293

294

Brandon Kendhammer

Islam, secularism, and legacies of state control If there is significant evidence that the old view of African Islamic exceptionalism is incorrect, and that the “relationship” between Islam and democracy in Africa is dynamic and shaped by local circumstances, where might we look for important long-​term factors that have shaped how Muslims on the continent mobilize, organize, and engage with the politics of democratization? Obviously, Africa’s Islamic past is a powerful source of symbolic inspiration for movements both supporting and opposing democracy. For instance, the ambiguous legacy of the Sokoto Caliphate—​a social and religious reform movement that attacked political corruption and immorality while also perpetuating one of the world’s largest slave economies—​provides a powerful reference point for contemporary Nigerian Muslim political activists, who have found in its historical and textual record everything from a legacy of “great Muslim democrats” to justifications for violence against Christians and the Nigerian state (Kendhammer 2016). As argued in the introduction, there are also several durable institutional legacies that shape the strategies and tactics of Muslim participants in the continent’s emerging democratic game. The first is a direct consequence of colonial policy and practice. Most textbook approaches to colonial policy in sub-​Saharan Africa emphasize the differences between French and British colonial rule strategies, highlighting the significance of France’s commitment to secularism (laïcité) as opposed to Britain’s reliance on “indirect” rule strategies that included bargains with key political and religious elites and the propping up of local “traditional” legal structures, including Sharia courts. But despite their differences, what both colonial systems have most clearly in common is a legacy of centralization and the expectation of state management and control of religious institutions. Islamic leaders and scholars in the colonial era were deeply enmeshed in networks of state power and political contestation, and these relationships have long had significant impacts on electoral politics. In both French and British colonies, decades of quasi-​formal bargains between strategically valuable religious leaders and the colonial state (Robinson 2000), and efforts to marginalize groups perceived as dangerous to colonial interests, produced patterns of winners and losers that in many instances have clear echoes in contemporary politics. As a result, while Muslim religious leaders are generally excluded from partisan politics, many also maintain central positions within patron/​client networks and interest groups that have often become increasingly influential as elections have become more competitive. At the same time, in recent decades the openings afforded by political liberalization and tentative democratization have also encouraged challenges to their privileged position by reform-​minded outsiders, many of whom have secured powerful new allies through electoral activism. A second important dynamic that continues to shape contemporary Muslim democratic politics on the continent is the widespread absence of explicitly Islamic political parties. Globally, Islamic political parties have often been less successful at the ballot box and in government than the attention they receive suggests (Pepinsky, Liddle, and Mujani 2012). Yet the fact that they have been essentially absent from African politics has had an important impact on how Muslim activists and political leaders mobilize within the confines of their institutional circumstances. What explains this absence? Concluding that the tendency towards ethnic political mobilization and outbidding were key sources of instability and violence, at least forty countries on the continent enacted some sort of ban on ethnic, sectarian, or “particularist” political parties between the late 1970s and the late 1990s (Moroff 2010). Although in many cases the underlying goal was to prevent the mobilization of regional and ethnic parties, these laws have often been extended—​intentionally or otherwise—​to include religion. Particularly in Francophone countries, these regulations have paired with strong constitutional commitments to laïcité to 294

295

Islam and democracy

serve as a strong check on the types of Islamic mobilization into party politics common elsewhere in the Muslim world. Indeed, even Mauritania, an avowedly theocratic state, has used its ban to prevent the registration of sectarian parties when it has suited authorities, while in Senegal it has played a key role in preventing Sufi leaders from taking a more direct hand in electoral politics (Bleck and van de Walle 2011, 1129). A short-​lived exception is the Islamic Party of Kenya (IPK), founded in 1992 in response to widespread dissatisfaction with Kenya’s “official” Muslim body, the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims (SUPKEM). The IPK was ultimately denied registration and the ability to run candidates, effectively shutting it down and forcing its leadership into uneasy alliances with other opposition bodies that diluted their message and ability to mobilize popular support (Ndzovu 2014, 86–​90). How have these legacies impacted trajectories of democratization in Muslim-​ majority Africa? In general, as Diallo and Kelly (2016) argue, Muslim leaders and organizations from across the ideological spectrum have encouraged their supporters to participate in democratic politics, even if reluctantly, in order to ensure Muslim voices and interests are represented. Yet particularly during the “national conference” movement in Francophone West Africa in the early 1990s, as well as in Nigeria during the Abacha dictatorship (1993–​8), the legacy of state-​ sponsored and quasi-​state “official” Muslim organizations and the Muslim elite’s deep ties to state power limited the role of Muslim civil society in the African wave of democratization in the 1990s and 2000s. Describing this ambivalence,Villalón (2015) has argued that it is not always clear when Muslim religious leaders are acting as “agents” of democratization or simply pursuing their own interests, working within the system and calling for significant changes (while generally accepting the electoral “rules of the game”) according to their own calculations. Two brief examples illustrate these complexities well. In Senegal, the powerful but largely informal relationship between the leading Sufi brotherhoods and the Parti Socialiste (PS) forged during the late colonial period continued a pattern of mutually beneficial state/​Islam relationships under French rule. It also played a key role in maintaining Senegal’s relatively unique status as a one-​party, non-​democratic state that nonetheless maintained a degree of political openness and commitment to religious tolerance. State authorities were able to maintain a secular distance from religious activism, while nonetheless relying on the steadfast support of key Sufi leaders and their “political” ndiggal (religious instruction) to vote for the PS, usually in exchange for funneling of resources into brotherhood-​sponsored projects and businesses. The breakdown of this bargain in the late 1980s and early 1990s helped to open the door to more open and competitive elections, but also endangered the power and influence of the brotherhoods themselves. The weakening of the brotherhood/​state bargain helped to foster a more democratic and open Muslim public sphere, which included new opportunities for religious actors—​and even politicians themselves—​to advance their case for a greater role for Islam in public life, and even to challenge the status of laïcité itself. This dynamic also impacted Sufi orders, as former opposition leader and eventual President Abdoulaye Wade made direct political appeals on the basis of his affiliation with the Mouride brotherhood into an integral part of his campaign even as the group’s official leadership sought to stay nominally above the partisan fray in an effort to maintain their influence behind the scenes. As such, while religious elites and institutions remain crucial political actors and powerbrokers, they have rarely shown the energy or enthusiasm for democratic activism of secular (or at least, non-​religiously affiliated) actors like the Y’en a Marre movement (Nelson 2014; see also Mueller’s chapter in this volume). In Mali, slightly different independence-​era circumstances have contributed to a similar basic pattern, albeit with even more ambivalent democratic results. As Leininger (2016) has argued, subsequent Malian governments—​authoritarian and democratic alike—​have continued the French colonial state’s heavy-​handed cooptation of Muslim leadership into state service via 295

296

Brandon Kendhammer

the creation of official and quasi-​official organizations. This arrangement proved largely acceptable to most Muslim religious elites, who used the platform they were afforded—​most notably through the Malian Association for Unity and the Progress of Islam (AMUPI), founded in 1980—​to lobby for policy changes, assert moral leadership over thorny national issues, and marginalize voices that challenged their status, particularly the new Salafi preachers and movements that began to emerge in the 1980s. Like in Senegal, a wave of political liberalization in the early 1990s placed these elites in a difficult position. AMUPI’s leadership had closer ties to the political class than to the mass social movements (labor unions, students, women’s groups) that were democratization’s most effective proponents. Not surprisingly, they were largely caught off-​guard by the massive increase in the number of religiously oriented civil society organizations registered with the state between the mid-​1980s and the late 1990s, many of which were less inclined to defer to state interests. AMUPI’s neutral (leaning pro-​authoritarian) position during the Malian national conference and its reluctance to embrace a more open position vis-​à-​vis other Muslim groups contributed to what Leininger (2016) has called the “informalization” of Muslim politics, empowering both new reformist groups less inclined towards laïcité but still basically in support of democracy as well as the extremist tendencies that eventually contributed to the civilian regime’s collapse in 2012. These larger trends of fragmentation and informalization are also in evidence outside the Muslim-​majority societies of the Sahel. In Kenya, the Moi government’s ban on the IPK played a key role in accelerating the formation of new institutional opponents to SUPKEM, like the National Muslim Leaders Forum and the Council of Imams and Preachers of Kenya. These groups subsequently jockeyed for potential alliances with the legal opposition movement, defended the role of Islam in Kenyan family law, and advocated for Muslims who saw themselves as targets of Kenya’s mounting legislative efforts to fight terrorism (Ndzovu 2014). Similarly, the rapid growth of explicitly religious media, or the massive expansion of religious programming on state and national television and radio stations (Kendhammer 2016), across the continent have redefined how Muslims participate in public conversations about national values and public policy, and empowering new voices.

“Democratizing” the Muslim public sphere or promoting radicalization? Who has benefited most from the “democratization” of the Muslim public sphere brought about by the democratic waves of the 1990s and 2000s? As suggested above, some traditional Islamic authorities have been successful in entrenching their power and privilege, and across the continent state-​sponsored and quasi-​official Islamic organizations remain important—​even central—​actors in electoral politics. This has been especially true in countries like Cameroon, where the halting liberalization of the 1990s has transformed into full-​blown competitive authoritarianism. In this context, Muslim minorities struggle to balance the need for good relations with state authorities that govern civil society with a heavy hand and the desire to challenge their own marginalization within the country’s ruling coalition. More often, however, these dynamics have favored new participants, ideologies, and identities, many of which are much more willing to engage directly in electoral politics and policy advocacy through the democratic process. Particularly in more religiously plural countries like Kenya and Nigeria, one important factor in politicizing Muslim civil society is the concomitant growth of evangelical and Pentecostal churches across the continent in the 1980s and 1990s (see Patterson, this volume). Although these churches have often had complicated relationships with the desire to shape public life through politics, their sheer size and evangelical 296

297

Islam and democracy

ambitions inevitably put them into increasing contact—​and conflict—​with Muslim reformist organizations emerging with equal energy. As both types of movements began to dominate the airwaves and local media, physical spaces (the proliferation of church revival camps and mosques), and popular discourses of development and empowerment (the so-​called “prosperity” gospel and the discourse of “spiritual warfare” among Pentecostals), they clashed with increasing regularity around elections and “ownership” of public spaces and services (particularly university campuses). Although the trend was not universal, these clashes often presaged a growing demonization (literally) of Muslims in Pentecostal rhetoric, depicting them as forces of darkness whose own expansionist energies constituted a plot to Islamize the continent (Kalu 2008, 243–​6). Muslim organizations have often responded in turn by doubling down on their own political engagement, including efforts to elect explicitly Muslim candidates to office. Another important factor in the rise of new Muslim political voices on the continent has been the growing efforts of democratically elected governments—​often supported by new and increasingly influential Muslim women’s organizations—​to reform and reimagine the role of religion and Islamic values in national family and civil law. Although some contemporary Muslim women’s associations on the continent have much older roots, since the mid-​ 1980s (and especially following the political liberalization wave of the 1990s) a wide range of new groups have emerged looking to promote women’s rights on Islamic grounds. Many relied on explicitly Islamic rhetoric, arguing that Islamic courts and religious institutions that failed to protect and defend women’s interests were acting not out of a commitment to “authentic” Islamic doctrine, but from embedded cultural misogyny (Kendhammer 2013). And although these reforms—​most notably, efforts to ratify and institutionalize their states’ participation in international treaties regarding the rights of women, such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Maputo Protocol—​have sometimes been defeated, when Muslim women’s groups are able to effectively organize and lobby elected governments, they have a strong track record of winning (Kang 2015). Finally, although there is little direct evidence of their numbers, it seems clear that Salafi-​ influenced Islamic “reform” movements have made remarkable strides across the continent over the past several decades. To be clear, Salafi movements across the continent have evolved in different directions and with different political consequences based on local circumstances, and to speak of a single “African Salafism” would be deeply misleading. Yet most Salafi-​influenced movements on the continent today have at least some roots in efforts to challenge the leadership of the quasi-​official Muslim interest groups described above, particularly those dominated by Sufi leaders. These movements have in turn become increasingly central to democratic politics where they exist, bringing questions of Islam’s role in public life to the fore and playing key roles as informal powerbrokers during election seasons. In Senegal, the growth of the Jama’atou Ibadou Rahmane (JIR) was driven by the activism of university students attentive to a changing international landscape in the 1970s as well as growing youth dissatisfaction with the longstanding PS leadership (and their links to the Sufi establishment) (Gomez-​Perez 2017). Similarly, in Nigeria the Izala movement owes much of its initial energy to its spiritual leader Abubakar Gumi, whose Salafi scholarship was paired with a longstanding closeness to the northern Muslim political elite. Indeed, Gumi’s 1982 announcement that voting was a religious obligation for Muslims, who needed to turn out (particularly women) to prevent the defeat of Muslim incumbent President Shehu Shagari, played a key role in cementing the group’s association with prominent members of the Muslim business and political classes. Gumi’s spiritual (and in many ways, political) successor, Ja’afar Mahmud Adam, overcame his initial reluctance to engage in direct partisanship to play a key 297

298

Brandon Kendhammer

role in the 2007 elections in Kano, Nigeria’s largest Muslim-​majority city and state (a role that likely contributed to his assassination a day before voting took place) (Thurston 2014). And in Ethiopia, while leading Salafi groups have remained strategically unengaged in most public political debates out of a recognition that doing so would endanger fragile Muslim–​Christian relations in a country where they are not in the majority, they have nonetheless used the political space available to them to defend the political rights of Muslims and defend the Muslim community from political attacks attempting to link them to violence and radical movements in the Arab world (Østebø 2014). But while “mainstream” Salafi organizations on the continent have rarely rejected the state’s legitimacy, democracy (at least completely), or supported violence, they have sometimes been training grounds and launching pads for those who have. The impact of Salafi-​jihadi violent extremist groups, including al-​Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its offshoots, Boko Haram, Al-​Shabaab, and various regional affiliates of the Islamic State network, have led to hard conversations about the role of Salafi theology and activists in endangering democracy on the continent. In the case of Nigeria’s Boko Haram, the group’s early leadership apprenticed with leading figures in the country’s most influential activist (engaged in electoral politics and policy advocacy) Salafi community in the late 1990s and early 2000s, eventually splitting with them over a combination of personality, politics, and theology. And in Mali, the emergence of Salafi groups willing to endorse violence was a slow evolutionary process deeply connected with the central government’s fifty-​year conflict with Tuareg separatists, its lack of investment in security and development in the country’s northern region, and AQIM’s regional expansion out of Algeria in the early 2000s (Thurston and Lebovich 2013). How big a threat to democracy do these groups actually pose? In Mali, the government’s failure to recognize the risk posed by Salafi extremists and their connections to regional jihadist groups contributed directly to democracy’s collapse. Yet Boko Haram’s ongoing insurgency—​ and its explicit rejection of democracy—​did not prevent Nigeria from holding its most credible election in a generation in 2015, nor has it displaced more ordinary concerns like governmental corruption and a dysfunctional political party system as among the most immediate worries among many citizens. And in response to mounting violence (and the political damage it does to their own positions), many Salafi leaders and scholars on the continent have taken on leading roles in criticizing jihadi ideology and offering public support for democracy and Muslims’ participation in electoral politics (Olojo 2017). It is also crucial to understand that while ideology tends to dominate many conversations about Salafi-​jihadism’s appeal, most empirical research finds political factors such as legacies of poor governance, poverty, inequality, and state-​sponsored violence against vulnerable populations to be just as—​if not more—​important in determining where violent extremist groups emerge and are able to gain a measure of popular support (UNDP 2017). In this sense, it seems to be less the case that violent extremism is a danger to democracy than that a lack of substantive democracy puts countries at risk of violent extremism. Certainly, fear of growing “radicalization” among African Muslims has become a major policy issue both on the continent and in the West. In countries like Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nigeria, this fear has justified the “securitization” of state/​Islam relations in ways that have clearly undermined these countries’ claims to democracy, as well as encouraged Muslims to link their personal experiences of discrimination to wider perceived patterns of political marginalization (Anderson and McKnight 2015; Deacon et al. 2017). Meanwhile, survey data suggests that large numbers of non-​Muslims across the continent have begun to conflate violent extremism with Islam itself. Indeed, nearly 40 percent of Christians in a 2010 survey reported considering Muslims to be especially violent, and Christians hold significantly worse attitudes towards Muslims than vice versa (Pew Research Center 2010). 298

299

Islam and democracy

If this trend continues, it is just as likely to pose a long-​term risk to democracy as extremist groups themselves.

Conclusion The question of Islam’s “relationship” with democracy in sub-​Saharan Africa is a misguided starting point for understanding the scope of how Muslims think about and participate in democratic politics. The diversity of Muslim experiences makes generalization difficult, but a handful of important trends emerge. The first is that demand for democracy among Muslims is both high and clearly grounded in longstanding experiences with poor governance, corruption, and political marginalization. Democracy is seen as an important tool for advancing the cause of a greater role for Islam in public life, but also as a good-​in-​itself, one that can play a role in solving many of the political problems they see first-​hand. Muslims in the region are neither confused about why they support democracy nor easily misled by hybrid regimes or autocratic states that claim to be providing it. Future research in this area might productively focus on local understandings of democracy, the impact of these democratic “imaginings” on political participation, mobilization, and activism, and on the longer-​term prospect of reconciling growing demands for Islamic values and mores in the public sphere with democratic governance in plural societies. At the same time, the structure of Muslim engagement with democratic politics has shifted dramatically over the span of a generation, and the outcomes of this transformation are uncertain. Colonial policy legacies provided a longstanding template for Islam/​state relations centered around quasi-​official religious bodies and clientelist networks, and this template has only relatively recently begun to break down. Meanwhile, durable constitutional commitments to secularism and an absence of a clear path (even in Muslim-​majority countries) have largely closed off the possibility of “Islamic” political parties, leaving Muslims to mobilize in democratic settings through an ever-​g rowing range of civil society associations and religious movements. These groups vary widely in their goals and partisanship, but clearly play central roles in many contemporary policy debates around the role of Islam in public life and law. Particularly as the current generation of competitive authoritarian leaders age out of office and—​as in countries like Cameroon and Burkina Faso—​violent extremist groups move from the margins to become pressing security concerns, the potential role of Muslim civil society in advancing democracy, good governance, and security presents fertile ground for new research. Finally, although the growing influence of Salafi Islam in the region has had an ambivalent impact on democratization, it is also not likely the source of danger many have made it out to be. Salafis are more likely to challenge the assumptions of an earlier generation that constitutional secularism is inviolate, but where their interests align with supporting democratic government and encouraging their followers to participate in it, they do so. Unfortunately, as the experiences of terror attacks in Burkina Faso beginning in 2016 suggest, improvements in the quality of democratic government do not necessarily inoculate states against the threat of rising violent extremism. Yet states are more likely to endanger democracy by relying on violent and discriminatory counter-​ extremism policies than extremist groups themselves, which depend on the perception of poor governance, corruption, and state-​sponsored violence against Muslims to attract support. While such groups are not easily defeated, the danger they pose to new and uncertain African democracies speaks as much to the fragility of democracy as to the popularity of extremism. A deeper and more empirically grounded understanding of the “drivers” of violent extremism in the region, and of the role of governance quality in either driving or combatting it, has become a pressing area in need of research attention. 299

300

Brandon Kendhammer

Notes 1 Sufism is an Islamic spiritual discipline practiced by many Muslims around the world, and particularly popular and influential in sub-​Saharan Africa. Often organized around “brotherhoods” led by charismatic spiritual “masters” or guides, Sufi Muslims engage in a wide range of spiritual practices and experiences intended to bring them to an elevated awareness of God’s presence in their lives. 2 Salafism is an Islamic religious orientation that emphasizes returning Islam and the Muslim community to the “pure” example of the Prophet and the “pious ancestors” (the salaf) who made up the earliest generations of the Muslim community.

References Adama, Hamadou. 2007. “Islamic Associations in Cameroon: Between the Umma and the State.” In Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa, edited by Benjamin Soares and Rene Otayek, 227–​41. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Alidou, Ousseina. 2005 Engaging Modernity: Muslim Women and the Politics of Agency in Postcolonial Niger. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Anderson, David, and Jacob McKnight. 2015. “Understanding al-​Shabaab: Clan, Islam and Insurgency in Kenya.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 9, no. 3: 536–​57. Bleck, Jaimie, and Nicolas Van de Walle. 2011. “Parties and Issues in Francophone West Africa: Towards a Theory of Non-​Mobilization.” Democratization 18, no. 5: 1125–​45. Bratton, Michael. 2003. “Briefing: Islam, Democracy, and Public Opinion in Africa.” African Affairs 102, no. 408: 493–​501. Deacon, Gregory, George Gona, Hassan Mwakimako, and Justin Willis. 2017. “Preaching Politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya Coast.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 35, no. 2: 148–​67. Diallo, El Haji Samba, and Catherine Lena Kelly. 2016. “Sufi Turuq and the Politics of Democratization in Senegal.” Journal of Religious and Political Practice 2, no. 2: 193–​211. Dowd, Robert. 2015. Christianity, Islam, and Liberal Democracy: Lessons from Sub-​Saharan Africa. New York: Oxford University Press. Gomez-​Perez, Muriel. 2017. “‘Political’ Islam in Senegal and Burkina Faso: Contrasting Approaches to Mobilization since the 1990s.” Mediterranean Politics 22, no. 1: 176–​95. Grossman, Guy. 2015. “Renewalist Christianity and the Political Saliency of LGBTs:Theory and Evidence from Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Journal of Politics 77, no. 2: 337–​51. Harrison, Christopher. 1988. France and Islam in West Africa, 1860–​ 1960. New  York: Cambridge University Press. Hill, Jonathan N. 2010. Sufism in Northern Nigeria: Force for Counter-​Radicalization? Carlisle, PA: US Army War College. Kalu, Ogbu. 2008. African Pentecostalism: An Introduction. New York: Oxford University Press. Kang, Alice. 2015. Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kendhammer, Brandon. 2013. “Islam and the Language of Human Rights in Nigeria: ‘Rights Talk’ and Religion in Domestic Politics.” Journal of Human Rights 12, no. 4: 469–​90. —​—​—​. 2016. Muslims Talking Politics: Framing Islam, Democracy, in Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Leininger, Julia. 2016. “It’s Institutions, Not Theology! Muslim Actors’ Influence on Democratization in Mali.” Politics and Religion 9, no. 4: 815–​42. McCauley, John. 2017. The Logic of Ethnic and Religious Conflict in Africa. New  York: Cambridge University Press. McCauley, John and E. Gyimah-​ Boadi. 2009. “Religious Faith and Democracy. Evidence from the Afrobarometer Surveys.” Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 113. McCauley, John, and Daniel Posner. 2019. “The Political Sources of Religious Identification: Evidence from the Burkina Faso–​Côte d’Ivoire Border.” British Journal of Political Science 49, no. 2: 421–​41. Moroff, Anika. 2010. “Party Bans in Africa: An Empirical Overview.” Democratization 17, no. 4: 618–​41. Ndzovu, Hassan. 2014. Muslims in Kenyan Politics: Political Involvement, Marginalization, and Minority Status. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Nelson, Sarah. 2014. “The New Type of Senegalese under Construction: Fadel Barro and Aliou Sané on Yenamarrisme after Wade.” African Studies Quarterly 14, no. 3: 13–​32.

300

301

Islam and democracy Obadare, Ebenezer. 2015. “Sex, Citizenship and the State in Nigeria: Islam, Christianity and Emergent Struggles over Intimacy.” Review of African Political Economy 42, no. 143: 62–​76. —​—​—​. 2016. “The Muslim Response to the Pentecostal Surge in Nigeria: Prayer and the Rise of Charismatic Islam.” Journal of Religious and Political Practice 2, no. 1: 75–​91. Olojo, Akinola. 2017. “Resistance Through Islamic Clerics Against Boko Haram in Northern Nigeria.” African Security Review 26, no. 3: 308–​24. Østebø, Terje. 2014. “Salafism, State-​Politics, and the Question of ‘Extremism’ in Ethiopia.” Comparative Islamic Studies 8, no. 1–​2: 165–​84. Pepinsky,Thomas, R.William Liddle, and Saiful Mujani. 2012.“Testing Islam’s political advantage: Evidence from Indonesia.” American Journal of Political Science 56, no. 3: 584–​600. Pew Research Center. 2010 “Tolerance and Tension: Islam and Christianity in Sub-​Saharan Africa.” www​. pewforum.org/​2010/​04/​15/​executive-​summary-​islam-​and-​christianity-​in-​sub-​saharan-​africa/​. —​ —​ —​ . 2017. “The Changing Global Religious Landscape.” www.pewforum.org/​2017/​04/​05/​the-​ changing-​global-​religious-​landscape/​. Robinson, David. 2000. Paths of Accommodation: Muslim Societies and French Colonial Authorities in Senegal and Mauritania, 1880–​1920. Athens: Ohio University Press. Soares, Benjamin. 2000. “Notes on the Anthropological Study of Islam and Muslim Societies in Africa.” Culture and Religion 1, no. 2: 277–​85. Stepan, Alfred and Graeme Robertson. 2003. “An ‘Arab’ More Than a ‘Muslim’ Democracy Gap.” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 1: 30–​44. Thurston, Alexander. 2014. “Muslim politics and Shari’a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria.” African Affairs 114, no. 454: 28–​51. Thurston, Alexander, and Andrew Lebovich. 2013. “A Handbook on Mali’s 2012–​2013 Crisis.” Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa Working Paper Series, Northwestern University. UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2017. “Pathways to Extremism in Africa: Drivers, Incentives, and the Tipping Point for Recruitment.” http://​journey-​to-​extremism.undp.org/​content/​ downloads/​UNDP-​JourneyToExtremism-​report-​2017-​english.pdf. Villalón, Leonardo. 2015. “Cautious Democrats: Religious Actors and Democratization Processes in Senegal.” Religion and Politics 8, no. 2: 305–​33. Vinson, Laura Thaut. 2017. Religion, Violence, and Local Power-​Sharing in Nigeria. New  York: Cambridge University Press.

301

302

21 GENDER POLITICS Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

Although many international organizations presume that democratization creates opportunities for women’s political participation (Tusalem 2012, 173), the relationship between democracy and gender equality in politics is not straightforward. Over the past three decades, women’s presence in African governments has expanded dramatically; however, that growth has not been limited to countries with electoral competition or ongoing political liberalization. As Figures 21.1 and 21.2 demonstrate, women’s legislative and cabinet representation has also grown considerably in authoritarian and semi-​authoritarian regimes, and some of Africa’s highest percentages of women in parliament are found in relatively authoritarian states. In this chapter, we show how political openings facilitated women’s mobilization in Africa, as well as why electoral competition, or minimalist democracy, does not guarantee women’s representation and why Africa’s contemporary authoritarian and semi-​authoritarian regimes have often produced similar or higher proportions of women in politics. To assess the relationship between democracy and women’s political representation in Africa, the chapter is organized into four sections. The first breaks democratization into two parts: political liberalization and multiparty elections. We argue that political liberalization facilitated the emergence of autonomous women’s associations that demanded greater representation for women in elected and appointed office, setting the stage for the improvements seen in Figures 21.1 and 21.2. The second section focuses on the role of regime type in explaining cross-​national variation in women’s descriptive representation in Africa. Democracy is associated with higher cabinet shares for women, and women’s legislative representation tends to improve over multiple rounds of competitive elections (Arriola and Johnson 2014; Yoon 2001). However, we emphasize that quotas—​not democracy—​largely explain higher legislative shares for women and that electoral competition has not been a major factor in quota adoption. The chapter’s third section examines why, in the absence of quotas, multiparty competition has not produced significant improvements in women’s election to public office. We argue that bias among party leaders often limits women’s candidatures. In addition, women generally have lower levels of education and financial independence, making it difficult for them to compete in expensive campaigns. Finally, at the cultural level, surveys suggest many voters still perceive men to make better leaders than women, and women candidates report frequent attacks on their morality and sexuality when campaigning (Adams 2016; 302

303

20%

15%

10%

5%

1980

1990 Anocracies

2000 Year Autocracies

2010 Democracies

Figure 21.1  Average proportion of women in African states’ lower legislative house by regime type, 1980–​20155

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0% 1980

1985

1995

1990

2000

2005

Year type

Anocracies

Autocracies

Democracies

Figure 21.2  Average proportion of women in African ministerial cabinets by regime type, 1980–​20056

304

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

Afrobarometer 2016; Anderson, Diabah, and hMensa 2011). Family obligations further constrain women candidates’ options, and violence against women candidates is a serious concern in some countries (Krook 2017). Many advocates of gender equality want more African countries to adopt or enforce quotas, yet we argue in the fourth section that quotas have important limitations. While quotas bring more women into politics, scholars debate the impact on women’s substantive representation. We demonstrate that having more women in the legislature brings new issues of concern to women into politics but does not guarantee that women have the influence and autonomy needed to shift politics in a more gender-​inclusive direction. Finally, we conclude with a brief discussion of unanswered questions in the field.

Political liberalization and women’s role in politics To understand the relationship between democracy and women’s political representation in sub-​Saharan Africa, it is helpful to distinguish political liberalization from multiparty elections. Political liberalization refers to the restoration of “previously repudiated freedoms of movement, speech, and association to individuals and groups in society” (Bratton and van de Walle 1997, 159).When governments engage in political liberalization, they loosen ruling parties’ monopoly over political organizing and allow for freer civil society organizing, although they do not necessarily hold elections. Many scholars argue that the fight for political liberalization and its partial realization in the early 1990s, although short-​lived in many countries, had a lasting impact on women’s political possibilities in Africa (Geisler 2004, 31; Nzomo 1993; Tripp et al. 2008). The majority of women did not fare well in politics under the military and dominant-​party regimes that predominated in Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1985, women made up, on average, only 4 percent of cabinet ministers and 7.8 percent of legislators (Arriola and Johnson 2014). Although women were politically active, most governments used material benefits and coercion to channel women’s activism into state-​sanctioned associations (Beck 2003; Fallon 2010). As with workers and students, politicians rewarded women who towed the party line, while sideling those who made radical demands (Geisler 2004, 24; Tripp 2001). State-​sanctioned women’s associations were not generally intended as pathways to power. Geisler (2004, 24) argues that, From Ghana to Zimbabwe, which gained independence in 1957 and 1980 respectively, women were not represented in legislatures, party hierarchies and government positions, but were instead dressed in party colours singing and dancing praise songs for the male leadership, raising money and support.1 With few opportunities to lead in the national political sphere, many African women focused on change in other public spheres, like markets, churches, and professional communities (Fallon 2003; Tripp  1994). However, as popular upheaval spread across sub-​Saharan Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s, African women pushed beyond state-​sanctioned organizing (Fallon 2003). Bratton and van de Walle (1997, 159) contend that at least twenty-​eight African countries experienced mass political protests between 1988 and 1992 as citizens voiced frustrations with economic realities and years of authoritarian rule. Women played a major role in these protests. For example, women marched and protested in Mali, Nigeria, and Kenya to challenge government repression and promote democracy (Tripp et al. 2008, 77–​9). Although not all women’s associations demanded greater political freedoms (Fallon 2010), frustration with existing governments led 304

305

Gender politics

many women to overcome fears of repression and push for change and greater female representation (Mikell 1995). According to Bratton and van de Walle (1997, 185), Africa’s “mass political demonstrations … [produced] at least a token political opening” in all countries where they occurred. Competitive elections and lasting liberalization did not necessarily result, but even partial liberalization created “political spaces” for women to organize independent of the state (Mikell 1995). Women’s organizations that had previously focused on economic and developmental issues began to engage more directly in political activism (Fallon 2003). “New women’s organizations flourished” in both countries that moved toward multiparty democracy and those that did not (Tripp et al. 2008, 76). Other developments reinforced this growth in autonomous women’s organizations. International donor agencies began to fund women’s non-​governmental organizations with a political focus, and international and regional bodies magnified women’s efforts. In particular, the United Nation’s 1985 Nairobi Conference allowed African women activists to build transnational networks and learn from other women’s movements (Tripp et al. 2008). Increasingly, these activists used regional bodies to advocate for women’s rights, for example, pushing the African Union and the Southern African Development Community to adopt gender parity protocols (Adams 2006). The end of violent conflict and white rule in states such as South Africa, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Liberia further contributed to women’s mobilization. In her 2015 study of gender after conflict, Tripp (2015) argues that women entered new economic and social roles during wars, and from these positions became key players in grassroots peace movements. As countries transitioned to peace, women used their credibility and organizational capacity to demand equality, particularly in new constitutions, and run for office. In some countries, peace transitions entailed political liberalization and elections, as in Liberia, South Africa, and Namibia. However, even in more authoritarian post-​conflict states, like Rwanda and Uganda, women came to occupy a significant role in politics. Thanks to quotas, these two countries achieved some of the highest legislative shares for women on the continent (Burnet 2011). Over time, their progress, as well as that of South Africa and Namibia in southern Africa, appears to have had a diffusion effect, with neighboring states moving in the direction of quotas and increased women’s representation (Bauer 2012, 373). In sum, political liberalization in the late 1980s and early 1990s helped create new political possibilities for women in sub-​Saharan Africa. International movements and organizations, as well as post-​conflict transitions, then reinforced women’s political mobilization. Yet, as the examples of Rwanda and Uganda illustrate, improving women’s descriptive representation in politics did not require competitive elections or ongoing political liberalization. A moment of political opening was important for women’s representation, but lasting democratization was not required.

Regime type and women’s descriptive representation As seen in Figures 21.1 and 21.2, the relationship between democracy and women’s political representation in Africa is mixed. Some studies indicate that higher Freedom House and Polity scores are actually correlated with lower levels of women’s legislative representation (Stockemer 2011;Yoon 2001). However, women’s representation has also been shown to increase over multiple rounds of competitive elections (Lindberg 2004), and higher Polity scores are correlated with higher shares for women in presidential cabinets (Arriola and Johnson 2014). At the local level, no cross-​national data exists to test the relationship. 305

306

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

Quotas partly explain the weak relationship between regime type and women’s legislative representation. As we discuss later, scholars debate quotas’ impact on women’s substantive representation, but they generally agree quotas explain most of the increase in women’s legislative representation in Africa (Ballington 2004; Bauer 2012; Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2005; Tripp and Kang 2008). As Table 21.1 illustrates, no African country has achieved more than 20  percent representation for women without a quota. Quotas have taken different forms, including reserved seats, laws or constitutional provisions mandating that parties put forward women candidates, and voluntary party commitments. Regardless of form, quotas have expanded women’s parliamentary presence under authoritarian, democratic, and mixed regimes. Under democratic regimes, quotas produce on average 4  percent more legislative seats for women than under authoritarian regimes (Tripp 2005, 54). Even with this democracy bonus, however, the prevalence of quotas in Africa’s authoritarian and semi-​authoritarian states means that women’s legislative representation has tended, on average, to be higher in those states than in the region’s democracies. African governments have adopted quotas for a variety of reasons, many unrelated to electoral competition. Strong, cohesive women’s movements have been imperative but require only modest political openings, not electoral competition, to emerge (Ballington 2004; Bauer 2012; Burnet 2011; Hughes, Krook, and Paxton 2015; Kang and Tripp 2018). International and regional commitments have also been important (Tripp and Kang 2008),2 with some authoritarian governments, like Rwanda, using quotas—​at least in part—​to gain international legitimacy (Burnet 2011). At the domestic level, quotas have also helped incumbents to bring women into party networks and expand government patronage (Bauer and Burnet 2013; Muriaas and Wang 2012; Tripp 2012), making them valuable to authoritarian and democratic governments alike. Although democracy cannot explain quota adoption or women’s legislative representation, regime-​related variables still matter for women’s access to political office. Multi-​member, proportional representation (PR) systems in Africa tend to produce higher proportions of women parliamentarians (4.31  percent more) than single-​ member, majoritarian systems (Lindberg 2004; Stockemer 2011; Yoon 2004). Because parties put forward multi-​candidate lists in PR systems, they can nominate diverse candidates that appeal to a range of voters. By contrast, in single-​member majoritarian systems, a woman candidate may be seen as too risky (Rule and Zimmerman 1994), resulting in fewer women running for office. African countries with higher levels of corruption also have fewer women in the legislature (Stockemer 2011).

Beyond the legislature Little has been written on cross-​national variation in women’s executive and local representation in Africa. Only one woman, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, has been elected president. Three were appointed during political transitions in Guinea Bissau, Central African Republic, and Liberia. Joyce Banda assumed the Malawian presidency upon the incumbent’s death in 2012 but lost her bid for reelection in 2014. This small sample reaffirms the importance of post-​conflict contexts for women’s access to power and raises questions about democratic competition. Elections favored Sirleaf in 2005 when women’s associations, which had been active in the peace movement, worked tirelessly to mobilize women voters (Adams 2008). In 2011, an opposition boycott and charges of fraud marred her reelection, although international observers declared it free and fair (Schmall 2011). Banda became embroiled in a major corruption scandal and had little voter support going into the 2014 election (Allison 2014). After attempting to annul the election because of irregularities, she stepped down, having earned only 20  percent of the vote (Dionne and Dulani 2014). Her low vote share is typical of African women 306

307

Table 21.1  African countries ranked by proportion of women in the lower house of the legislature, 2015

Country

Quota System

Legislative %

Polity Score

Cabinet %

Rwanda Senegal South Africa Namibia Mozambique Ethiopia Angola Burundi Tanzania Uganda Zimbabwe Cameroon Sudan South Sudan Mauritania Lesotho Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Guinea Kenya Togo Malawi Chad Gabon Somalia Guinea-​Bissau Niger Djibouti Zambia Sierra Leone Liberia Ghana Botswana Burkina Faso Gambia Cote d’Ivoire Congo (Democratic Republic) Mali Congo (Republic) Benin Swaziland Nigeria

Legislated Candidate Quotas Legislated Candidate Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Legislated Candidate Quotas Reserved Seats Reserved Seats Reserved Seats Reserved Seats Voluntary Party Quotas Reserved Seats Reserved Seats Legislated Candidate Quotas Legislated Candidate Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Reserved Seats Legislated Candidate Quotas Reserved Seats Legislated Candidate Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas No Quotas No Quotas Reserved Seats No Quotas Reserved Seats Reserved Seats No Quotas No Quotas No Quotas No Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Legislated Candidate Quotas No Quotas Voluntary Party Quotas Legislated Candidate Quotas

63.8 42.7 42 41.3 39.6 38.8 36.8 36.4 36 35 31.5 31.1 30.5 26.5 25.2 25 24 22 21.9 19.7 17.6 16.7 14.9 14.2 13.8 13.7 13.3 12.7 12.7 12.4 11 10.9 9.5 9.4 9.4 9.2 8.9

–​3 7 9 6 5 –​3 –​2 –​1 3 –​1 4 –​4 –​4 N/​A –​2 8 –​6 –​7 4 9 –​2 6 –​2 3 5 6 6 4 7 7 6 8 8 6 –​5 4 4

35.5 20 41.7 21.7 28.6 12.5 22.2 34.8 32.3 29.6 11.5 14 15.2 22.7 26.9 21.7 8.7 16.7 14.7 30 20.7 11.1 13.6 12.5 8 31.3 12.9 5.3 20 6.9 20 23.1 12.5 12.5 21.1 16.7 8.1

Voluntary Party Quotas Legislated Candidate Quotas No Quotas Reserved Seats No Quotas

8.8 7.4 7.2 6.2 5.6

5 –​4 7 –​9 7

16.1 10.5 14.8 24.1

Sources: The Quota Project at www.quotaproject.org; the Inter-​Parliamentary Union at www.ipu.org; and the Polity IV Annual Timeseries. Data from the Center for Systemic Peace at www.systemicpeace. org/​index.html.

308

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

presidential candidates. Although they are becoming more common, twenty-​two of the twenty-​ seven women who ran for president before 2007 received less than 1 percent of the vote (Adams 2008, 477). Arriola and Johnson (2014) find that democracy is positively correlated with women’s cabinet representation. They hypothesize that presidents use women’s appointments to garner popular support in national elections; however, Adams, Scherpereel, and Jacob (2016) disagree. Focusing on Ghana, they argue that women’s movements and presidential flexibility are more important in explaining why presidents appoint women to the cabinet in countries where women’s legislative share is low.Where women’s movements have not managed to secure quotas and presidents have little influence over legislative elections, they argue, presidents respond to women’s mobilization and international expectations by appointing women to the cabinet. At the local level, democracy and decentralization are often assumed to increase women’s political access, yet women’s success in Africa’s local elections is understudied. Women have not consistently fared better at the local level than the national level (Patterson 2002). As with national legislatures, women have generally achieved the highest representation on local councils in countries with local quota systems, like Uganda and Namibia (Lindeke and Wanzala 1994; Tripp 2012), and those with PR systems at the local level (Goetz 1998; Patterson 2002). Nonetheless, even in PR systems, women face challenges securing party nominations (Patterson 2002). When women do well in local elections, Lindeke and Wanzala (1994) argue, it may reflect the seeming unimportance of local office. Over time, as local authorities gain greater powers, securing a party nomination can become more challenging (Abdullah 2014). All told, existing research indicates that democratic regimes do not consistently produce higher levels of women’s descriptive representation in Africa. Quotas in authoritarian and semi-​ authoritarian regimes partially explain democracies’ underperformance; however, as we explain below, women also face persistent barriers that reduce elections’ ability to bring more women into public office.

Competitive elections and persistent barriers to gender parity The limits on women’s electoral success in Africa can be divided into three main categories related to political party bias and candidate selection, socioeconomic constraints, and cultural norms that discriminate against women in politics and tolerate violence against women in some cases.

Political party bias and candidate selection Political parties function as gatekeepers to elected office in most African countries,3 determining whether women are selected as candidates and receive support for their campaigns.Yet, candidate selection remains “the secret garden of politics” (Gallagher and Marsh 1988). Only twenty-​seven parties in fifteen African countries hold official primaries (Ichino and Nathan 2012).4 In most parties, the criteria for nomination are unclear. In theory, more institutionalized parties provide women with clearer nomination processes (Caul 1999; Yoon 2001), but the relationship between party institutionalization and women’s nomination in Africa has not been tested, nor has the relationship between PR electoral systems and women’s nomination. Although countries with PR systems tend to elect more women, our own fieldwork in Benin in 2017, which has a competitive PR system, reveals that women still complain of party resistance (Johnson, 2019). 308

309

Gender politics

Party resistance takes several forms. Women in Sierra Leone report facing threats of violence when attempting to secure party nominations during the 2008 local elections (Abdullah 2014). In Nigeria and Benin, women complain that party leaders tell them to step down when party financiers prefer male candidates (Johnson 2019; Omenma, Onu, and Omenma 2016). An April 2017 article from Kenya’s Standard newspaper notes that women struggle to “overturn the tyranny of men in … party primaries,” despite a constitutional provision that no gender shall make up more than two-​thirds of the Kenyan parliament (Ayaga 2017). Two factors are particularly important for understanding party leaders’ resistance. First, politics in most African countries is socially and economically valuable. Elected positions offer formal perquisites like cars, salaries, and housing stipends, as well as informal benefits like the ability to distribute government contracts. In some countries, like Nigeria and Benin, elected officials play a major role in businesses’ success (and vice versa) (Koter 2017; Omenma, Onu, and Omenma 2016). Unless women occupy newly created positions, like reserved seats, their presence is a direct threat to the men who currently occupy and aspire to valuable political posts. As such, women’s access can take on a zero-​sum quality. Abdullah’s (2014) account of women candidates being pushed aside in Sierra Leone’s 2008 local elections, which were seen as a “do-​or-​die” affair, illustrates well the inverse relationship between party’s openness to women candidates and the value of elected office. A second factor that works against women is politicians’ tendency to view outgroups as less qualified and to prefer politicians like themselves (Niven 1998).When parties engage in corrupt practices, the desire to avoid outsiders, especially women who are sometimes perceived as less open to illicit practices, may be even stronger (Stockemer 2011). In addition, with few women in politics, men are likely to rely on stereotypes and generalizations when assessing women’s appropriateness as candidates. Instead of judging a woman on her own merit, party leaders are likely to judge her according to the perceived generic attributes of women as a group and conclude that she is unprepared for political competition (Niven 1998), which is expensive, time-​ consuming, and potentially “dirty,” as we explain below.

Socioeconomic status Although problematic, party leaders’ assumptions about women’s preparation are not entirely unwarranted. Women’s socioeconomic status in many African countries limits the pool of women with the educational, financial, and political resources to compete for public office. Although formal education levels in Africa do not statistically correlate with cross-​national differences in women’s representation (Yoon 2004), education is critical for women’s political progress. Many African countries have formal education or literacy requirements for elected office, and where formal requirements are absent, literacy in a European language is often a de facto requirement. However, access to schooling in Africa is highly gendered. A staggering nine million girls have never had any form of schooling, compared to six million boys (UNESCO 2018). In addition, the literacy gap between men and women is often sizable. Consequently, when governments adopt educational requirements for political office, it often undermines women’s access. When Zambia’s 2015 constitution added a clause requiring that candidates for parliament hold a Grade 12 certificate, it prevented many female parliamentarians from seeking reelection (interview with Dorcas Moyo by Melanie L. Phillips, September 27, 2017). Lack of financial capital and economic independence further limits women’s electoral prospects. Elections are expensive in many African democracies as voters expect candidates to provide gifts, food, and cash (Koter 2017). In Kenya, “the Coalition for Accountable Political Finance estimates that the parliamentary candidates spent 40  percent of their budget on 309

310

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

vote-​buying” (Gutierrez-​Romero 2012, 6). Once elected, politicians are further expected to help pay for school fees, medical bills, and other expenses. Parties rarely cover these costs (Jensen and Justesen 2014; Kramon 2016). Over time, campaign costs tend to increase, as in Ghana, where parliamentary candidates have tripled their campaign spending over multiple elections (Lindberg 2003, 131–​2). Unfortunately, women often lack the money needed to finance such campaigns. According to a 2016 study of women’s employment opportunities in five African countries (Burkina Faso, Rwanda, Zambia, Ghana, and Mauritius), it is more difficult for women than men to enter the formal job market and leave agricultural work (Dieterich, Huang, and Thomas 2016). While education can open formal sector doors, marriage works against educational benefits, with mainly single women securing formal jobs and married women turning to household or informal enterprises. Unfortunately, in doing so, they are less likely to improve their economic situation than men. Looking at household level data, Dieterich, Huang, and Thomas (2016, 5) find that “women gain less than men moving from the agricultural sector to the household enterprise sector,” because they lack “the land, capital, and other inputs” to build successful businesses. Adding to financial disadvantages, women’s historic underrepresentation in politics and state employment means they are generally less tied into patronage networks that might allow them to mobilize resources. Many women who led state-​sanctioned associations in the past relied on the goodwill of male patrons for resources. As women begin to compete directly with men for elected positions, male patrons may be less willing to provide women with needed resources. Without their own direct access to state resources, women are at a disadvantage in patronage-​ oriented electoral competition (Beck 2003; Tripp 2001).

Sociocultural norms Sociocultural norms constitute a third barrier to women’s electoral success. Although it is difficult to assess precisely how much patriarchal norms undermine women’s political representation, there is good reason to believe women candidates when they complain of gender bias, as they did in our recent interviews in Benin and Zambia. In Afrobarometer (2016) surveys, 49.7 percent of respondents in nine African countries agreed that it “is better for a family if a woman has the main responsibility for taking care of the home and children rather than a man.” An additional 37.9 percent agreed that “[w]‌hen jobs are scarce, men should have more right to a job than women.” Attitudes like these potentially undermine women’s economic position and political ambition. They may also reduce voter and party support for women candidates (Geisler 1995). Cultural norms further impact women’s electoral options through their impact on family expectations. Women aspirants in Benin report, for example, not running because husbands or brothers wanted their spot on the ballot (Johnson 2019). Personal attacks on women’s morality, fidelity, and commitment to children and family are common across many African states. In southern Africa, for example, Geisler (2004, 177) writes that opponents label women who fail to marry and have children “immoral.” Although divorced or childless women can still be elected, Geisler argues these critiques make it more difficult for them to win. In African cultures where norms are less restrictive, like the matrilineal kinship systems “found in the south-​central region surrounding the Zambezi river,” women seem to be more likely to participate in politics (Gottlieb and Robinson 2018, 7). One disturbing way in which culture inhibits women’s political progress is through tolerance of violence against women. The World Health Organization (WHO et  al. 2013) 310

311

Gender politics

reports that over one-​third of African women have experienced intimate partner violence, many as early as age fifteen. This parallels Afrobarometer (2016) data in which 28.9 percent of respondents believed it was “sometimes or always justified for a man to beat his wife.” Tolerance for violence against women can make it difficult for women to run for and exercise political office; women candidates around the world report that politics is risky. A 2016 global survey found that more than 44 percent of elected female representatives have been threatened in office, including threats of death, rape, beatings, or abductions. Roughly two-​thirds of those surveyed reported that ‘several times or often’ they had been subjected to humiliating remarks of a sexual or sexist nature. (Guest Blogger for Women and Foreign Policy Program 2017) In sub-​Saharan Africa, women candidates report frequent harassment, particularly in countries where political violence is common. In Nigeria, “during a disagreement in the Senate chamber, male senator Dino Melaye threatened female senator Remi Tinubu, saying, ‘I will beat you up … impregnate you and nothing will happen’ ” (Nayaradzo Mashayamombe cited in Krook 2017, 76). Such threats can undermine women’s desire to run for office and make them less effective once in office by limiting their mobility and voice. To summarize, women face important barriers to succeeding in multiparty elections.Women may fare better in countries with electoral systems that allocate seats based on proportional representation or where parties have transparent processes for selecting candidates. However, pre-​existing barriers often keep women from entering politics, securing nominations, and campaigning effectively. Educational and literacy requirements disadvantage women without schooling. Expensive elections and expectations about patronage hurt women of limited financial means. And women’s public life may be constrained by family obligations, gender norms, and violence.

Quotas and substantive representation for women in African democracies Where women have overcome barriers to election, quotas have generally been key. They provide a “fast track” for women’s descriptive representation when persistent party, socioeconomic, and cultural biases would normally limit women’s presence in politics (Dahlerup and Freidenvall 2005). Yet, even as quotas ensure women’s presence, their impact on women’s political power is subject to debate, as they do not override existing gender inequalities. It is important to ask, therefore, whether quotas expand women’s policy influence and facilitate the substantive representation of women’s interests before embracing quotas as the primary tool for ensuring gender parity in African democracies. Numerous case examples suggest that increasing the proportion of women in parliament improves the representation of women’s interests. In Tanzania, as the proportion of women in government increased so did the amount of legislation dealing with issues like women’s access to university education, maternity leave, and gender-​based violence (Meena 2004). In Rwanda, where women make up a majority of parliament, they pushed through laws that enabled women to inherit land and increased punishments for gender-​based violence (Burnet 2011; Powley and Pearson 2007). In Uganda, the parliament has been somewhat slower to take up issues of concern to women (Hanssen 2005); nonetheless, women parliamentarians advocated for several bills that passed in the late 2000s, related to domestic violence, female genital mutilation, marriage, 311

312

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips

and divorce (Tripp 2010, 106–​7). Beyond legislation, research indicates that quota-​induced equality can change parliamentary culture. As women politicians become more confident and assertive, they shift institutional norms so that gender issues become a more common part of parliamentary debate and professional relationships between men and women parliamentarians improve (Devlin and Elgie 2008). Although this research focuses on the impact of women in parliament rather than quotas, the highest proportions of women are found in countries with quotas, suggesting that quotas contribute, at least indirectly, to greater substantive representation for women. Quotas also have important shortcomings. One common critique is their focus on legislative and local bodies. Few countries have quotas for women in the executive branch (Niger and Kenya are exceptions), yet that is where decision-​making power in Africa is concentrated (Mustapha and Whitfield 2009). With power situated in the executive, presidents and ministers can easily negate women’s work at the local and legislative level. For example, in Uganda, women parliamentarians inserted a clause in the Land Reform Act of 1998 granting women ownership rights in spousal homestead property, but before the act was published and became law, the president removed the clause (Goetz and Hassim 2003, 21). Beyond the general weakness of many African legislatures, women’s political power may also be undermined by quotas themselves. Often “the very word ‘quota’ implies the negation of merit, individual worth, and fair competition,” leading other politicians and the public to question the qualifications of women elected through quota systems (Mansbridge 2005, 629). When quotas rapidly expand the number of women in parliament, newly elected women may lack training and lawmaking skills (Hassim 2006; Yoon 2011). In systems with reserved seats, women may be further segregated into a political category of their own, becoming less likely to compete or win in general elections (Chowdhury 2002). For example, in Uganda and Kenya, which both reserve seats for women, political parties, women candidates, and voters perceive that women fare best in reserved seats and should not generally compete in “mainstream” elections (Edgell 2018). In countries with party quotas, observers contend that parties put forward women candidates loyal to the party and sideline women who take feminist positions at odds with the party line (Hassim 2009a; Vincent 2004). Hassim (2009b) argues that quotas fundamentally short-​circuit the process of creating strong constituencies. Rather than coming to office through grassroots work, women enter office thanks to their connections and loyalty to party leaders. Moreover, these women may be distanced from the concerns of other women by class, education, and status. As such, Hassim questions whether they can be expected to challenge undemocratic practices or bring diverse interests into politics.

Conclusion Women’s political representation has undeniably improved over time across Africa, although we have demonstrated that moments of political opening and quota adoption have contributed more to these improvements than electoral competition. Facing barriers in political parties and society at large, women struggle to win elections in the absence of quotas. Nonetheless, greater gender parity in politics remains a worthwhile goal and is not at odds with democracy. We have shown that women parliamentarians bring new priorities to the table, and women’s movements can be important advocates for political change. Quotas may offer the most efficient mechanism for bringing women into politics, but they are not a panacea for effective women’s representation, as they may favor the rise of women politicians who are primarily loyal to the party and lack the autonomy to advocate for women’s interests. To ensure women’s influence and autonomy in politics, it is important that governments, activists, and international actors 312

313

Gender politics

address the forces limiting women’s competitiveness in electoral politics. Without supportive parties, education, financial resources, and protection from violence, women may not be able to take full advantage of the opportunities democracy offers. This chapter has focused on democracies’ impact on women’s descriptive representation, offering one perspective on gender and politics in sub-​Saharan Africa; however, it has left several questions unanswered. The chapter has not, for example, considered women’s role in the bureaucracy and courts, although both play a key role in establishing and defending women’s rights. Although women judges are generally understudied (exceptions include Bauer and Dawuni 2016 and Kang 2015), they may fill important representative functions through their adjudication of family and property laws. Similarly, little has been written about women bureaucrats despite their potential influence over the formulation and implementation of public policies that shape women’s lives. Indeed, more work is needed on the relationship between women’s presence in the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of African states and the substantive representation of women’s interests in policymaking. As the field of gender and politics in Africa matures, this relationship is becoming more central to contemporary research, which promises significant new insights in the coming years.

Notes 1 For a thorough discussion of women’s limited political space across African cases during one-​party and authoritarian rule, see Tripp et al. (2008). 2 Hughes, Krook, and Paxton (2015) find that domestic organizations’ ties with international activist (rather than moderate) organizations can make governments resistant to quotas. 3 See the ACE Network’s database (http://​aceproject.org/​epic-​en/​CDMap?question=PC008&questio ns=all) for information on the legality of independent candidacies across Africa. Data on independent candidacies are not readily available for most countries; however, Clayton et al.’s (2017) ongoing research on Malawi suggests that women are less likely to run as independents than men. 4 Ichino and Nathan find that primaries can favor women’s nominations in large, populous districts because larger districts make patronage politics less feasible and increase voter focus on policy, an arena in which women face fewer disadvantages. 5 The Inter-​Parliamentary Union at www.ipu.org and the Polity IV Annual Timeseries Data from the Center for Systemic Peace at www.systemicpeace.org/​index.html. Polity uses the term anocracies to refer to mixed, or incoherent, authority regimes. Anocracies are countries with Polity scores from –​5 to +5 and three special values: –​66, –​77, and –​88. N = 31 (1980), 31 (1990), 41 (2000), and 41 (2010). 6 Arriola and Johnson (2014) and the Polity IV Annual Timeseries Data from the Center for Systemic Peace at www.systemicpeace.org/​index.html.

References Abdullah, Hussaina. 2014. “Independent Candidacy: An Alternative Political Pathway for Women in Sierra Leone?” In Women in Politics: Gender, Power and Development, edited by Mariz Tadros, 233–​58. New York: Zed Books. Adams, Melinda. 2006. “Regional Women’s Activism: African Women’s Networks and the African Union.” In Global Feminism:Transnational Women’s Activism, Organizing, and Human Rights, edited by Myra Marx Ferree and Aili Marie Tripp, 187–​218. New York: New York University Press. —​—​—​. 2008. “Liberia’s Election of Ellen Johnson-​Sirleaf and Women’s Executive Leadership in Africa.” Politics & Gender 4, no. 3: 475–​84. —​—​—​. 2016. “Context and Media Frames: The Case of Liberia.” Politics & Gender 12, no. 2: 275–​95. Adams, Melinda, John Scherpereel, and Suraj Jacob. 2016. “The Representation of Women in African Legislatures and Cabinets: An Examination with Reference to Ghana.” Journal of Women, Politics & Policy 37, no. 2: 145–​67. Afrobarometer. 2016. Merged Round 6 Data. http://​afrobarometer.org/​data/​merged-​data.

313

314

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips Allison, Simon. 2014. “Dispute Over Malawi Election Results Ends Joyce Banda’s Political Sainthood.” The Guardian, May 27. www.theguardian.com/​world/​2014/​may/​27/​dispute-​over-​malawi-​election​results-​joyce-​banda. Anderson, Jemima Asabea, Grace Diabah, and Patience Afrakoma hMensa. 2011. “Powerful Women in Powerless Language: Media Misrepresentation of African Women in Politics (the Case of Liberia).” Journal of Pragmatics 43, no. 10: 2509–​18. Arriola, Leonardo R., and Martha C Johnson. 2014. “Ethnic Politics and Women’s Empowerment in Africa: Ministerial Appointments to Executive Cabinets.” American Journal of Political Science 58, no. 2: 495–​510. Ayaga, Wilfred. 2017. “Not Yet Uhuru for Women in Party Nominations.” Standard Digital, April 18. www​ .standardmedia.co.ke/​article/​2001236691/​not-​yet-​uhuru-​for-​women-​in-​party-​nominations. Ballington, Julie. 2004. “Conclusion: Women’s Political Participation and Quotas in Africa.” In The Implementation of Quotas: African Experiences, edited by Julie Ballington, 124–​28. Stockholm: IDEA. Bauer, Gretchen. 2012. “ ‘Let There Be a Balance’: Women in African Parliaments.” Political Studies Review 10, no. 3: 370–​84. Bauer, Gretchen, and Jennie E Burnet. 2013.“Gender Quotas, Democracy, and Women’s Representation in Africa: Some Insights from Democratic Botswana and Autocratic Rwanda.” Women’s Studies International Forum 41, no. 2: 103–​12. Bauer, Gretchen, and Josephine Dawuni. 2016. Gender and the Judiciary in Africa: From Obscurity to Parity? New York: Routledge. Beck, Linda J. 2003. “Democratization and the Hidden Public: The Impact of Patronage Networks on Senegalese Women.” Comparative Politics 35, no. 2: 147–​69. Bratton, Michael, and Nicolas van de Walle. 1997. Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Burnet, Jennie E. 2011. “Women Have Found Respect: Gender Quotas, Symbolic Representation, and Female Empowerment in Rwanda.” Politics & Gender 7, no. 3: 303–​34. Caul, Miki. 1999. “Women’s Representation in Parliament: The Role of Political Parties.” Party Politics 5, no. 1: 79–​98. Chowdhury, Najma. 2002. “The Implementation of Quotas: Bangladesh Experience—​Dependence and Marginality in Politics.” Paper presented at the Regional Workshop on The Implementation of Quotas: Asian Experiences, Jakarta, September 25. Clayton, Amanda, Martha Johnson, Ragnhild Muriaas, and Amanda Robinson. 2017. “The Road to Parity: Gender and Political Recruitment in Malawian Local Councils.” Study proposal prepared for the meeting of Evidence in Governance and Politics, Bogota, May 5–​6. Dahlerup, Drude, and Lenita Freidenvall. 2005. “Quotas as a ‘Fast Track’ to Equal Representation for Women.” International Feminist Journal of Politics 7, no. 1: 26–​48. Devlin, Claire, and Robert Elgie. 2008. “The Effect of Increased Women’s Representation in Parliament: The Case of Rwanda.” Parliamentary Affairs 61, no. 2: 237–​54. Dieterich, Christine, Anni Huang, and Alun Thomas. 2016. “Women’s Opportunities and Challenges in Sub-​Saharan African Job Markets.” International Monetary Fund Working Paper WP/​16/​118, Washington, June. Dionne, Kim Yi, and Boniface Dulani. 2014. “Why Malawi’s Election Surprised Us, Even If the Outcome was Unsurprising.” The Washington Post (Monkey Cage), June 11. www.washingtonpost.com/​news/​ monkey-​cage/​wp/​2014/​06/​11/​why-​malawis-​election-​surprised-​us-​even-​if-​the-​outcome-​was-​ unsurprising/​?utm_​term=.e849c90f706e. Edgell, Amanda. 2018. “Vying for a Man Seat: Gender Quotas and Sustainable Representation in Africa.” African Studies Review 61, no. 1: 185–​214. Fallon, Kathleen M. 2003. “Transforming Women’s Citizenship Rights Within an Emerging Democratic State: The Case of Ghana.” Gender & Society 17, no. 4: 525–​43. —​—​—​. 2010. Democracy and the Rise of Women’s Movements in Sub-​Saharan Africa. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Gallagher, Michael, and Michael Marsh. 1988. The Secret Garden of Politics: Candidate Selection in Comparative Perspective. London: Sage. Geisler, Gisela. 1995. “Troubled Sisterhood: Women and Politics in Southern Africa: Case Studies from Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana.” African Affairs 94, no. 377: 545–​78. —​—​—​. 2004. Women and the Remaking of Politics in Southern Africa: Negotiating Autonomy, Incorporation, and Representation. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute.

314

315

Gender politics Goetz, Anne Marie. 1998. “Women in Politics and Gender Equity in Policy: South Africa and Uganda.” Review of African Political Economy 25, no. 76: 241–​62. Goetz, Anne Marie, and Shireen Hassim. 2003. “Introduction.” In No Shortcuts to Power: African Women in Politics and Policy Making, edited by Anne Marie Goetz and Shireen Hassim, 1–​28. New  York: Zed Books. Gottlieb, Jessica, and Amanda Robinson. 2018. “How to Close the Gender Gap in Political Participation: Lessons from Matrilineal Societies in Africa.” Working Paper, December. Guest Blogger for Women and Foreign Policy Program. 2017. “Violence Against Female Politicians.” Council on Foreign Relations, July 11. www.cfr.org/​article/​violence-​against-​female-​politicians. Gutierrez-​Romero, Roxana. 2012. “An Inquiry into the Use of Illegal Practices and Effects of Political Violence.” Center for the Study of African Economies Working Paper WPS/​2012–​16. Hanssen, Kari Nordstoga. 2005. “Towards Multiparty System in Uganda: The Effect on Female Representation in Politics.” Chr. Michelsen Institute Working Paper No. 2006:9. Hassim, Shireen. 2006. Women’s Organizations and Democracy in South Africa: Contesting Authority. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. —​—​—​. 2009a. “Democracy’s Shadows: Sexual Rights and Gender Politics in the Rape Trial of Jacob Zuma.” African Studies 68, no. 1: 57–​77. —​—​—​. 2009b. “Perverse Consequences? The Impact of Quotas for Women on Democratization in Africa.” In Political Representation, edited by Ian Shapiro, Susan Stokes, Elisabeth Wood, and Alexander Kirshner, 211–​35. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hughes, Melanie M., Mona Lena Krook, and Pamela Paxton. 2015. “Transnational Women’s Activism and the Global Diffusion of Gender Quotas.” International Studies Quarterly 59, no. 2: 357–​72. Ichino, Nahomi, and Noah L. Nathan. 2012. “Primaries on Demand? Intra-​Party Politics and Nominations in Ghana.” British Journal of Political Science 42, no. 4: 769–​91. Jensen, Peter Sandholt, and Mogens K. Justesen. 2014. “Poverty and Vote Buying: Survey-​Based Evidence from Africa.” Electoral Studies 33: 220–​32. Johnson, Martha C. 2019. “Training Women to Run in an African Democracy.” In Good Reasons to Run, edited by Rachel Bernhard, Myra Holman, Shauna Shames, and Dawn Teele. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Under review. Kang, Alice J. 2015. Bargaining for Women’s Rights: Activism in an Aspiring Muslim Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Kang, Alice J., and Aili Mari Tripp. 2018. “Coalitions Matter: Citizenship, Women, and Quota Adoption in Africa.” Perspectives on Politics 16, no.1: 73–​91. Koter, Dominika. 2017. “Costly Electoral Campaigns and the Changing Composition and Quality of Parliament: Evidence from Benin.” African Affairs 116, no. 465: 573–​96. Kramon, Eric. 2016. “Electoral Handouts as Information: Explaining Unmonitored Vote Buying.” World Politics 68, no. 3: 454–​98. Krook, Mona Lena. 2017. “Violence Against Women in Politics.” Journal of Democracy 28, no. 1: 74–​88. Lindberg, Staffan I. 2003. “ ‘It’s Our Time to “Chop” ’: Do Elections in Africa Feed Neo-​Patrimonialism rather than Counter-​Act It?” Democratization 10, no. 2: 121–​40. —​ —​ —​ . 2004. “Women’s Empowerment and Democratization: The Effects of Electoral Systems, Participation, and Experience in Africa.” Studies in Comparative International Development 39, no. 1: 28–​53. Lindeke, William A, and Winnie Wanzala. 1994. “Regional Elections in Namibia: Deepening Democracy and Gender Inclusion.” Africa Today 41, no. 3: 5–​14. Mansbridge, Jane. 2005. “Quota Problems: Combating the Dangers of Essentialism.” Politics & Gender 1, no. 4: 622–​38. Meena, Ruth. 2004.“The Politics of Quotas in Tanzania. In The Implementation of Quotas:African Experiences, edited by Julie Ballington, 82–​86. Stockholm: IDEA. Mikell, Gwendolyn. 1995. “African Feminism: Toward a New Politics of Representation.” Feminist Studies 21, no. 2: 405–​24. Muriaas, Ragnhild L, and Vibeke Wang. 2012. “Executive Dominance and the Politics of Quota Representation in Uganda.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 50, no. 2: 309–​38. Mustapha, Abdul Raufu, and Lindsay Whitfield. 2009. “Conclusion: The Politics of African States in the Era of Democratisation.” In Turning Points in African Democracy, edited by Abdul Raufu Mustapha and Lindsay Whitfield, 202–​27. Rochester: James Currey. Niven, David. 1998. “Party Elites and Women Candidates: The Shape of Bias.” Women & Politics 19, no. 2: 57–​80.

315

316

Martha C. Johnson and Melanie L. Phillips Nzomo, Maria. 1993. “The Kenyan Women’s Movement in a Changing Political Context.” In The Women’s Movement in Kenya, edited by Shanyisa Khasiani and E. Njiro, 131–​49. Nairobi: Association of African Women for Research and Development. Omenma, J. Tochukwu, J. Chisolum Onu, and Z. Onyinyechi Omenma. 2016. “Factors Limiting Nomination of Women Candidates for Elections in Nigeria.” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences 7, no. 5: 202–​11. Patterson, Amy. 2002. “The Impact of Senegal’s Decentralization on Women in Local Governance.” Canadian Journal of African Studies 36, no. 3: 490–​529. Powley, Elizabeth, and Elizabeth Pearson. 2007. “Gender is Society: Inclusive Lawmaking in Rwanda’s Parliament.” Critical Half 5, no. 1: 15–​19. Rule,Wilma, and Joseph Francis Zimmerman. 1994. Electoral Systems in Comparative Perspective:Their Impact on Women and Minorities. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. Schmall, Emily. 2011. “Liberia’s President Wins 90.8% of the Vote in a Runoff Boycotted by Her Opponent.” The New York Times, November 11, A10. Stockemer, Daniel. 2011. “Women’s Parliamentary Representation in Africa: The Impact of Democracy and Corruption on the Number of Female Deputies in National Parliaments.” Political Studies 59, no. 3: 693–​712. Tripp, Aili Mari. 1994. “Gender, Political Participation, and the Transformation of Associational Life in Uganda and Tanzania.” African Studies Review 37, no. 1: 107–​31. —​—​—​. 2001. “Women’s Movements and Challenges to Neopatrimonial Rule: Preliminary Observations from Africa.” Development and Change 32, no. 1: 33–​54. —​ —​ —​ . 2005. “Legislative Quotas for Women: Implications for Governance in Africa.” In African Parliaments: Between Governance and Government, edited by Mohamed Salih, 48–​60. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. —​—​—​. 2010. Museveni’s Uganda: Paradoxes of Power in a Hybrid Regime. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. —​—​—​. 2012. Women and Politics in Uganda. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. —​—​—​. 2015. Women and Power in Postconflict Africa, Cambridge Studies in Gender and Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tripp, Aili Mari, and Alice Kang. 2008. “The Global Impact of Quotas On the Fast Track to Increased Female Legislative Representation.” Comparative Political Studies 41, no. 3: 338–​61. Tripp, Aili Mari, Isabel Casimiro, Joy Kwesiga, and Alice Mungwa. 2008. African Women’s Movements: Transforming Political Landscapes. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tusalem, Rollin F. 2012.“The United Nations Democracy Fund: Its Function, Purpose, and Controversies.” In Liberal Interventionism and Democracy Promotion, edited by Dursun Peksen, 165–​ 94. New  York: Lexington Books. UNESCO. 2018. “Education in Africa.” UNESCO Institute of Statistics. http://​uis.unesco.org/​en/​topic/​ education-​africa. Vincent, Louise. 2004. “Quotas: Changing the Way Things Look without Changing the Way Things Are.” The Journal of Legislative Studies 10, no. 1: 71–​96. WHO, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and South African Medical Research Council. 2013. “Global and Regional Estimates of Violence against Women.” World Health Organization, Department of Reproductive Health and Research. www.who.int/​reproductivehealth/​publications/​ violence/​9789241564625/​en/​. Yoon, Mi Yung. 2001. “Democratization and Women’s Legislative Representation in Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Democratization 8, no. 2: 169–​90. —​—​—​. 2004. “Explaining Women’s Legislative Representation in Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 29, no. 3: 447–​68. —​—​—​. 2011. “More Women in the Tanzanian Legislature: Do Numbers Matter?” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 29, no. 1: 83–​98.

316

317

22 ETHNIC POLITICS 1 Dominika Koter

Scholars debate the degree to which ethnicity—​or a sense of belonging to an ethnic group—​ plays a role in African politics, with some going so far as to argue that certain African elections are a mere “ethnic census” whereby electoral choices mirror the ethnic demographics (Horowitz 1985; Ferree 2010). However, nobody disputes that ethnicity is an important factor in electoral politics, with a transition to multiparty politics across much of the subcontinent from the early 1990s having made ethnic cleavages even more conspicuous. This chapter will review existing scholarship and consider the following questions: What is ethnic politics? Why is ethnic politics so widespread? And how can we understand variations in the level of ethnic politics?

Understanding and measuring ethnic politics Ethnic identity conventionally refers to any descent-​based identity, including not just ethnicity per se but also race, caste, tribe, religion, and language (Horowitz 1985); with measures of ethnic politics focusing on the extent to which ethnic identity explains, and predicts, vote choice. While measures of ethnic politics may vary, they all consider the relationship between voters’ ethnic characteristics and the distribution of support of different candidates and parties. In his classic book Ethnic Groups in Conflict, Donald Horowitz (1985) suggests that ethnic politics are based on two intertwined phenomena: ethnic voting, namely voting for a candidate or party of the same ethnic background; and the existence of ethnic parties, or ethnic candidates, namely those that garner a disproportionate share of their electoral support from their co-​ethnics. In this sense, ethnic candidates and parties are the opposite of national political actors with broadly representative, multiethnic electorates. The existence of ethnic parties is not determined by whether an entire ethnic group votes for the same party, but by whether a party relies disproportionately on the support of a single group. Importantly, Horowitz’s definition is agnostic about whether parties intentionally aim to have an ethnic base or whether they simply end up with one. In other words, a party dominated by a single ethnic group is an ethnic party whether it explicitly seeks to represent only a specific ethnic group or not. Such an understanding differs from some other definitions of ethnic parties, such as the one developed by Chandra and Metz (2002), which requires overt appeals to ethnicity. Horowitz’s approach is arguably more suited to the African setting, given that the formation of parties based on ethnic identities is outlawed in many African countries. For example, 317

318

Dominika Koter

Benin’s constitution forbids the creation of parties on ethnic or regional bases (Seely 2007), yet Beninese parties cater to ethnic constituencies without making overt appeals. Parties and candidates across Africa typically make discreet verbal appeals to ethnicity during campaigns without leaving a paper trail of their intention to favor a certain group. Looking for overt appeals to ethnicity, instead of studying parties’ distribution of support, would most certainly undercount the number of ethnic parties in Africa. To illustrate, several Beninese parties would be classified as ethnic because they rely primarily on support from specific ethnic groups,2 but none of them would be classified as ethnic if we looked for explicit claims that they only seek to represent their ethnic constituency. For the reasons just outlined, it is preferable to use Horowitz’s concept of an ethnic party, namely one with an overwhelming share of its support coming from a specific ethnic group. While his concept is straightforward, one of its drawbacks is establishing a threshold, i.e., the percentage of the vote coming from a single group, as any threshold is somewhat arbitrary.3 For this reason, it can be helpful to think about ethnic parties and candidates in terms of “degree” and not just “either/​or” coding. Such continuous measure of ethnic politics is at the basis of several indices, such as Cheeseman and Ford’s (2007) ethnic polarization and ethnic diversity of political parties, Elischer’s (2013) Party Nationalization Scores (PNS), and Dowd and Driessen’s (2008) Cramer’s V Ethno-​linguistic Voting Index (CVELI). Despite subtle differences, these measures generally lead to similar conclusions because they all use similar data to assess the relationship between voters’ ethnic characteristics and vote choice. Nevertheless, it is often worth consulting several different measures to check whether a party or a party system labeled as non-​ethnic according to one index would be classified as ethnic by others. Another consideration to bear in mind is that some of the indices only consider one dimension of ethnic identity, such as language, and evaluate the association between that particular identity and vote choice. Yet, empirically we know that in most heterogeneous societies ethnic identity is multidimensional (Laitin 1986; Posner 2005). An index based on a single dimension of ethnic identification, for example, of linguistic cluster or clan, can better attest the existence of ethnic parties rather than prove their absence, because electoral results could be strongly associated with another dimension of identity.This highlights potential pitfalls of solely relying on off-​the-​shelf indices. Scholars should consider all salient ethnic dimensions (such as clan, larger ethnic blocks, and linguistic clusters) and verify whether any one of them is a good predicator of vote choice.

The political salience of ethnic identities To answer the question of why ethnicity plays a role in electoral politics we need to investigate politicians’ and voters’ choices and motivations. We need to understand why political leaders seek to mobilize support along ethnic lines and when and why voters support ethnic candidates. The following section will review answers to these questions. In order to understand why politicians might want to use ethnic identity for electoral mobilization, we need to weigh the appeal of ethnicity vis-​à-​vis other modes of electoral mobilization; the discussion is accordingly bisected into the limitations of non-​ethnic electoral strategies in Africa and the appeal of ethnic mobilization.

Limitations of non-​ethnic mobilization strategies One of the main reasons why scholars expect African politicians to mobilize along ethnic lines is the perceived scarcity of viable alternatives. For most of the postindependence period, African 318

319

Ethnic politics

politicians had to campaign in environments with underdeveloped media, high linguistic diversity, and poor roads, which made it both time-​consuming and expensive to travel across the country to reach voters. This characterization generally applies to this day, notwithstanding technological improvements that have alleviated some of these problems in recent years. In such contexts, structural theories expect ethnic cues to exert a strong influence on voting choices and party support (see Norris and Mattes 2003 for review). Second, some of the logical alternatives to ethnic appeals, such as programmatic campaigns, have been rather limited over the course of mass electoral competition in Africa. Countless studies over the past sixty years have noted the low salience of ideology and programmatic debates in African campaigns (inter alia Thompson 1963; Jeffries 1998; van de Walle 2007). Even when parties had policy manifestos, their programs were rarely discussed with voters during campaign events (Joseph 1987). Most voters would struggle to differentiate parties based on their programs since parties did not articulate clear ideological distinctions between themselves and their competitors (e.g., van de Walle 2007). Recent scholarship adds important nuance to the study of the role of ideology in African politics and its limitations. For example, Resnick’s (2014) study of the campaign of the late Michael Sata in Zambia showcases both the appeal of populism and its boundaries; Sata successfully used populist appeals in the capital city of Lusaka but when campaigning in rural areas he reverted to ethnic appeals. Resnick’s work implies that many politicians do not view populist campaigns as suitable for the countryside, where the majority of African voters live. Bleck and van de Walle (2013) clarify that while politicians frequently discuss social problems and voters’ concerns, they do not offer specific policy prescriptions. The authors convincingly show that African politicians typically present valence rather than position issues. Yet, valence issues, namely issues on which there is full agreement, such as the need to fight crime or boost development, do not offer actual strategies on how to achieve such desired goals, in contrast to position issues, which articulate specific policy prescriptions. Thus, distinguishing between parties remains difficult when parties invoke valence issues alone.

The appeal of ethnic mobilization Many scholars believe that this limited use of ideological and programmatic appeals contributed to the spread of ethnic politics. In the absence of stark ideological differences, ethnicity became the key distinguishing factor between different parties and candidates. In contrast to policy platforms that might be difficult to articulate and sell to voters, ethnic markers are readily available and easy to communicate even in information-​poor environments. Names, dress, or clothing can inform voters about different candidates’ or parties’ ethnic background. Ethnic identity communicated this way can then serve as an “organizing principle” (Ajulu 2002). Ethnicity is not only highly visible but it can offer important information about who will benefit if a given candidate or party wins. Electing a co-​ethnic candidate can potentially confer two types of benefits: expressive and instrumental (material). These two approaches are not mutually exclusive but they differ in their understanding of what primarily drives ethnic voting. Proponents of expressive understandings of ethnic voting, such as Horowitz (1985), assert that individual self-​worth is linked with group standing; when one’s ethnic group prospers, members of the group feel validated, whereas when one’s group loses power and prestige, individuals’ self-​ worth suffers as a result. In contrast to theories that put psychological benefits at the center of ethnic voting, the instrumentalist school of thought argues that the principal reason why ethnicity matters to 319

320

Dominika Koter

voters is because of expectations of material gain. In this respect, Lonsdale’s (1994) differentiation between moral ethnicity, which is a reflection of pride in one’s group, and political tribalism, namely competition over resources, highlights the centrality of material competition to ethnic politics. Work by Bates (1974), Kasfir (1979), Skinner (1975), and Joseph (1987) suggests that groups use ethnicity to advance their material goals. From their perspective, ethnic groups offer efficient vehicles to advance group demands and to help voters access resources. Voters are thus amenable to ethnic mobilization because they expect to benefit materially.They also see ethnicity as instrumental in negotiating access to power (Ajulu 2002). Scholar such as Bates (1974), Young (1982), and Joseph (1987) also believe that this use of ethnicity for material advancement further increases the salience of ethnicity in society. This would explain how ethnic mobilization, once started, would create a vicious cycle that would be long-​lasting and hard to break. This cycle can be perpetuated for several reasons; once some political actors mobilize ethnicity successfully, this creates an attractive template for other actors to replicate, creating an ethnic outbidding effect. Ethnic mobilization by some political entrepreneurs also encourages defensive mobilization by other groups who fear being excluded (Bratton and Kimenyi 2008), or who develop a sense of shared marginalization (Lynch 2011). Work by scholars such as Posner (2005) and van de Walle (2007) further supports the view that ethnic electoral mobilization is about defending material interests of different groups. Posner (2005) provides a very clear rationale as to why voters and politicians rely on ethnic identity. He argues that in situations of information scarcity, ethnic affiliation gives voters credible information about which groups will benefit, if a given party or candidate wins the election. He suggests that voters widely believe in ethnic favoritism, namely they expect their co-​ethnics to help them materially more than a non-​co-​ethnic would, and stresses that it is the perception of ethnic favoritism that suffices rather than an established empirical pattern of preferential treatment. Posner adds that ethnic affiliation can help to enforce politicians’ promises because, while an individual voter cannot successfully punish a politician who reneges on his promise, an entire ethnic group can do so by withholding future support. Ethnic affiliation can thus serve as an enforcement mechanism, making co-​ethnic politicians’ promises more credible. Politicians, in turn, take advantage of voters’ perceptions of ethnic favoritism. They rely on ethnicity for political mobilization because they can employ it as a cheap information shortcut when appealing to voters. Ferree (2010) presents a similar understanding of ethnic politics, or what she calls census elections, wherein parties and voters rely on racialized (ethnicized) party images as cognitive shortcuts to guide their behavior. She also highlights how politicians can sow doubts in voters’ minds about whether a non-​co-​ethnic party would have their interests at heart. Ferree convincingly shows that part of the ANC’s strategy in South Africa is to paint their opponents in racial terms to question their commitment to non-​co-​ethnic voters. As she argues, presenting rival parties as “white” helps to delegitimize and discredit them in the eyes of black voters. Ethnic mobilization can thus rely both on leading voters to believe that their co-​ethnics would favor them and on raising doubts as to whether non-​co-​ethnic politicians would care about them. This dynamic is also consistent with Lynch’s (2014) account of how William Ruto in Kenya successfully convinced his co-​ethnics not to vote for Raila Odinga by stoking fear of the consequences of his victory. Lynch (2008) also documents the persistent use of language of Kalenjin persecution and state bias to mobilize Kalenjin voters. Both Ferree’s and Lynch’s work discussed here also show clearly the role of political elites in accentuating ethnic differences and keeping them politically salient. In addition to fear of non-​co-​ethnics, Padró i Miquel (2007) suggests that voters’ support for co-​ethnics is further strengthened by the belief that other 320

321

Ethnic politics

groups will vote for their co-​ethnics. For example, the belief that Kikuyus are “incapable of voting for non-​Kikuyu” appeared to be very common in Kenya (Lynch 2014, 98). The existing literature also links the current competition for resources to the effects of colonialism and imposition of capitalism. It is a well-​established view that European colonialism affected ethnic groups and regions differently and created unequal access to resources, be it through differential development, uneven missionary activity and access to education, or employment patterns (Ajulu 2002; Berman 1998; Lonsdale 1994; Ndegwa 1997). By highlighting and accentuating group differences, the colonial experience played an important role in politicizing ethnic identities. The colonial experience mattered in several ways: it made some identities salient and led to the creation of others (Ndegwa 1997), it unleashed an acute contestation over resources and bore witness to the uneven impacts of capitalist penetration (Ajulu 2002), and contributed to the centrality of ethnic patron–​client networks of support and protection over other networks (Berman 1998). Some scholars, such as Mafeje (1971), also argue that the whole concept and vocabulary of tribalism is a European colonial import. The contribution of these works is that they highlight the historical origin of politicization of ethnicity and the centrality of ethnicity in determining access to resources. Despite a quasi-​consensus that ethnic mobilization is about competition for material goods, this scholarship is largely agnostic about the specifics of groups’ wants. There has been a tendency to believe that all groups want essentially the same thing, namely access to scarce state resources, development, and security (e.g., Melson and Wolpe 1970; Joseph 1987). In contrast, recent work by Lieberman and McClendon (2013) suggests that different ethnic groups have distinct priorities and preferences over how resources should be spent. The question of what groups want deserves more attention because it has implications for the durability and perpetuation of ethnic politics. If groups essentially want the same goods, ethnic politics might wither if politicians could credibly ensure equal access to resources for all groups, for example, through universal redistributive programs that are now becoming common in Latin America (e.g., Zucco 2013). In contrast, if groups have different wants, ethnic politics is more likely to persist since it partly reflects underlying policy preferences of different groups. In sum, the bulk of the literature suggests that ethnicity matters to voters, especially in information-​poor contexts, because it sends signals about which politicians and parties will advance their needs and benefit their group and which politicians are unlikely to do so. Other pieces of information that would allow voters to assess candidates’ expected performance in office are underdeveloped, underutilized, and often not credible. From politicians’ perspective, ethnic mobilization is a logical strategy, based on their understanding of how voters think.When politicians know that voters believe in ethnic favoritism, highlighting one’s ethnic credentials is a logical electoral strategy. Politicians also weigh their alternatives and conclude that ethnic mobilization is advantageous to them because it is cheap and easy, whereas other strategies, such as developing a program and communicating it to voters effectively, are more challenging. To be sure, ethnic considerations need not push out all other factors. Several recent studies provide evidence of evaluative (or retrospective) voting behavior in Africa (Lindberg and Morrison 2008; Weghorst and Lindberg 2013; Hoffman and Long 2013; see also Long, this volume). Harding (2015) shows that voters reward incumbents who deliver local public goods. These studies suggest that voters weigh the expectations of benefits from co-​ethnic and non-​ co-​ethnic politicians against their actual or likely performance and thus evaluative behavior could dampen the impact of ethnicity. In contrast, Carlson’s (2015) experiment in Uganda suggests that voters care only about co-​ethnic candidates’ past performance but do not attach much importance to non-​co-​ethnics’ competence because they do not expect to benefit from the latter, irrespective of their record. In sum, while there is a general acknowledgement that 321

322

Dominika Koter

ethnic considerations coexist with other factors, such as candidate evaluation, the existing literature is much less clear as to how exactly these ethnic and non-​ethnic factors interact. This is an area of research where there is still a great deal to learn. Overall, one of the main strengths of the existing research on the factors that drive ethnic politics is the persistent finding on the importance of material benefits in generating ethnic voting. This view emerges consistently across many different cases, over time and across methodologies. In contrast, one of the weaknesses of the existing scholarship is that certain key assumptions are not questioned because of widespread belief in them. For example, as discussed, Lieberman and McClendon’s (2013) work suggests that we should question rather than assume that all ethnic groups have similar wants. Another assumption that is rarely questioned is the belief that ethnic ties provide the most logical basis for clientelist networks. One of the consequences of this widespread belief in the utility of ethnic networks for accessing material benefits is that the literature is much better at explaining why politicians rely on ethnic mobilization than why political entrepreneurs do not mobilize along ethnic lines. In some contexts, such as national elections in Senegal, politicians rely on ethnically diverse clientelist networks. Less prosperous challengers in turn activate anti-​incumbent sentiment. In other cases, especially at the local level when politicians compete against their own co-​ethnics, they rely on personal ties with people in their community, frequently centered on economic dependence. While this is beginning to change, earlier scholarship has largely ignored the question of why ethnicity plays a variable role in electoral politics in Africa. Assuming that African politicians are bound to use ethnic ties, scholars long privileged the question of why a particular ethnic cleavage becomes salient. In this vein, David Laitin in Hegemony and Culture (1986) asks why ancestral city and not religion became the line of political division in Nigeria’s Yorubaland. Laitin argues that while both of these ethnic cleavages play a major role in social life of the Yoruba and thus could be potentially used for political mobilization, the current salience of ancestral city in politics is historically contingent and the result of particular strategies adopted by the British colonial administration, which politicized the ancestral city cleavage. Likewise, Posner (2005) asks why Zambian politicians sometimes mobilize along tribal and at other times along linguistic lines. While Posner views the repertoire of ethnic identities as a legacy of British colonial rule, he shows that changes in electoral institutions create incentives to mobilize different ethnic cleavages. According to Posner, depending on the locus of competition, politicians look at the size of ethnic groups created by different cleavages to decide which cleavages should be mobilized because in the context of patronage politics, politicians will always try to create a minimum winning coalition in order to conserve resources. Posner’s work provides a compelling argument about the relative appeal of different ethnic cleavages for politicians in different electoral settings. However, his assumption that politicians always want to create a minimum winning coalition has some shortcomings: it ignores the benefits of winning by large electoral margins and having a supermajority, and overestimates politicians’ ability to make accurate calculations relating to ethnic demographics. Furthermore, like much of the existing scholarship, Posner takes the reality of ethnic mobilization for granted. As a result, neither Posner’s nor Laitin’s work can be used to explain when or why politicians might avoid ethnic mobilization altogether. The inability to explain the absence of ethnic politics is not necessarily the fault of any given researcher, because their works ask important questions, but rather a collective shortcoming of the literature, which has focused too much on studying some questions at the expense of others. This outcome seems to result from the asserted assumption regarding the salience of ethnicity in electoral politics and the utility of ethnic mobilization.

322

323

Ethnic politics

Variation in ethnic politics across Africa Despite the conventional wisdom that ethnicity plays an important role in elections on the continent as a whole, an increasing number of studies highlight the variation in ethnicity’s effects both between and within countries (Bratton and Kimenyi 2008; Hoffman and Long 2013; Ichino and Nathan 2013; Koter 2016). Realizing that ethnic identity is a powerful predictor of voting behavior in some contexts but not others, these studies address the reasons for this variation. First, some studies focus on the limits of ethnic mobilization. One of the constraining factors for them is the fact that in most African countries no single group makes up the majority of voters. As a result, even when politicians would like to mobilize along ethnic lines, relying exclusively on co-​ethnics’ votes would make victory impossible in many settings. While members of parliament (MPs) could often win seats in single member districts solely with the support of their co-​ethnics, this would be impossible in most presidential elections. Jeremy Horowitz (2016) highlights that given the typical ethnic demographics of an average African country, where no group constitutes an outright majority, African politicians not only need to mobilize their core (i.e., co-​ethnic) voters but also have to persuade swing (or non-​co-​ethnic) voters to support them. In his study of presidential elections in Kenya, Horowitz (2016) analyzes the location of presidential rallies and finds that the main presidential candidates concentrate their efforts on campaigning among swing/​non-​co-​ethnic voters, holding more rallies among swing than among core voters. Kenyan politicians, however, are highly unlikely to campaign among non-​co-​ethnic groups that have a co-​ethnic presidential candidate in the race. The outreach to non-​co-​ethnics is thus largely limited to politically unaffiliated non-​co-​ethnics. At the same time, Horowitz finds that co-​ethnic voters are more likely to be offered handouts on behalf of their co-​ethnic candidate. He interprets these findings as a division of labor practice, where mobilization of co-​ethnics is delegated to local-​level politicians whereas presidential candidates focus on persuasion of unaffiliated non-​co-​ethnics. Similarly, Arriola (2013) highlights how, even when ethnic voting takes place and parties have ethnic bases, ethnic candidates can rarely win elections relying only on ethnic support. He suggests that African politicians need to construct multiethnic coalitions in order to win; yet not all politicians succeed in this task. His research explains why some politicians in some African countries are able to construct electoral coalitions across ethnic divides at the time of presidential elections, while others fail to do so. Arriola convincingly argues that where business is autonomous from state-​controlled capital, as is the case in Kenya, opposition candidates can access the necessary resources to buy support from their potential competitors representing different ethnic groups, thus stitching together multiethnic coalitions in presidential elections. Together, these approaches highlight the limitations of ethnic strategies resulting from the electorate’s demographics and politicians’ consequent need to construct alliances with non-​co-​ ethnics. However, they do not explain why politicians eschew ethnic mobilization altogether. In contrast, there is an emerging body of work that explores the question of when ethnic politics are less likely to emerge. Different works concentrate on different levels of variation, ranging from the individual or regional to the national. Keeping in mind which level of analysis they address is important because it is often difficult to apply insights from arguments developed at one level of analysis to another. For example, individual-​level explanations rarely shed light on cross-​country differences, suggesting that differences between countries are not just an aggregate result of differences between individuals.

323

324

Dominika Koter

At the individual level, some scholars focus on the role of information since instrumental theories of ethnic voting contend that ethnicity plays an important role in elections due to information scarcity. For example, Conroy-​Krutz’s (2013) experiment in Uganda finds that as voters gain more information, especially negative, about their co-​ethnic politicians, they are less likely to support them. Conroy-​Krutz’s findings would imply that more knowledgeable individuals should be less swayed by candidates’ ethnic profiles, since they are more likely to weigh them against other pieces of information. Yet, there are also reasons to doubt that increased information would transform ethnic politics, beyond the fact that we should be careful while generalizing from a single field experiment. The scarcity of information among African voters is often asserted rather than measured. Barkan (1976) argued already in the 1970s that African peasants are not as uninformed as we might think. Additionally, arguments about access to information are better suited to explain differences in propensity toward ethnic voting between individuals than between countries. It does not appear that voters in Mali, where there is little ethnic voting, have any more information than voters in Benin, where ethnic politics are rampant. One of the most compelling explanations of subnational variation comes from Ichino and Nathan (2013), who focus on the effect of ethnic geography of voters’ localities on voters’ electoral decisions. They provide evidence from Ghana to show that when voters are an ethnic minority in a district, they are less likely to vote for their co-​ethnic politician. The authors argue that geographic contexts shape voting behavior because they modify the information conveyed by ethnicity. Voting for co-​ethnic politicians becomes less attractive to voters when district geography favors other ethnic groups. They point out that many local public goods that voters desire are not excludable, therefore supporting a non-​co-​ethnic politician who brings public goods to the district will not deprive the voter of access to these benefits. An important implication of Ichino and Nathan’s argument is that expected benefits from co-​ethnic and non-​co-​ethnic politicians will depend on the nature of goods in question and whether they are excludable or not. While the subnational evidence in the case of Ghana is very persuasive, it cannot be easily adapted to understanding different outcomes in presidential elections across Africa. At the country level, several different factors have been suggested to explain the varied salience of ethnicity in politics. Elischer argues that ethnic parties and party systems tend to occur in countries with high ethnic fragmentation and without a core ethnic group whereas non-​ethnic party systems prevail where ethnic fractionalization is low and there is a core ethnic group (Elischer 2013, 224). He suggests that high ethnic fragmentation poses an imperative for groups to seek unity and vote as a bloc. While this is an intuitively appealing argument, it leaves important unanswered variation. For example, some African countries, such as Senegal and Benin, have very similar ethnic fragmentation and numerically dominant groups of roughly the same size and yet they see very different outcomes in the level of ethnic politics. The design of electoral systems is another factor that some suspect might explain this variation (e.g., Brambor, Clark, and Golder 2007; Mozaffar, Scarritt, and Galaich 2003). Such approaches suggest that differences in electoral rules, such as district size, can affect politicians’ mobilization strategies and the resulting electoral outcomes. However, while electoral rules are certainly relevant to politicians’ calculations and strategic choices, we find ethnic voting across the whole range of electoral systems in Africa, as well as divergent outcomes in countries with similar electoral institutions (see, for example, Elischer 2013).This suggests that electoral systems might matter more for determining how, rather than if, ethnicity will feature in electoral politics. For example, Posner’s (2005) study of Zambia shows how changes in electoral institutions, namely a shift from one-​party to multiparty politics, did not result in politicians resorting to 324

325

Ethnic politics

more or less ethnic politics but in the activation of different ethnic cleavages. Furthermore, while electoral institutions, in conjunction with ethnic demographics such as concentration and fragmentation, affect the number of resulting parties, they do not necessarily determine their (non-​)ethnic nature (Mozaffar, Scarritt, and Galaich 2003). Other prominent arguments include the expectation that cross-​cutting cleavages can prevent crystallization of electoral competition along a single identity cleavage (Lipset and Rokkan 1967; Dunning and Harrison 2010). For example, Dunning and Harrison provide experimental evidence from Mali to show that cross-​cutting ties based on an informal institution of joking kinship, or cousinage, can counterbalance ethnic ties. Because voters feel affinity toward both candidates who are their co-​ethnics as well as non-​co-​ethnic “cousins,” the effect of ethnicity is dampened. For Dunning and Harrison, this countervailing force of cross-​cutting cleavages explains why we do not see ethnic politics in Mali, despite the salience of ethnicity in social life. Yet, even when cross-​cutting cleavages exist, this does not mean that they will play a role in politics, suggesting that Dunning and Harrison’s finding does not easily travel to other settings. For example, Galvan (2006) shows that cousinage ties are employed inconsistently by local political entrepreneurs in West Africa; they are activated when it is advantageous to use them and ignored on other occasions. This would explain why ethnic politics is absent in some countries with cousinage ties, such as Mali, but it is present in others, such as Guinea.Thus, cousinage ties have the potential to counterbalance ethnic ties, but this outcome depends on how they are actually used. In contrast, I have suggested in previous work (Koter 2013, 2016) that in order to understand the variation in ethnic politics one should focus on existing alternatives to ethnic mobilization. Instead of assuming that ethnic ties provide the only viable way of forging ties with voters, I contend that where there are powerful local notables, such as traditional and religious leaders, they can serve as intermediaries between politicians and voters, helping politicians to reach out to non-​co-​ethnic voters. Intermediaries have much more bargaining power than individual voters and they have incentives to work with politicians who can deliver the most resources, irrespective of ethnic identity. Consequently, because intermediaries can help to forge linkages between politicians and non-​co-​ethnic voters, mobilization through local leaders produces more ethnically diverse electorates.Yet, because the power of local leaders varies greatly across Africa, this strategy is viable only in some places. Greater strength of local leadership thus makes the emergence of ethnic politics less likely because it broadens politicians’ mobilization options. In contrast to arguments that focus on structural factors, such as group sizes or electoral institutions, I suggest that politicians craft their strategies (and decisions whether to target groups through ethnic appeals or not) in response to social organization and the existing landscape of local authority.This argument is thus in agreement with the prevailing view that ethnic politics results from clientelist competition of resources, but questions whether ethnic ties are always the bases of clientelist networks and shows how, when clientelism is not organized along ethnic lines, we should not see the emergence of ethnic politics.

Conclusion In many African countries, ethnic politics have been a consistent feature of elections since independence and it is hard to imagine that they will disappear in the near future.Where ethnic politics exist, they have typically endured over time (Koter 2016). Contemporary ethnic cleavages are path-​dependent (e.g., Laitin 1986) and can be hard to dislodge. Individuals’ decisions to vote for ethnic candidates depend not just on their own expected payoffs, but on their expectations of what other individuals in society will do (Padró i Miquel 2007). Such perceptions may be hard to change, especially when politicians actively try to perpetuate them. In turn, many of 325

326

Dominika Koter

the factors that can help to explain the absence of ethnic politics—​such as ethnic demography, strength of local leaders, or cross-​cutting cleavages—​do not change rapidly and are thus not expected to significantly affect ethnic dynamics in the short term (Dunning and Harrison 2010; Koter 2016; Elischer 2013). On the other hand, some studies offer clues about circumstances under which we might see an erosion of ethnic politics. As African societies urbanize rapidly, populist mobilization, which can be used more effectively in cities (Resnick 2014), could displace ethnic appeals to some degree. Other research suggests that as voters gain more information (Conroy-​Krutz 2013), or as local geography changes (Ichino and Nathan 2013), voters might become more open to voting for non-​co-​ethnic politicians. Because electoral patterns are sticky, we should expect longstanding, broad ethnic cleavages to endure; but social changes, such as urbanization and migration, will complicate these electoral patterns over time and will create more incentives and opportunities for politicians to eschew ethnic appeals.

Notes 1 This chapter draws in part from Koter 2016. 2 For example, Parti Social-​Démocratique has a predominantly Adja base whereas Parti du Renouveau Démocratique is seen as a Goun/​Yoruba party. 3 For example, Horowitz suggests 85 percent as a threshold, which is a high number given the diversity and ethnic fragmentation of most African electorates. Scarritt (2006) suggests adding additional thresholds and categories where 66.6–​85 percent indicates “potentially ethnic parties” and 50–​66.6 percent means “multiethnic party with a majority ethnic group.”

References Arriola, Leonardo. 2013. Multiethnic Coalitions in Africa: Business Financing of Opposition Election Campaigns. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ajulu, Rok. 2002. “Politicised Ethnicity, Competitive Politics and Conflict in Kenya: A Historical Perspective.” African Studies 61, no. 2: 251–​68. Barkan, Joel. 1976. “Comment: Further Reassessment of ‘Conventional Wisdom’: Political Knowledge and Voting Behavior in Rural Kenya.” American Political Science Review 70, no. 2: 452–​5. Bates, Robert. 1974. “Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 6, no. 4: 457–​84. Berman, Bruce. 1998. “Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State: the Politics of Uncivil Nationalism.” African Affairs 97, no. 388: 305–​41. Bleck, Jaimie, and Nicolas van de Walle. 2013. “Valence Issues in African Elections: Navigating Uncertainty and the Weight of the Past.” Comparative Political Studies 46, no. 11: 1394–​421. Brambor, Thomas, William Roberts Clark, and Matt Golder. 2007. “Are African Party Systems Different?” Electoral Studies 26, no. 3: 315–​23. Bratton, Michael, and Mwangi Kimenyi. 2008. “Voting in Kenya: Putting Ethnicity in Perspective.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 2, no. 2: 272–​89. Carlson, Elizabeth. 2015. “Ethnic Voting and Accountability in Africa: A Choice Experiment in Uganda.” World Politics 67, no. 2: 353–​85. Chandra, Kanchan, and Daniel Metz. 2002. “A New Cross-​National Database on Ethnic Parties.” Paper presented at Midwestern Political Science Association Annual Meeting, Boston, August. Cheeseman, Nic, and Robert Ford. 2007. “Ethnicity as a Political Cleavage.” Afrobarometer, Working Paper No. 83, November. Conroy-​Krutz, Jeffery. 2013. “Information and Ethnic Politics in Africa.” British Journal of Political Science 43, no. 2: 345–​73. Dowd, Robert, and Michael Driessen. 2008. “Ethnically Dominated Party Systems and the Quality of Democracy: Evidence from Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Afrobarometer Working Paper No. 92. Dunning,Thad, and Lauren Harrison. 2010.“Cross-​Cutting Cleavages and Ethnic Voting: An Experimental Study of Cousinage in Mali.” American Political Science Review 104, no. 1: 21–​39.

326

327

Ethnic politics Elischer, Sebastian. 2013. Political Parties in Africa: Ethnicity and Party Formation. New  York: Cambridge University Press. Ferree, Karen. 2010. Framing the Race in South Africa:The Political Origins of Racial-​Census Elections. New York: Cambridge University Press. Galvan, Dennis. 2006. “Joking Kinship as a Syncretic Institution.” Cahiers d’Études Africaines 4, no. 184: 809–​34. Harding, Robin. 2015. “Attribution and Accountability:Voting for Roads in Ghana.” World Politics 67, no. 4: 656–​89. Hoffman, Barak and James Long. 2013. “Parties, Ethnicity, and Voting in African Elections.” Comparative Politics 45, no. 2: 127–​46. Horowitz, Donald. 1985. Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Berkeley: University of California Press. Horowitz, Jeremy. 2016. “The Ethnic Logic of Campaign Strategy in Diverse Societies: Theory and Evidence from Kenya.” Comparative Political Studies 49, no. 3: 324–​56. Ichino, Nahomi and Noah Nathan. 2013. “Crossing the Line: Local Ethnic Geography and Voting in Ghana.” American Political Science Review 107, no. 2: 344–​61. Jeffries, Richard. 1998. “The Ghanaian Elections of 1996: Towards the Consolidation of Democracy?” African Affairs 97, no. 387: 189–​208. Joseph, Richard. 1987. Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kasfir, Nelson. 1979. “Explaining Ethnic Political Participation.” World Politics 31, no. 3: 365–​88. Koter, Dominika. 2013. “King-​makers: Local Leaders and Ethnic Politics in Africa.” World Politics 65, no. 2: 187–​232. —​—​—​. 2016. Beyond Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Laitin, David. 1986. Hegemony and Culture: Politics and Religious Change among theYoruba. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lieberman, Evan, and Gwyneth McClendon. 2013.“The Ethnicity–​Policy Preference Link in Sub-​Saharan Africa.” Comparative Political Studies 46, no. 5: 574–​602. Lindberg, Staffan and Minion Morrison. 2008. “Are African Voters Really Ethnic or Clientelistic? Survey Evidence from Ghana.” Political Science Quarterly 123, no. 1: 95–​122. Lipset, Seymour and Stein Rokkan. 1967. Party Systems and Voter Alignments: Cross-​National Perspectives. New York: Free Press. Lonsdale, John. 1994. “Moral Ethnicity and Political Tribalism.” In Inventions and Boundaries: Historical and Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism, edited by Preben Kaarsholm and Jan Hultin, 131–​50. Roskilde, Denmark: Institute for Development Studies, Roskilde University. Lynch, Gabrielle. 2008. “Courting the Kalenjin: The Failure of Dynasticism and the Strength of the ODM Wave in Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.” African Affairs 107, no. 429: 541–​68. —​—​—​. 2011. I Say to You: Ethnic Politics and the Kalenjin in Kenya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. —​—​—​. 2014. “Electing the ‘Alliance of the Accused’: The Success of the Jubilee Alliance in Kenya’s Rift Valley.” Journal of Eastern African Studies 8, no. 1: 93–​114. Mafeje, Archie. 1971. “The Ideology of ‘Tribalism’.” The Journal of Modern African Studies 9, no. 2: 253–​61. Melson, Robert, and Howard Wolpe. 1970. “Modernization and the Politics of Communalism: A Theoretical Perspective.” American Political Science Review 64, no. 4: 1112–​30. Mozaffar, Shaheen, James Scarritt, and Glen Galaich. 2003. “Electoral Institutions, Ethnopolitical Cleavages, and Party Systems in Africa’s Emerging Democracies.” American Political Science Review 97, no. 3: 379–​90. Ndegwa, Stephen. 1997. “Citizenship and Ethnicity: An Explanation of Two Transition Moments in Kenyan Politics.” American Political Science Review 91, no. 3: 599–​616. Norris, Pippa, and Robert Mattes. 2003. “Does Ethnicity Determine Support for the Incumbent Party?” KSG Working Paper Series, RWP03-​009, February. https://​ssrn.com/​abstract=385209. Padró i Miquel, Gerard. 2007. “The Control of Politicians in Divided Societies: The Politics of Fear.” The Review of Economic Studies 74, no. 4: 1259–​74. Posner, Daniel. 2005. Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press. Resnick, Danielle. 2014. Urban Poverty and Party Populism in African Democracies. New York: Cambridge University Press. Scarritt, James. 2006. “The Strategic Choice of Multiethnic Parties in Zambia’s Dominant and Personalist Party System.” Commonwealth & Comparative Politics 44, no. 2: 234–​56. Seely, Jennifer. 2007. “The Presidential Election in Benin, March 2006.” Electoral Studies 26, no. 1: 196–​200.

327

328

Dominika Koter Skinner, Elliott. 1975. “Competition Within Ethnic Systems in Africa.” In Ethnicity and Resource Competition in Plural Societies, edited by Leo Despress, 131–​57. The Hague, Mouton, and Chicago: Aldine. Thompson, Virginia. 1963. “Dahomey.” In Five African States: Responses to Diversity, edited by Gwendolen Carter, 161–​262. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. van de Walle, Nicholas. 2007. “Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss? The Evolution of Political Clientelism in Africa.” In Patrons, Clients and Policies, edited by Herbert Kitschelt and Steven Wilkinson, 50–​67. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weghorst, Keith, and Staffan Lindberg. 2013. “What Drives the Swing Voter in Africa?” American Journal of Political Science 57, no. 3: 717–​34. Young, Crawford. 1976. Politics of Cultural Pluralism. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. —​—​—​. 1982. “Patterns of Social Conflict: State, Class and Ethnicity” Daedalus 111, no. 2: 71–​97. Zucco, Cesar. 2013. “When Pay Outs Pay Off: Conditional Cash Transfers and Voting Behavior in Brazil 2002–​2010.” American Journal of Political Science 47, no. 3: 810–​22.

328

329

23 GENERATIONAL DYNAMICS AND YOUTH POLITICS Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

The 2006 United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report defined the youth1 as young people who fall within the age bracket of fifteen to twenty-​four years.This demographic cohort represents more than a billion people worldwide.2 Eighty-​five percent of them reside in the developing world, particularly in Africa, where they constitute a preponderant majority of the labor force (Ebata et al. 2005). Africa is currently in the midst of what demographers call a youth bulge, although it has always had a youthful population.3 Indeed, on average, close to 70 percent of the African population is youthful (Gavin 2007, 69). Not only do the youth constitute the bulk of Africa’s population, they also constitute about 75 percent of the continent’s labor force and voting population (Ebata et al. 2005; Ahwoi 2008; Gavin 2007). However, while “youth” is sometimes regarded as a short and set time period in people’s lives, the window is often regarded as longer in the African context. For example, Kenya’s 2010 constitution defines “youth” as those between the age of eighteen and thirty-​four. Similarly, in Ghana, the 2010 National Youth Policy defines youth as those young men and women aged between fifteen and thirty-​five years. The term also often carries additional connotations as a stage between childhood and senior peoplehood—​a stage that is not time-​bound but determined by the attainment of certain symbols of seniority—​with “youth” in everyday contexts often including those into their late thirties or even forties. In turn, much of the intellectual discourse on the youth in Africa describes them in rather derogatory terms as a problem or threat.Young people are labeled “a lost generation” by scholars such as O’Brien (1996), especially in reference to their involvement in conflicts in Liberia and Sierra Leone, a social upheaval described by Richards (1995, 224) as a “crisis of youth.” Such terms also emerge with reference to South Africa, where the “political” youth generation of the 1980s has had to come to terms with unemployment and social marginalization in the 1990s. Others have described them as perpetrators of crimes and a drain on national resources, and a group to be feared (Asante 2006; Griffin 1997; Males 1998; Rook 1998). In West Africa, for instance, youth have been described as apathetic, disenchanted, disempowered, and exploited (Konteh 2007, 18; Debrah 2012, 38; Rook 1998, 20). Other scholarly works highlight the role they play in elections as foot soldiers, “voting machines,” and agents of violent electoral and political conflict. The works of Diouf (2003), Durham (2000), and Burgers (2003) are instructive in these areas.

329

330

Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

This discourse offers, however, only a partial view of youth politics in Africa. A broader perspective, and that taken here, is that there is no uniform “youth” politics in Africa’s emerging democratic societies. The fact that many young people have played different roles in shaping politics in Africa cannot be overlooked. Meaningful discourse on the role of youth in African politics—​both as a clear age bracket and stage between childhood and adulthood—​demands consideration of both their destabilizing role and also of their proactive and constructive mobilization and participation. The varied outcomes are less a reflection of the youth bulge as a demographic phenomenon than of the varied ways that youth are harnessed to political projects and carved out their role in the political system. This chapter discusses the political implications and role of the youthful composition of African populations. It begins by describing the role of youth in the postcolonial and democratization process of African countries, and then turns to a discussion of the various ways that youth have been incorporated into emerging democratic orders. In some contexts and in some respects, youth have been effectively organized into competitive and participatory political processes. This has facilitated their making positive contributions to democratization. In other respects, their roles in political life have been less structured—​this is particularly the case for youth who have witnessed few of the benefits of Africa’s emerging political economies. In this regard, the youth can still be important agents in fostering accountability, yet they can also play a destabilizing role.

Youth, nationalism, and postcolonial politics Although the central concern of many is with the role of youth in Africa’s contemporary political systems, it is important to situate this concern in some historical perspective.4 Starting with the period of nationalist agitation, we should recognize that, in many African countries, young people were centrally involved in struggles for independence. In Ghana, as early as 1929, J.B. Danquah, J.C. De Graft Johnson, R.S. Blay, K.A. Bossman, and W.B. Van Lare, most of whom had studied law in Britain and had been active members of the West African Students Union (WASU), advocated the formation of a “national assembly of youth to study the problems facing the colony and to think and act together as one people” (Boahen 1979, 138). After World War II, young independence fighters like Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, Nigeria’s Nnamdi Azikiwe, Guinea’s Ahmed Sékou Touré, and Mali’s Modibo Keita mobilized the youth to resist colonial rule. Young, radical, impatient, and ready if necessary to use unconstitutional and even violent means, Nkrumah, for instance, found it difficult to work with the older, conservative, and legalistic members of the United Gold Coast Convention. He therefore resigned from the party to form the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) in 1949 with the aim of “fighting relentlessly by all constitutional means for the achievement of full self-​government for the chiefs and people of the Gold Coast” (Boahen 1979, 167). Nkrumah aligned the CPP with the Committee on Youth Organizations (CYOs), which comprised a number of regional youth associations composed mainly of the commoners including school leavers, junior civil servants, petty traders, and young shop assistants (Boahen 1979, 168). Similarly, the Democratic Party of Guinea under the leadership of Sékou Touré was mobilized around the youth who served as key agents in Guinea’s fight for independence. Upon attainment of independence, many youth groups developed to become support organs for governments and leaders that led the fight against colonial rule. In Ghana, for instance, Nkrumah established state-​controlled youth organizations and ensured that all youth groups became an integral part of the CPP. Traditional youth associations were transformed into vigilante groups of the CPP, while other new groups like the Young Pioneer Movement were 330

331

Generational dynamics and youth politics

formed to defend the regime. Likewise, in Côte d’Ivoire, President Félix Houphouët-​Boigny established a party militia of both young people and veterans to defend him after independence (Chazan 1974).These young people were also mobilized into agriculture. Similar developments took place in Malawi, with the formation of the ruling party youth league and the Malawi Young Pioneers (Williams 1978). In some contexts, youth organizations evolved to become key bases of support for, and tools of, durable authoritarian regimes. In Malawi, for example, the Young Pioneers, although ostensibly formed to mobilize people for development purposes, developed into a coercive force with full license to use violence to protect and support the regime of Hastings Kamuzu Banda (Williams 1978). Yet in other countries, where military interventions removed first postindependence leaders, many youth organs were forced to fold up. Indeed, in Ghana, youth organizations that were identified with the CPP were disbanded or suppressed by the military government (1966–​69). This paved the way for the voluntary youth groups that had been emasculated by the independence fighters to be resuscitated and reorganized (Chazan 1974, 197). In turn, the country’s student movements became more active, as they were mobilized into agriculture to help achieve food sufficiency (Gyimah-​Boadi 1989). Such groups later became critical of the government for not dealing with challenges confronting the ordinary people. From the middle of the 1970s, for instance, the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) began to criticize the military government of Ignatius Kutu Acheampong because of deteriorating conditions on the university campuses, corruption in public affairs, poor management of the economy, and the regime’s unwillingness to hand over power (Shillington 1992, 22). In particular, the NUGS vehemently opposed the regime’s 1977 Union Government (UNIGOV) proposal.5 They organized a series of protests against police and military brutalities, high food prices, and mismanagement of the economy. These protests resulted in the frequent closure of the universities as well as the arrests and detention of student leaders and other youth activists. Sustained protests by students and other youth activists contributed to the fall of authoritarian regimes and the promulgation of new constitutions in the early 1990s (Shillington 1992). The Fourth Republican Constitution of 1999 in Nigeria came about partly as a result of the role of the youth and civil society in pushing for democratization. Similarly, Ghana’s Fourth Republican Constitution, which was promulgated in 1992, was the result of pressures from within and outside the country. The internal pressures were spearheaded by NUGS, other youth activists, and pro-​ democracy forces such as the law association and trade unions. NUGS subjected the Rawlings regime’s attempt to control the transitional process with regards to its institutional arrangements and sequencing to serious criticisms and strongly supported the coalitions that advocated multiparty democracy (Asante 2006). In Mali, student groups formed a central pillar of the organization that agitated for democratic reforms and played a leading part in the (violently repressed) demonstrations that preceded the overthrow of Moussa Traoré (Villalón and Idrissa 2005).

Incorporating the youth into democracy In the aftermath of transitions to multiparty politics in the 1990s, youth have been variously incorporated into the projects of political actors and organizations. As discussed below, this has contributed to the destabilization of political life in some contexts. Yet in others, and in other respects, politicians have sought to structure, control, and even contain the youth as a political force. In Ghana, for instance, the formation of political parties, following the lifting of a ban in May 1992, added new impetus to the formation of youth groups. The various political parties deliberately formed youth wings to tame and mobilize them for the pursuit of political power 331

332

Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

(Asante 2006).The National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) both have youth wings, while the NPP formed the “Nasara Club” in various urban areas, ostensibly to strengthen the support base of the party among the Muslim youth. Both parties have also extended youth organization to the tertiary institutions with the Tertiary Institution Network (TEIN) and the Tertiary Education and Students Confederacy (TESCON) representing the student wings of the NDC and NPP respectively (Asante 2006, 222). Politicians have also resorted to the practice of interfering in the processes leading to the selection of youth leaders (Asante 2012; Gyampo 2013). The election of leaders of youth wings of political parties as well as student leaders of the various tertiary institutions has been politicized (Asante 2012). Politicians fund the campaign of their preferred candidates and work to ensure that they get them elected (Gyampo 2013). Politicians have also used their political parties’ student wings to influence the elections of the leaders of NUGS. Thus, through the TEIN and TESCON, the NDC and NPP have sought control over the processes of choosing student leaders and the making of decisions (Asante 2012).The operations of these groups amount to cooptation and taming of the youth in the sense that they do not wield influence over decision-​making and their leaders are socialized not to criticize, but to mobilize support to the mother parties (Gyampo 2013). This pattern has been documented at a broader level at a variety of African higher education institutions. Luescher-​Mamashela and Mugume (2014), for example, have observed that political party leaders, in an attempt to “buy” or politicize youth and student organizations, provide services and resources directly to student leaders at different stages of their student political careers. This includes campaign support through cash donations, printing of T-​shirts, posters, and fliers; support to incumbent student leaders through scholarships, leadership workshops, and career opportunities upon graduation, including leadership positions within the party (Luescher-​Mamashela and Mugume 2014, 511). Student leaders, in return, are expected to soften their militant posturing and dance to the tunes of politicians, sometimes to the utter neglect of student interest. Another strategy is for the political parties’ echelons to give recognition to potential youth leaders. Some student leaders, for example, consider political recognition as crucial because it affords them the opportunity to know and interact with top party leaders.This recognition also gives them confidence and the assurance that they could climb to the parties’ centers of gravity. Students and youth leaders who are affiliated with the political parties feel important among their peers because they have political “Godfathers” (Gyampo 2013). It must be added that the politicization of organizations such as NUGS aims to ensure a sustained future and succession plan for the political parties. Indeed, most politicians target student and youth leaders as potential replacements for leadership positions within their respective parties. Hence, they try to catch them while they are in school by giving them recognition and by sponsoring their elections to executive positions so that they can be groomed and trained for future political leadership roles. This explains why almost all the former student leaders are appointed or encouraged and sponsored to contest for various elective positions within political parties (Luescher-​Mamashela and Mugume 2014). A final strategy to harness youth has been to entice and coopt their vibrant and very articulate leaders into government by offering them ministerial or deputy ministerial appointments. This especially happens to youth leaders who have asserted themselves and refused to be influenced by political authorities.The strategy has been to coopt such persons in an attempt to deprive their organizations of the leadership and fervor that drives them into activism (Gyampo 2013; Asante 2012; Luescher-​Mamashela and Mugume 2014). In this regard, virtually all the presidents of NUGS in Ghana since 1992 ended their tenure by being appointed into various political offices by the ruling regimes (Gyampo 2013). 332

333

Generational dynamics and youth politics

The impact(s) of youth incorporation Many of the strategies highlighted above have been aimed at winning young people to the side of politicians and even ensuring that they do not fight against policymakers. Yet the effects of these efforts extend in other directions as well. Ghana’s experience provides useful illustrations. Many young people in Ghana now seem polarized on party lines and have served as agents used to canvass support for political parties. On the campuses of the various tertiary institutions, the branches of political parties established have served as platforms for securing support of students.

The youth and political party growth Youth have played an important role in party development since the inception of Ghana’s Fourth Republic in 1993. To begin, youth have helped to make the presence of their parties felt across the country. They have served as foot soldiers and vehicles through which party manifestoes have been transmitted to the electorate, particularly those in the hinterlands. They have often done this with passion and aggression (Bob-​Milliar 2014). They are often seen chanting their party slogans and moving from house to house, campaigning for their parties in an attempt to win more supporters. In the 2004 general elections, for instance, the NPP youth spread the message that a vote for Professor Mills of the NDC, in the opposition, would mean a vote for former President Rawlings (Gyampo 2011). Similarly, in the 2012 general elections, the NDC youth claimed that a vote for the NPP would plunge the country into war, causing political conflict and deportation of aliens. Also, the youth of the two main political parties in Ghana organized a series of press conferences and issued statements to enlighten voters about their party positions on pertinent national issues and, in some cases, to deny allegations made against their parties. For example, the NDC youth in Tamale held a press conference to refute allegations of corruption leveled against the Northern Regional Minister Stephen Sumani Nayina in October 2009 in a newspaper report. Furthermore, they have been instrumental in organizing party rallies and the hoisting of party flags in an attempt to socialize Ghanaians about the ideals of their respective parties (Asante 2006). Youth have also served as pressure groups within their parties and often brought pressure to bear on national executives over pertinent issues, including matters concerning internal democracy. Some of them have resisted attempts by party executives to impose parliamentary candidates on them in their constituencies. For instance, in the run-​up to the 2008, 2012, and 2016 parliamentary elections, the NPP youth embarked on massive demonstrations in an attempt to press home their disapproval of persons whose NPP candidature they saw as an imposition on them by the party executives. In the Ablekuma South, Abirem, Bekwai, and Suhum constituencies, it sometimes resulted in violent clashes with the security agencies (Gyampo 2011). Moreover, in Ghana, just as in many emerging democracies, fundraising activities for political parties is crucial because of the lack of funding of political parties by the state. Since no meaningful party activity can be embarked upon without funding, the youth in the various political parties continue to support their parties to embark upon several activities aimed at raising funds. For example, through the sale and distribution of party cards and other paraphernalia, they are able to raise some minimum funding to help run political parties, particularly during the peak electioneering campaign season (Gyampo 2015; Asante 2006). In the view of Bob-​Milliar (2014), the activities that engage the attention of party youth and foot soldiers may include taking part in pro-​and anti-​government protests, attending meetings, canvassing for votes, and exercising public authority in diverse ways including providing security 333

334

Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

for their communities. Those who are quite aspiring tend to formalize their membership with a political party. Some other youth groups and foot soldiers who have good leadership skills are able to “transcend the membership categories defined by social status, including education or monetary considerations, and move up the party ladder, either as youth organizers, constituency organizers, or local chairmen” (Bob-​Milliar 2014, 132).

Promoting democratic quality The chief role of political party/​tertiary student networks is to support their political parties during elections, win more members and supporters for their parties on the various campuses, and educate students about the ideologies, manifestoes and policies of the political parties (Asante 2006; Gyampo 2015). In the discharge of their functions, however, these networks have contributed to the shoring up of democratic quality in Ghana in a variety of respects.

Human rights Despite Ghana’s status as a model African democracy, there are many challenges regarding human rights protection (see Andam and Epprecht, this volume).This includes growing intolerance and indiscipline and the prevalence of vigilante justice, particularly in the urban and peri-​urban centers of Ghana (Asante 2012). In this atmosphere, tertiary networks have been canvassing for tolerance of opposing views and the need to respect rights of all. Indeed, in 2011, the University of Ghana branches of TEIN and TESCON issued statements to condemn the inhuman treatment meted out to a female suspect alleged to have stolen mobile phones belonging to some students at the University of Ghana (Gyampo 2013; Asante 2012). Such pressure also extends to deficits in socioeconomic rights. Unemployment rates have remained high and government efforts to deal with the situation have been inadequate. According to the 2012 Report of the Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER) of the University of Ghana, 250,000 people enter the labor market annually, out of which the public sector can absorb only 2  percent. ISSER further estimated that youth unemployment (in relation to the active and legal employable population of eighteen to sixty years) has risen from 14.8 percent in 1992 to 16.4 percent in 2000 and came close to 36 percent in 2012. This partly explains the formation of the Unemployed Graduates Association in 2011 by students who had completed their education at the tertiary level. The youth in tertiary institutions across the country have viewed the unemployment problem as a major human rights issue and made several calls on governments to prioritize attention to it. These calls played a role in the introduction of the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) in 2006 to address the unemployment challenges of the Ghanaian youth. Even though the NYEP is described as an ad hoc and quick fix solution to several challenges, it has assisted in lessening the burden of unemployment in Ghana by employing more than 300,000 young people by the close of 2012 (Gyampo 2012).

Equality/​inclusion Ghana’s 1992 constitution guarantees political equality. However, what obtains in practice is different. The 2002 Afrobarometer survey conducted by the Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-​ Ghana) revealed the heightened perception of inequality under the law. Twenty-​eight percent of the respondents complained about political inequality. There is also widespread gender as well as socioeconomic inequality in the country, with women’s 334

335

Generational dynamics and youth politics

participation in decision-​making being relegated to the background, and income inequality prevailing among many Ghanaians (Asante 2012). Youth groups and student activists operating through tertiary networks of political parties have been especially “loud” in advocating for greater political equality, especially their inclusion in the selection of party officials and candidates including flagbearers of national election. As a result of this advocacy, the NDC has a representative of the youth and student activists at all levels of the party, from the branch to the national level. According to the NDC national youth organizer these young representatives now have voting rights in the selection of party executives and flagbearers.6 TESCON and TEIN have also gained greater voting rights and recognition in party administration, decision-​making, and selection of party officials at congresses (Asante 2012). In addition, student activists are now allowed to contest for elective positions in their respective parties. Indeed, according to an electoral officer at the Electoral Commission of Ghana, this explains why the number of student activists who contested for parliamentary primaries increased from 48 percent in 2008 to 66 percent in 2016.7

Accountability Youth and student activism have also contributed to promoting accountability. As Diamond and Morlino (2005) argue, the dynamics of accountability go beyond the interplay between voters and their elected representatives. It also encompasses the efforts of civil society, mass media, and social movements to hold governments accountable between elections. In Ghana, however, the media’s ability to promote accountability is limited by problems of professionalism and integrity (Asante 2012). Moreover, many civil society groups have failed to demonstrate high levels of internal accountability while others have weak capacity (Asante 2012). As key political actors, youth groups and students at tertiary institutions express concern about how leaders handle national issues including cost of living, energy crises, and the general state of the economy. In 2012, for instance, the University of Ghana branch of TESCON issued a statement calling on government to find an immediate and lasting solution to the nation’s power crisis. The government later announced measures being put in place and the dates on which the crisis would end. In all elections held under the Fourth Republic, youth have played the crucial role of serving as polling agents during registration and voting exercises. In this respect, they also promote fairness and transparency in the election process, especially during voter registration exercises, which are crucial for the legitimacy of electoral outcomes. For example, the decision of some parties to use local or indigenous youth groups and apparatchiks to monitor polling centers especially in the rural communities during the 2008 elections contributed immensely towards the checking of impersonation (Asante 2006). Tertiary networks have also collaborated with groups committed to observing and monitoring elections in Ghana. Indeed, both TEIN and TESCON have been actively involved in the monitoring of elections (Asante 2012). Student activists on the various campuses, particularly TEIN and TESCON members serve as polling agents and registration officers in the rural hinterlands and the strongholds of other parties. For example, in the 2000 elections, some members of TESCON demonstrated bravery and risked their lives for the NPP when they served as polling agents in the Volta Region, an NDC stronghold and a “no-​go area for the NPP.” According to A.M. Ayuba and B.K.A. Asena, presidents of TEIN and TESCON respectively (interviews with the author, May 7, 2013), TEIN members were also deployed to the Ashanti region (also known as the “World Bank of the NPP”) as polling agents for the NDC in the 2008 general elections. Some of the students were assaulted both physically and verbally by their political opponents (Asante 2012). 335

336

Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

Responsiveness The degree to which governments put in place policies to deal with the priorities and needs of the ordinary people show how responsive they are (Diamond and Morlino 2005). The CDD-​Ghana 2002 Afrobarometer survey showed that only 22 percent of respondents believed governments are responsive to the needs of the people. This implies that there is a general deficit in terms of governmental responsiveness in Ghana. However, student activists operating through tertiary networks have worked to make governments more responsive through their calls and insistence on more public involvement in the formulation and implementation of policies. In formulating Ghana’s mid-​term development plan (the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda, 2010–​13) in 2009, tertiary networks on the various campuses called for broader consultations and participation in the planning processes to ensure that the development plan reflected the needs of the people (Gyampo 2012). They have also used forums and symposia to demand greater responsiveness. In 2006, for instance, the Accra Polytechnic branch of TEIN held a seminar on “The Impact of Democracy on Nation Building.” Similarly, the University of Ghana branch of TESCHART organized a forum in March 2007 on the topic “Fifty Years of Economic Opportunities, the Lessons and the Drawbacks, What are the alternative Policies and Programmes needed for Ghana?” (Asante 2012).

Participation Meaningful participation in democracy requires the deliberate involvement of people in a decision-​making process in a manner that makes them capable of influencing and owning the process (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1995). In Ghana, however, genuine participation in political party activities is weak and confined largely to voting (Gyampo 2012). By virtue of their level of education, the youth in many tertiary networks possess the skills needed to operate within formal political channels and to effect genuine participation. In this regard, it is instructive that student activists tend to work with other civil society groups to peacefully protest against policies believed not to be in the interest of the ordinary people. Indeed, between 2005 and 2007, members of TEIN and TESCHART were very instrumental in the series of peaceful protests organized by the Committee for Joint Action (CJA), a pressure group, against some government policies such as increases in utilities, petroleum prices and the Representation of Peoples Amendment Bill (Asante 2012). Students of the various campuses have also utilized their research skills, talents, and knowledge to foster innovative research to support the activities of their parties. Most of the research work for the election petition filed by the NPP to challenge the declaration of John Mahama as the elected president in Ghana’s 2012 general elections was conducted by TESCON members, drawn from various tertiary institutions across the country (Asante 2012). Generally, TEIN and TESCON have vibrant research committees that plan and undertake regular research activities for their parties, particularly during elections. This form of student participation and activism helps the parties to develop appropriate campaign strategies and to predict the outcome of elections with some degree of certainty (Asante 2012, 26).

Marginalized youth, popular politics, and the threat of violence The above discussion reveals some of the ways that youth involvement in democratic structures and processes can enhance liberal and multiparty politics. However, we should be cautious 336

337

Generational dynamics and youth politics

in viewing youth involvement only through the lens of formal organizations, many of them connected to parties, and only in terms of how their relatively “contained” participation shapes democratic development. On the one hand, such a perspective fails to give sufficient attention to the mass of youth who exist on the geographic and social margins of “formal” political and economic structures and processes—​part of what Chaturvedi might call the “urban surplus population” (2016, 311). On the other hand, it fails to recognize ways that youth might engage and shape democratization in negative ways.

Youth, protests, and deeper accountability As the chapter by Mueller in this volume reminds us, popular involvement in the political process has increasingly manifested in protest movements, especially over the past decade. Youth have often been centrally involved in these, sometimes in leadership roles and other times populating the ranks of those who take to the streets (see Yarwood 2016; or Branch and Mampilly 2015). In Senegal, for instance, youth formed the core of the Y’en a Marre (Fed Up) movement that emerged in January 2011 to protest declining public services and accountability, and would later play a pivotal role in the demonstrations that forced President Wade to reverse course on proposed constitutional reforms (Resnick 2013; Mueller, this volume). Organized in youth chapters across Senegal, the group later worked to register individuals to vote in the 2012 election (in which Wade was defeated) and inspired and supported similar popular movements for accountability in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burkina Faso (Yarwood 2016). Considering the role of youth in protest politics more broadly, Iwilade (2013) situates youth grievances in the context of governance failures and the constrained economic opportunities (and worsening circumstances) that many youth encountered in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis. As he argues, in this context, youth political identities have been increasingly connected to and constructed in the context of “protest cultures” that challenge marginalization in Africa’s current political economies. Social media has afforded unique opportunities for the development of these protest cultures and activities. Blogs, text messaging facilities, and social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook provide important spaces within which dissent was both articulated and coordinated (see the chapter by Tettey, this volume, for a broader discussion). In Mozambique in 2010, for instance, young people used text messaging and Twitter to encourage participation in demonstrations regarding food prices and availability. In this regard, the social media sphere—​“dominated by youth”—​provided an opportunity to exercise political voice and even challenge dominant power structures.Traditional media, established civil society groups, and the state either resisted or stood on the sidelines of the protest efforts that eventually emerged (Iwilade 2013, 1060–​1). Youth were also centrally involved in the fuel protests that emerged in Nigeria in 2012, albeit by playing less of a leadership role. As Iwilade (2013) argues, their contribution in that context was to “democratize” the protest discourse and activities, largely through the use of social media. The images and debates within the protest movement thus reflected the political and economic concerns of this segment of the population in greater ways that previously observed. As Iwilade sums up with reference to both the Mozambican and Nigerian cases: By seizing the discourse initiative as a result of their dominance of the public sphere, youths were largely able to impose their frustration on public debate and were thus able to direct, to varying extents, the nature of resistance to perceived unfair state policies. In the process, youth centers of power challenged traditional adult dominated 337

338

Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

centers of power, forcing a realignment, which, while perhaps not necessarily radical, was none the less with markings of profound potential for change. (Iwilade 2013, 1064) Two issues stand out for consideration from these points. The first is that, as with the participation of youth in political party structures, their activism and agency outside of those structures can serve to deepen and enrich democracies. Senegalese youth played a crucial role in halting democracy-​threatening changes to the constitution, while Mozambican and Nigerian youth worked to hold governments accountable and rendered the public sphere inclusive to a broader collection of citizens. The second is that, contrasted with the role of students in Ghana, these cases indicate that the form of youth politics may very much reflect whether and how they are incorporated into political life. In these instances, relatively untethered from other actors, they engaged politics via informal, but still effective manners that enhanced democracy. As we will see below, however, that can also connect to political players in ways that position them as vectors of violence and instability.

The dangers of violence At the start of this chapter, I indicated that much of the discourse surrounding “youth” in Africa highlights their negative and potentially destabilizing role. This discourse likely reflects the visible and documented activities of youth in militancy, electoral violence, and vigilantism (Ifeka 2006; Olaiya 2014). While much of this chapter indicates that “youth politics” involves much more, these other concerning patterns in youth politics deserve attention. As we turn to this, it is important to keep in mind the very marginal status of youth in many African societies. As Frederiksen argues, “a good deal of frustration, unrest, and social energy stem from young men and women’s lack of economic power and political influence” (2010, 1079). In similar terms, Olaiya’s discussion of youth violence in West Africa highlights the “lack of engagement of more than 70% youth populations across the region” (2014, 2).Youth are variously depicted as “out in the cold” (Iwilade 2014, 580) or “caught in a Peter Pan scenario gone terribly wrong” (Gavin 2007, 71). The effort to renegotiate this status, as youth work to carve out or modify their role in the current political economy of African states, can be one vector of violence. Here they operate with some agency, albeit under conditions they do not control and in interactions with other powerful actors who can shape their nature of their engagement. Consider the case of Mungiki in Kenya—​a well-​known and much feared ethnic gang. The formation of the group took place in the context of state-​sponsored ethnic violence in the early 1990s and partly reflected a “revolt against the ruthless politics of an early generation of politicians” (Frederiksen 2010, 1080).Their ensuing activities included serving as “guardians of public morality” in urban areas and providing protection to vulnerable elements of society. Yet they also came into violent conflict with other youth groups over economic resources and became recruits for politicians during the 2007 elections and perpetrated acts of violence in the conflict that followed those contests (Frederiksen 2010; Olaiya, 2014). Iwilade’s (2014) discussion of youth and violence on the Niger Delta also sheds light on this. The context of marginalization helps us to understand the emergence and legitimation of violent movements engaged in activities such as vigilante justice, kidnapping, and armed robbery. This said, the choice of youth to engage in violence often reflects their connection to larger clientelistic networks that extend into the state (Iwilade 2014, 586).This includes violence undertaken in the context of electoral contests (Courson 2009). 338

339

Generational dynamics and youth politics

This theme of youth working on behalf of political “godfathers” is an important one as we consider their role in violence. As Olaiya puts it, in this view, “the political domain is dominated by recycled adults who … are able to use the resources at their disposal to manipulate the youth” (2014, 8). In this respect, youth become “foot soldiers” for parties or political networks controlled by powerful patrons. In other work, I have described these party foot soldiers as “apparatchiks” who can pose challenges to good governance (Gyampo 2011). Indeed, in the Ghanaian context, young apparatchiks have been involved in most of the inter-​and intra-​party conflicts. There are several reported cases where the youth of the two leading political parties have clashed over the venue, timing for organizing rallies and other seemingly petty issues (Bob-​Milliar 2014). In October 2004, for instance, the youth of the NDC and NPP clashed in Yendi constituency in the Northern Region of Ghana during an NDC rally (Asante 2012). Moreover, during the elections in the Tolon/​Kumbungu district in 2004, NPP apparatchiks stormed an NDC stronghold to investigate allegations of underage voting. This led to a clash between the two groups resulting in the death of two persons (Gyampo 2012). Indeed, party youth supporting different parliamentary aspirants in the same party have often clashed. Violent confrontations often characterized press conferences convened by party executives, particularly at the constituency level. Again, the decision by some aspiring candidates, who lost primaries, to contest as independent candidates have often led to intra-​party conflict, with the party youth being the main participants. Finally, party youth groups have sometimes resorted to acts of vigilantism, thuggery, and hooliganism after the electoral victories of their respective parties. This has included confiscation of state vehicles, and other public offices such as toll booths, marketplaces, lorry parks, and public toilets. Soon after the NDC’s victory in 2008, party youths were reported to have seized public toilets, markets, and car parks being managed by suspected NPP party loyalists (Gyampo 2011). This kind of behavior has perpetuated winner-​takes-​all politics and created within Ghana’s body politic conflict, acrimony, and the feeling of marginalization after every election. Moreover, there is a growing belief that soon after leaders are elected, their “apparatchiks” and youth groups must necessarily take over the reins of governance and occupy key decision-​making positions.

Conclusion This chapter has highlighted and interrogated the politics of youth in African democracies. The historical and political development of African states cannot be discussed without considering the crucial role of young people. They have served as both agents and instruments of development and played a role of countervailing authority to both traditional authorities and contemporary governments. However, their activities have sometimes resulted in violent conflicts that have led to the destruction of lives and property. Part of this reflects their becoming overly partisan and confrontational in their quest to defend their parties and leaders they support; it also reflects their being used as agents of violent conflict. These tendencies, when not fully checked, could eventually plunge nations into serious inter-​party and political conflicts that may wipe away the relative peace and few democratic gains made across much of the African continent. In a bid to restrain their activities and prevent the destabilizing agony of youth bulge, governments, politicians, and policymakers have resorted to several strategies to contain young people in Africa. Lessons from Ghana and elsewhere in Africa show that these strategies have been somewhat successful in making the youth less antagonistic and supportive of regimes. The youth have zeal and enthusiasm and such positive 339

340

Ransford Edward Van Gyampo

attributes must therefore be effectively harnessed as a way of tapping the full potentials of the critical mass of the population of Africa. By way of future research, the strategies that have been deployed by governments to prevent the destabilizing agony of youth bulge in Ghana and many other African countries ought to be interrogated and examined. Specifically, this entails exploring their true effectiveness to ensure that they are not mere veneer obstacles that may eventually be surmounted by young people and create the real danger of a youth bulge population.

Notes 1 The term “young people” is also used interchangeably with the term “youth” in this work. 2 UNDP Human Development Report, 2006, www.undp.org/​content/​dam/​undp/​library/​corporate/​ HDR/​2006%20Global%20HDR/​HDR-​2006-​Beyond%20scarcity-​Power-​poverty-​and-​the-​global-​ water-​crisis.pdf. 3 A youth bulge typically occurs when less developed countries with both high fertility and high mortality rates begin to bring infant and children mortality rates down. Eventually, development gains tend to bring fertility rates down as well. But in the lag time, before this occurs, a population boom of young people who survive adulthood reshapes the demographic landscape (Gavin 2007, 69). 4 For a review of the role of youth in different historical periods, see Gyampo and Obeng-​Odoom (2012). 5 According to this proposal, the Union Government was to comprise the army, police, and civilians. 6 Personal communication with the National Youth Organizer of the National Democratic Congress on May 7, 2013 in Accra. 7 Personal communication with Richard Asante Kissi, electoral officer at the Electoral Commission of Ghana on May 3, 2017 in Accra.

References Ahwoi, Kwamena. 2008. Designing a Youth Development Manual. Mimeo. Asante, Richard. 2006. “The Youth and Politics in Ghana: Reflections on the 2004 General Elections.” In Voting for Democracy: The 2004 Elections in Perspective, Vol. 1, edited by Kwame Boafo-​Arthur, 213–​22. Accra: Freedom Publications. —​—​—​. 2012. The Youth and Future of Democracy in Ghana. Accra: Ghana Universities Press. Boahen, Albert Adu. 1979. Ghana Evolution and Change in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London: Longman Group. Bob-​Milliar, George. 2014. “Party Youth Activists and Low-​Intensity Electoral Violence in Ghana: A Qualitative Study of Party Foot Soldiers’ Activism.” African Studies Quarterly 15, no. 1: 125–​36. Branch, Adam, and Zachariah Mampilly. 2015. Africa Uprising: Popular Protest and Political Change. London: Zed Books. Burgers, Thomas. 2003. “Youth and the Politics of Generational Conflicts.” Paper presented at an International Conference, University of Leiden, April 24. Chaturvedi, Ruchi. 2016. “Agentive Capacities, Democratic Possibilities, and the Urban Poor: Rethinking Recent Popular Protests in West Africa.” International Journal Politics, Culture and Society 29, no. 3: 307–​25. Chazan, Naomi. 1974. “Politics and Youth Organizations in Ghana and Ivory Coast.” PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Courson, Elias. 2009.“Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND): Political Marginalization, Repression and Petro-​Insurgency in the Niger Delta.” Nordic Africa Institute, Discussion Paper No. 47. www.diva-​portal.org/​smash/​get/​diva2:280470/​FULLTEXT01.pdf. Debrah, Emmanuel. 2012. Youth Participation in Decision-​ Making at the Grassroots. Accra: Ghana Universities Press. Diamond, Larry, and Leonardo Morlino. 2005. Assessing the Quality of Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Diouf, Mamadou. 1996. “Urban Youth and Senegalese Politics: Dakar 1988–​1994.” Public Culture 8, no. 2: 225–​49.

340

341

Generational dynamics and youth politics —​—​—​. 2003. “Engaging Post-​Colonial Cultures: African Youth and Public Spheres.” African Studies Review 46, no. 2: 3–​12. Durham, Deborah. 2000. “Youth and the Social Imagination in Africa.” Anthropological Quarterly 73, no. 3: 113–​20. Ebata, Michi, Valeria Izzi, Alexandra Lenton, Eno Ngjela, and Peter Sampson. 2005. Youth and Violent Conflict: Society and Development in Crisis: A Strategic Review with Special Focus on West Africa. New York: Bureau of Crisis Prevention and Recovery, UNDP. Frederiksen, Bodil Folke. 2010. “Mungiki, Vernacular Organization and Political Society in Kenya.” Development and Change 41, no. 6: 1065–​89. Gavin, Michelle. 2007. “Africa’s Restless Youth.” In Beyond Humanitarianism, edited by Princeton Lyman and Patricia Dorff, 69–​85. New York: Brookings Institute Press. Griffin, Christine. 1997. “Representations of the Young.” In Youth in Society: Contemporary Theory, Police and Practice, edited by Jeremy Roche and Stanley Tucker, 17–​25. London: Sage. Gyampo, Ransford Edward Van. 2011. “Political Apparatchiks and Governance in Ghana’s Fourth Republic.” Educational Research 11, no. 1: 21–​36. —​ —​ —​ . 2012. “Youth Participation in Youth Programmes: The Case of Ghana’s National Youth Employment Programme” The Journal of Pan African Studies 5, no. 5: 13–​28. —​—​—​. 2013. “Student Activism and Democratic Quality in Ghana’s Fourth Republic.” Journal of Student Affairs in Africa 1, no. 1–​2: 49–​66. —​—​—​. 2015. “Public Funding of Political Parties in Ghana: An Outmoded Conception?” Ufahamu: Journal of African Studies 38, no. 2: 3–​28. Gyampo, Ransford Edward Van, and Obeng-​Odoom, Franklyn. 2012. “Youth Participation in Local and National Development: 1620–​2013.” Journal of Pan African Studies 5, no. 9: 129–​55. Gyimah-​Boadi, Emmanuel. 1989. “Policies and Politics of Export Agriculture.” In The State, Development and Politics in Ghana, edited by Emmanuel Hansen and Kwame Ninsin, 222–​41. London: CODESRIA Book Series. Ifeka, Caroline. 2006. “Youth Cultures and the Fetishization of Violence in Nigeria.” Review of African Political Economy 33, no. 10: 721–​36. Iwilade, Akin. 2013. “Crisis as Opportunity: Youth, Social Media and the Renegotiation of Power in Africa.” Journal of Youth Studies 16, no. 8: 1054–​68. —​—​—​. 2014. “Networks of Violence and Becoming:Youth and the Politics of Patronage in Nigeria’s Oil-​ Rich Delta.” Journal of Modern African Studies 52, no. 4: 571–​95. Konteh, Richard. 2007. “The Role of Youth in Ensuring Peaceful Elections.” Report on Conference of West African Political Parties, the Institute of Economic Affairs, Ghana, April 2. Luescher-​Mamashela,Thierry, and Taabo, Mugume. 2014. “Student Representation and Multiparty Politics in African Higher Education.” Studies in Higher Education 39, no. 3: 500–​15. Males, Mike. 1998. Framing Youth:Ten Myths about the Next Generation. Maine: Common Courage Press. O’Brien, Cruise. 1996. “A Lost Generation? Youth Identity and State Decay in West Africa.” In Postcolonial Identities in Africa, edited by Richard Werbner and Terence Ranger, 233–​41. London: Zed Books. Olaiya, Taiwo. 2014. “Youth and Ethnic Movements and Their Impacts on Party Politics in ECOWAS Member States.” Sage Open, January–​March,  1–​12. Resnick, Danielle. 2013. “Continuity and Change in Senegalese Party Politics: Lessons from the 2012 Elections.” African Affairs 112, no. 449: 623–​45. Richards, Paul. 1995. “Rebellion in Liberia and Sierra Leone: A Crisis of Youth?” In Conflict in Africa, edited by Oliver Furley, 224–​46. London: Taurus Academy Studies. Rook, A. 1998. “Youth Development Programmes Combat Negative Press on Kids.” Youth Today 8: 49–​50. Shillington, Kevin. 1992. Ghana and the Rawlings Factor. London: Macmillan. Verba, Sydney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry Brady. 1995. Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics. London: Harvard University Press. Villalón, Leonardo, and Abdourahmane Idrissa. 2005. “The Tribulations of a Successful Transition: Institutional Dynamics and Elite Rivalry.” In The Fate of Africa’s Democratic Experiments: Elites and Institutions, edited by Leonardo Villalón and Peter VonDoepp, 49–​ 74. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Williams, T. David. 1978. Malawi:The Politics of Despair. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Yarwood, Janette. 2016. “The Power of Protest.” Journal of Democracy 27, no. 3: 51–​60.

341

342

343

PART V

Social forces from below

344

345

24 PUBLIC OPINION AND DEMOCRATIC LEGITIMACY Robert Mattes

When the third wave of democracy washed across Africa in the early 1990s, leading Africanists openly questioned whether civil liberties, multiparty elections, and representative institutions held any real meaning for ordinary Africans. Many suggested that the reforms that restored political rights and civil liberties, and ushered in multiparty elections, had taken place simply as a function of economic crisis (e.g., Bates 1994), or pressure from international actors such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (e.g., Munslow 1993; Young 1993; Nwajiaku 1994). Little attention, in contrast, was paid to the desires of Africans themselves. In their landmark study of Africa’s transitions, Bratton and van de Walle (1998) challenged these interpretations, producing clear evidence of the primacy of domestic protest in determining where these transitions took place, and where they succeeded. Yet several related and fundamental questions were still unanswered. Were the pro-​democratic demands of students, church and civic groups, and labor unions driven simply by opposition to the continent’s failed one-​party, military, or “Big Man” regimes? Or did they reflect explicit preferences for popular self-​government? And if they did, did the views of those groups reflect a broader, heretofore unappreciated wellspring of support for democracy among the wider mass public? And lastly, if such support did exist, how extensive, firm, and informed was it? Answers to these questions can now be found in a series of regular public opinion surveys of ordinary Africans conducted by Afrobarometer since 1999. Conducted initially in twelve sub-​ Saharan countries between 1999 and 2001 (Round 1) and progressively expanding to include, by 2014–​15, as many as thirty-​six countries (Round 6), this project carries out face-​to-​face interviews with nationally representative samples, conducted in the language of the respondent’s choice. This chapter reviews what we have learnt from these surveys about ordinary Africans’ support for various aspects of the democratic regime, and their orientations to the challenges of active citizenship. It then considers how Africans understand the concept of “democracy,” and how they assess its actual performance. The key findings are as follows. Elected representative democracy enjoys a widespread, although not overwhelmingly, positive image. However, while the median African supports democracy and rejects presidential dictatorship, military rule, and the one-​party state, when measured with single indicators, many Africans are inconsistent democrats, rejecting some elements of autocracy while expressing acquiescent or even anti-​democratic sentiments on others. Thus, the proportion of respondents who demand democracy by providing consistently 345

346

Robert Mattes

pro-​democratic responses is less than one-​half of all respondents. Moreover, while demand for democracy increased in the period between the surveys conducted in 2002–​03 and 2011–​13, it has declined in the most recent measurement point (2015–​16). And once we move beyond continental averages, we find enormous cross-​national variation, as well as country paths over time, with some countries still displaying steady gains, but others in decline, and still others characterized by trendless variation. Surveys have also found varying levels of support for key parts of the institutions of vertical and horizontal accountability. Compared to their levels of support for democracy, Africans are far less likely to see themselves as active principals, with a role to play in controlling the actions of their elected agents. At least part of this incomplete embrace of democratic politics and citizenship surely stems from how Africans understand democracy. While the majority of Africans articulate a surface understanding of democracy in terms of political procedure, many respondents can be persuaded of alternative economic and substantive understandings of democracy. Thus, many apparently committed democrats express satisfaction with the performance of regimes that are only partially democratic, and the size of the proportion of dissatisfied democrats is too small in many places to push for the expansion of democracy, or to safeguard its erosion.

Do Africans want democracy? While there are legitimate worries over what ordinary citizens understand by “democracy,” and how this may “contaminate” responses to questions designed to tap support for liberal, electoral democracy (a subject to which we will turn later in this chapter), it is impossible to assess popular attitudes toward this form of political regime without actually using the word. Thus, we begin with a widely used survey question, first asked by Morlino and Montero (1995) that asks respondents: Which of these three statements is closest to your own opinion? A. Democracy is preferable to any other form of government. B. In certain situations, a non-​democratic government can be preferable. C. To people like me, it doesn’t matter what form of government we have. In this question, and throughout the questionnaire, the word “democracy” was offered in English and translated into a local language only if the respondent was unable to understand the English version. In the first round of Afrobarometer surveys, conducted from 1999–​2004,1 more than two-​thirds (69 percent) of all respondents across twelve countries said that “democracy is preferable to any other form of government.” Flash forward to the round of surveys conducted in 2014–​15 and we find that a very similar 67 percent provide the same response, even though that average was now based on results from thirty-​six countries. However, because some people might possess an attachment to the word “democracy” without a meaningful idea of what the concept entails (a point we will explore in greater detail), Afrobarometer drew on the work of Rose, Mishler, and Haerpfer (1998) to develop a series of items that assessed popular attitudes to democracy without using the “D-​word.” These questions ask respondents whether they would support or oppose abandoning the present system of multiparty elections for a range of authoritarian alternatives, each of which have been experienced by many of the countries included in the survey. There are many ways to govern a country. Would you disapprove or approve of the following alternatives? 346

347

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

• Only one political party is allowed to stand for election and hold office. • The army comes in to govern the country. • Election and Parliament are abolished so that the president can decide everything. Substantially larger proportions of respondents reject non-​democratic alternatives than embrace the term democracy. In the first round of surveys, from 1999 to 2001, 83 percent rejected military rule, and 80 percent rejected presidential dictatorship. However, a significantly lower 70 percent adopted a negative view to one-​party rule. As of 2014–​15, the cross-​national average level of rejection across thirty-​six countries was 78 percent for both presidential dictatorship and the one-​party rule, and 73 percent for military rule. Thus, based on this initial scan of continent-​ wide results, the median African appears to be strongly supportive of democracy, although they may be more certain about the type of regime they don’t want, than the one they do. Overall levels of support are far more variable, however, when Africans are asked about specific dimensions of democratic politics. In terms of vertical accountability, a cross-​continental average of 80 percent, as of 2014–​15, agree that leaders should be chosen “through regular, open and honest elections.”2 Yet far fewer people are convinced that elections need to be organized along partisan lines: fewer than two-​thirds (63 percent) agree that “many political parties are needed to make sure that we have real choices in who governs them.”3 And when the idea of citizen influence over government is pitted against government effectiveness, barely half of all respondents (51 percent) say that “It is more important for citizens to be able to hold government accountable, even if it makes decisions more slowly.”4 While multiparty elections have been relatively easy to institutionalize, African polities still struggle to develop effective institutions of horizontal accountability that limit the power of Big Man presidents. Yet the fault does not necessarily lie with the electorate. While some have argued that Africans see political leaders in a paternalist light as extensions of the “father figure” (Schaffer 1998), there is strong, although far from consensual, popular agreement with the idea of separation of powers and limitations on the power of the state and executive presidents. Three out of every four people (75 percent) believe that “the Constitution should limit the president to serving a maximum of two terms in office,”5 and seven-​in-​ten (69 percent) believe

Reject Pres Dictatorship

78%

Reject One-Party Rule

78%

Reject Military Rule

73%

Prefer Democracy

67%

Prefer Democracy + Reject All Alternatives

43%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Figure 24.1  Attitudes toward the democratic regime, thirty-​six countries, 2014–​15

347

348

Robert Mattes

VERTICAL ACCOUNTABILITY

80%

Choose leaders through regular, open elections

63%

Multiple parties are necessary More important for citizens to hold government accountable

53%

HORIZONTAL ACCOUNTABILITY

Percent 69%

News media investigate and expose

67%

President must obey laws and courts

64%

Legislature should hold executive accountable Opposition parties should hold government accountable

27% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%

Figure 24.2  Attitudes toward vertical and horizontal accountability, thirty-six countries, 2014–​15

that “the news media should constantly investigate and report on corruption and the mistakes made by the government.”6 In turn, around two-​thirds (67  percent) agree that the elected members of parliament “should make the laws for this country, even if the President does not agree”,7 that the “President must always obey the laws and the courts, even if he thinks they are wrong” (67 percent),8 and that the legislature “should ensure that the President explains to it on a regular basis how his government spends the taxpayers’ money” (64 percent).9 However, just a little more than one-​quarter (27 percent) say that “After losing an election, opposition parties should monitor and criticize the government in order to hold it accountable.”10 This is a potentially significant flaw in public thinking that facilitates Big Man dominance, since it is opposition parties who have the greatest incentive to drive legislative attempts to call the president to account. Perhaps the weakest area of African attitudes toward democracy can be found in responses to questions concerning individual citizenship and agency. Last asked in 2008–​09 (Round 4) in twenty countries, just 58 percent agreed with the statement that “Citizens should be more active in questioning the actions of leaders.”11 Even fewer people see themselves as principals who control government representatives as their agents: in 2011–​13, as just 54 percent agreed that “Government is like an employee; the people should be the bosses who control the government,” while a sizable minority (41 percent) believed that “People are like children; the government should take care of them like a parent.” A different question, last asked in 2005–​06 (Round 3) in eighteen countries, found an even split between those who agreed that “people should look after themselves and be responsible for their own success in life” (48 percent) and those who felt that “The government should bear the main responsibility for the well-​being of people” (48 percent). Perhaps no result is more illustrative of a limited sense of citizen agency than the response to the question on who should be responsible, between elections, for ensuring that elected legislators and local councilors do their jobs. As of 2014–​15, just 37 percent chose the option of “the voters” when asked about parliament. Indeed, 29 percent said it was the job of the president, 16 percent pointed to the legislature itself, and 10 percent said it was the task of the political party (similar results emerged when asked about local councilors). 348

349

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

Citizens should be more questioning of actions of leaders (2008–09)

58%

People are the boss, government is the employee (2011–13)

54% Percent

People should be responsible for their own success in life (2005–06)

48%

Citizens responsible for making sure that members of parliament do their jobs between elections (2014–15)

37% 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

Figure 24.3  Attitudes toward democratic citizenship, various rounds

Cross-​national variation Thus far, we have focused on producing a broad-​brush portrait of the median African and restricted the analysis to cross-​national averages.Yet these averages mask a large degree of variation between countries. For instance, the continental average response to the question on whether “democracy is always preferable” suggests that the term enjoys a broadly, although certainly not overwhelmingly, positive image across Africa. Yet support ranges widely from a high of more than eight-​in-​ten respondents in eight countries, including Burundi (86 percent), Senegal (85 percent), and Botswana (83 percent), downward sharply to less than 50 percent in Algeria (46 percent), Swaziland (45 percent), Mozambique (45 percent), and Sudan (44 percent). Rejection of presidential dictatorship varies from 93 percent in Senegal to just 35 percent in Mozambique. Opposition to military rule displays a similar range, from 91 percent in Kenya to just one-​third of Egyptians (33 percent). And rejection of one-​party rule similarly spans a 42-​point range from 92 percent in Sierra Leone to 50 percent in Mozambique. While the results to any single question on democratic attitudes provide us with an idea of the breadth of citizen support for democracy and its constituent parts, a better test of the depth of popular commitment is whether citizens offer consistently pro-​democratic responses. Afrobarometer has developed such a measure that uses the questions on support for democracy and rejection of three authoritarian alternatives discussed above, an aggregate construct called popular demand for democracy. As of 1999–​2001, 48 percent of all respondents were consistent democrats, across twelve countries. In 2014–​15, the figure stood at 43 percent across thirty-​six countries, ranging from 74 percent in Mauritius to just 9 percent in Mozambique.

What do Africans understand as “democracy”? We have now seen that fairly large majorities of Africans offer pro-​democratic responses to a range of different—​but not all—​survey questions.Yet skeptics might argue that people with little formal education, many living in rural areas with often limited access to critical electronic or 349

350

Robert Mattes Mauritius Senegal Côte d’Ivoire Burundi Botswana Zambia Benin Cape Verde Niger Namibia Kenya Zimbabwe Malawi Gabon Morocco Ghana Sierra Leone Togo Mali Guinea AVERAGE Tanzania Cameroon Uganda Nigeria Burkina Faso Liberia South Africa Tunisia São Tomé and Príncipe Lesotho Madagascar Swaziland Algeria Sudan Egypt Mozambique

66% 65% 65% 62% 58% 57% 57% 53% 51% 50% 50% 49% 48% 47% 47% 46% 45% 44% 43% 43% 42% 42% 42% 41% 40% 37% 35% 33% 31% 28% 25% 24% 21% 17% 13% 9% 0%

20%

40%

60%

74%

80%

100%

Figure 24.4  Demand for democracy, thirty-​six countries, 2014–​15

print media, are insufficiently knowledgeable or experienced about democracy to offer meaningful assessments or preferences about political regimes. From a different perspective, others have argued that Africans have a unique understanding of democracy and political authority that departs in significant ways from Western conceptions based on individual rights and political procedures (Owusu 1992; Ake 1996; Osabu-​Kle 2000; Schaffer 1998).What Africans understand as “democracy,” thus, has been the object of regular enquiry in Afrobarometer surveys, although from differing methodological approaches. However, while these attempts have taught us a great deal, we lack a clear, stable answer. Much depends on question format and question wording.

Open-​ended questions Several rounds of Afrobarometer surveys have included an open-​ended question that asks respondents: “What, if anything does democracy mean to you?” and allows for up to three spontaneous responses, which are then coded into broader categories for analysis.The responses to this question appear to provide several important conclusions. First, while the vast majority 350

351

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

of respondents are able to provide at least one response (78  percent across twelve countries in 1999–​2001),12 a fifth of respondents (22  percent) could not. Moreover, the proportions of people able to offer even a second (14 percent) let alone a third (5 percent) response drop markedly. Second, those respondents who can provide a spontaneous definition offer overwhelmingly positive views (73 percent of all respondents, and 93 percent of those able to provide an answer). Third, those who could provide an answer seemingly understood democracy through a largely liberal lens, defining democracy in terms of political procedures and political rights (Bratton and Mattes 2001a; and for similar cross-​continental conclusions, see Dalton, Shin, and Jou 2007). In 1999–​2001, one-​third (38 percent) provided an answer that referred to some area of “civil liberty” or “personal freedom” as one of three possible responses. The next most common responses were those referring to some element of “government by the people” (22 percent) or “voting,”“elections,” and “party competition” (9 percent). Much smaller proportions mentioned substantive outcomes such as “peace or unity” (7 percent), “equality and justice” (6 percent), or “socio-​economic development” (4 percent).

Closed-​ended questions Afrobarometer has also tested popular understandings of democracy through a series of different approaches using closed-​ended questions. Some of these confirm the images generated by the open-​ended approach, but others produce sharply diverging answers. In Round 4, Afrobarometer examined shared understandings of democracy through a series of anchoring vignettes in which respondents were asked to compare hypothetical African regimes. This format provided responses broadly consistent with responses to open-​ended questions: that is Africans tie their understanding of democracy to the quality of political procedures and electoral competition. A. Abigail lives in a country with many political parties and free elections. Everyone is free to speak their minds about politics and to vote for the party of their choice. Elections sometimes lead to a change of ruling party. In your opinion, how much of a democracy is Abigail’s country? B. Bernard lives in a country with regular elections. It has one large political party and many small ones. People are free to express their opinions and to vote as they please. But so far, elections have not led to a change of ruling party. In your opinion, how much of a democracy is Bernard’s country? C. Cecilia lives in a country with regular elections. It has one big political party and many small ones. People are afraid to express political opinions or to vote for the opposition. The opposition is so weak that it seems that it can never win an election. In your opinion, how much of a democracy is Cecilia’s country? Across twenty countries in 2008–​09, seven-​in-​ten Africans (76 percent) recognized Country A to be a “full democracy,” or one with “minor problems,” although one-​in-​ten (13 percent) said they did not know. In contrast, just 48 percent gave the same characterization to Country B, and only 13 percent called Country C a democracy. Indeed, 46 percent said flatly that Country C was “not a democracy,” and 26  percent said it was a “democracy, with major problems” (Bratton 2010). These responses, then, appear to corroborate the view that Africans see democracy through a political lens. An altogether different picture of African understandings of democracy emerges from a different approach, pursued in the first round of twelve surveys (1999–​2001), that posed a series 351

352

Robert Mattes

of close-​ended statements about democracy and asked respondents whether each was “essential, important, not very important or not important at all.” Respondents were told that: People associate democracy with many diverse meanings such as the ones I  will mention now. In order for a society to be called democratic, is each of these essential, important, not very important, or not important at all to have? • • • • • • • •

Majority rule Regular elections At least 2 political parties regularly competing with each other Complete freedom for anyone to criticize government Basic necessities like food, water, and shelter for everyone Equality in education Jobs for everyone Small income gap between rich and poor

In contrast to the open-​ended items, responses to these questions suggest that Africans see democracy through a very substantive and material lens. When reminded of the debate about democracy, respondents tended to give at least equal weight to both substantive economic outcomes and political procedures in two countries (Botswana and Zimbabwe). In seven other countries, however, respondents systematically emphasized the items on economic equality, and neglected the items on political procedures. In South Africa, for instance, an average of 60 percent said that socioeconomic goods were “essential” for a country to be called democratic, while an average of just 35 percent said the same about procedural components like regular elections, multiparty competition, and freedom of speech (Mattes 2002).

Forced choices among proffered definitions This materialist understanding of democracy was echoed in responses to a different set of indicators asked in 2011–​13 as part of a common effort across the regional survey projects that comprise Global Barometers Surveys (Afrobarometer, Latinbarometro, East Asia Barometer, and South Asia Barometer). Rather than asking respondents to rate, or agree or disagree with, a series of individual characteristics of democracy, these surveys asked respondents to choose from a set of statements that presented four competing conceptions of democracy: a (1) a socioeconomic interpretation that emphasized material equality, full employment, provision of basic necessities or state welfare; a (2) a governance-​oriented interpretation that focuses on law and order, transparency, and efficiency; (3) a freedom-​oriented interpretation that emphasized political rights such as speech, association, and protest; and finally (4) a procedural interpretation that featured elections, political parties, legislatures, and courts. The first of these four sets read as follows:13 Many things may be desirable, but not all of them are essential characteristics of democracy. If you have to choose only one of the things that I am going to read, which one would you choose as the most essential characteristics of democracy? • • • •

Government narrows the gap between the rich and the poor. People choose the government leaders in free and fair election. Government does not waste any public money. People are free to express their political views openly. 352

353

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

Possibly because of the sheer number of statements to which respondents were subjected, no more than 5 percent of respondents provided responses that fit consistently into only one of the potential meanings. But while Africans’ understandings of democracy are diverse, they are most likely to choose statements that characterize democracy in terms of the delivery of socioeconomic welfare (65  percent provided at least one economic response), and least likely to select statements that refer to political rights or freedoms. Indeed, almost half of all respondents (47 percent) never choose a freedom-​related response, even when given four separate opportunities. Thus, when tapped by open-​ended questions that tap a “front-​of-​the-​mind” response, Africans appear to understand democracy as a largely political affair. But closed-​ended survey approaches that remind responses of alternative views seem to tap a “latent” understanding of democracy as socioeconomic outcomes such as material equality. What are we to conclude from the sharply contrasting assessments provided by differing approaches? One way is to examine each approach’s ability to explain why some Africans demand democracy, and others do not. We have found that open-​ended responses are indeed predictive, but only in terms of whether or not respondents are able to offer an opinion. While those who are able to provide any meaning of democracy—​whether procedural or substantive—​possess higher levels of demand, coding responses by whether people provided a political or economic oriented answer fails to discriminate among levels of demand (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-​Boadi 2005). In contrast, responses to a multi-​item index measuring agreement with closed-​ended statements concerning the importance of political procedures provide a very strong predictor of whether people demand democracy (Mattes and Bratton 2007; Mattes et al. 2016). And in some countries, as in a special Afrobarometer survey in Ethiopia, we have found that substantive understandings of democracy, as measured across the four sets of statements, leads respondents to overestimate the extent of democracy in that country (Mattes and Teka 2016).

Where does demand for democracy come from? Economic theories of democratization see demand for democracy emanating from the poor and working class who use it as a tool against the middle class (Boix 2003; Acemoglu and Robinson 2006). There is indeed some evidence for this in that poor Africans are more supportive than the non-​poor (Mattes 2008), as are those who are dissatisfied with the performance of the national economy (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-​Boadi 2005). But these effects are minor compared to the role of cognitive awareness: demand is greatest among those with higher levels of education, who use news media, and who have higher levels of cognitive engagement with politics. And most studies also find support to be higher in urban areas, and among men (as has been found in studies of almost all other regions, see Denemark, Mattes, and Niemi 2016). The cognitive basis of democratic citizenship can also be seen in the findings discussed above; that is, people who understand democracy in political, procedural, or liberal terms are more supportive of it (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-​Boadi 2005; Mattes and Bratton 2007), a finding that has been replicated outside of Africa in studies using identical measures (Mattes et al. 2016), or measures of self-​expression or emancipation values (Alexander and Welzel 2017; Welzel and Inglehart 2009) as the dependent variable. While the effect of cognitive awareness demonstrates a strong intrinsic dimension to Africans’ demand for democracy, support also has a significant instrumental dimension. But while the common scholarly wisdom expects support to hinge on public satisfaction with the economy (e.g., Przeworski 1995), the instrumental nature of support in Africa tends to be driven by political factors, as much as or more than economic factors, including people’s perception of 353

354

Robert Mattes

the quality of the electoral process, the level of political freedom, the level of corruption, and the trustworthiness of representative and state institutions (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-​Boadi 2005; Mattes and Bratton 2007; Mattes 2016; and for similar findings on other continents, see Evans and Whitefield 1995; Diamond 1999; Rose, Mishler, and Haerpfer 1998; Denemark, Mattes, and Niemi 2016).

Demand for democracy over time Among the set of sixteen countries in which Afrobarometer has conducted at least five surveys since 2002,14 pro-​democratic attitudes followed a steady upward trend from 2002–​03 until 2011–​13, but took a downward turn thereafter. However, as we have already seen, African countries forge distinctive paths. To trace these routes in the most countries and over the longest time period possible, we examine twenty countries for which we have at least three survey observations. We find that these countries divide into three categories, each of which displays a distinct trajectory in demand for democracy over the past decade or more. In the first set of eight countries, demand for democracy has increased steadily over time, leaving each country, as of 2015–​16, with a much more substantial constituency for democracy now than when measurements were first made. At the high end, some countries have seen slow and steady growth in a large cohort of committed democrats. Almost two-​thirds of citizens now demand democracy in Senegal (66 percent) and Botswana (62 percent). This social bloc provides a supportive cultural base for deepening democratic institutions and practices. Even at the low end, where only half or fewer citizens are committed democrats, some countries have made impressive recent gains in demand for democracy, as in Namibia (+32 percentage points), Senegal (+23 points), Zimbabwe (+22 points), and Burkina Faso (+22 points).This set of countries is rounded out by Botswana (+20 points), Cape Verde (+19 points), Benin (+15 points), and Malawi (+10 points). The news is less positive in a second set of five countries where demand for democracy has never exceeded 45 percent and in which temporal fluctuations are generally trendless. This

85 80 75

70 65 60

79 77 72

77 76 67

74

63

63 47

45 40 35

77 75

71

70

55 50

84

47

82 77 75 68

51 46

36

circa 2002

circa 2005

circa 2008

Support democracy Reject military rule DEMAND FOR DEMOCRACY

circa 2012

circa 2015

Reject one-party rule Reject one-man rule

Figure 24.5  Demand for democracy over time, 2002–​15

354

355

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

group includes South Africa, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, and Mozambique. Perhaps the most surprising case in this group is South Africa, where little more than one-​third of all adults (just 35 percent in 2015) have ever been committed democrats. One possible explanation is that, since 1994, South Africans have never been inoculated against an extreme authoritarian alternative, for example by experiencing military rule or personal dictatorship. That said, a consistently low level of popular democratic demand in South Africa has provided ample room for creeping elite corruption to undermine an otherwise sturdy set of democratic institutions. A different type of discouraging news characterizes a third set of seven countries. While each of these countries registered early gains in demand for democracy, always exceeding 50 percent (even 78 percent in Zambia) by 2012, this trend reversed sharply, often settling below 50 percent demand for democracy by 2015. Indeed, this common trend in this set of countries—​which includes Uganda, Ghana,Tanzania, Nigeria, Liberia, Zambia, and Kenya—​drives the overall continental downturn portrayed in Figure 24.5. Ghana stands out in this group as an exemplar for recent popular disillusionment with democracy. Until 2012, Ghana was regarded as one of Africa’s most promising electoral democracies with its two-​party system, peaceful electoral alternations, well-​run electoral commission, and court system capable of adjudicating election disputes. Even as these institutions remained formally in place, Afrobarometer surveys indicate that Ghanaian citizens were losing confidence in the democratic system. The country experienced a dramatic 20 percentage point drop in popular demand for democracy between surveys in 2012 and 2014.

Do Africans think they are getting democracy? Thus far, we have seen that large proportions of Africans appear to want to be ruled democratically, though the picture varies greatly across countries. However, many are inconsistent democrats, sometimes expressing pro-​democratic sentiments on some questions while harboring acquiescent or even anti-​democratic attachments on others. In this section, we turn to consider whether committed (that is, consistent or “demanding”) democrats get what they want. Are those who demand democracy being supplied with it? This question also brings us back again to the question of what Africans understand as democracy and, thus, how they evaluate it. Even though we have found that Africans want to live in a democracy, and evince a basic grasp of the term, an Afro-​ pessimist might still maintain that most people are poor judges of whether elected governments actually govern democratically. Indeed, given the low levels of formal education, extensive state control of news media, and the latent materialist understandings of democracy that we have seen above, it might be that many respondents give governments that violate civil liberties and restrict political competition a “pass” as long as they seem to improve domestic welfare. In order to measure the perceived supply of democracy, Afrobarometer combines respondents’ answers to two survey questions: In your opinion, how much of a democracy is [this country] today? Is it a full democracy, a democracy with minor problems, a democracy with major problems, or not a democracy? Overall, how satisfied are you with the way democracy works in [this country] today? Are you very satisfied, fairly satisfied, not very satisfied, or not at all satisfied? (Note: some respondents also respond that their country is not a democracy.) Respondents are counted as perceiving a supply of democracy if they say that their country is either “a full democracy” or “a democracy with minor problems” and say that they are “very satisfied” or “fairly satisfied” with “the way democracy works.” The concept of the supply of democracy is constructed from the average of these two indicators. 355

356

Robert Mattes 80% 70% 60% 50%

49% 44%

40%

35%

30% 20% 10% 0% Country Full Democracy / Democracy With Minor Problems

Very Satisfied / Satisfied With Democracy

Country Democratic + Satisfied With Democracy

Figure 24.6  The perceived supply of democracy, thirty-​five countries, 2014–​15

The first observation we can make is that—​whether measured at the individual level or the country level, or as a current snapshot or a trend over time—​the perceived supply of democracy almost always falls short of the popular demand for democracy (with Namibia as a noted exception where, at least in early surveys, people received more democracy than they wanted [Keulder and Wiese 2005]). Compared to the 43 percent who expressed consistently pro-​democratic attitudes across thirty-​six countries in 2014–​15, barely more than one-​third of African citizens (35 percent) said that incumbent rulers were supplying them with democracy. And the usual caveat applies about cross-​country diversity. More than six in ten Batswana (63 percent), Namibians (63 percent), and Mauritians (63 percent) said they both lived in a democracy and were satisfied with the way democracy worked. At the other end of the spectrum, democratic supply was seen by fewer than two in ten citizens in Nigeria (19 percent), Mozambique (16 percent, Sudan (16 percent), São Tomé and Príncipe (14 percent), Gabon (10 percent), and Madagascar (9 percent). Trends over time in the perceived supply of democracy (and its two component indicators) adhere to a now-​familiar pattern. For the sixteen countries with data available over more than a decade (2002–​15), the supply of democracy first trends strongly upward but turns sharply downward after 2012. Thus, just as African citizens are demanding less democracy in the most recent Afrobarometer surveys, they also say that ruling elites are less willing or able to provide it. At the same time, there are important divergences in national trends over time. Examining the twenty countries for which we have at least three surveys since 2002, we find four different broad paths. In the first category, four countries (Mali, Namibia, Tanzania, Senegal) display increases over time. Even with significant fluctuation, the measured supply of democracy is higher in 2014–​15 than in 2002–​04. A  second path is characterized by long-​term decline (Benin, Kenya, Mozambique, Malawi, Nigeria) over this same period. A third comprises low and steady levels of perceived supply (Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Lesotho, Madagascar, Uganda, Zimbabwe), and a fourth group simply exhibit trendless fluctuation at different levels (Liberia, Botswana, Ghana, South Africa, Zambia). More so than with support for democracy, most political scientists have seen popular satisfaction with democracy as driven almost purely by economic performance (Przeworski 1995; 356

357

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

Botswana Namibia Mauritius Burundi Niger Senegal Tanzania Zambia Mali Uganda Ghana Egypt Kenya South Africa Malawi Burkina Faso Benin AVERAGE Liberia Algeria Guinea Tunisia Côte d’Ivoire Morocco Zimbabwe Cameroon Sierra Leone Cape Verde Lesotho Swaziland Togo Nigeria Mozambique Sudan São Tomé and Príncipe Gabon Madagascar

63% 63% 63% 59% 59% 57% 52% 50% 44% 43% 42% 38% 38% 37% 37% 35% 35% 35% 35% 33% 33% 32% 31% 31% 29% 26% 25% 23% 22% 21% 20% 19% 16% 16% 14% 10% 9% 0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

Figure 24.7  Perceived supply of democracy, thirty-​six countries, 2014–​15

Gunther, Montero, and, Torcal 2006). However, multivariate analysis of Afrobarometer data has found that political evaluations play an important role, especially popular perceptions of the freeness and fairness of the most recent election, as well as of current levels of political freedom and corruption (Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-​Boadi 2005; Greenberg and Mattes 2013; Mattes 2014). Accordingly, the median African tends to reach similar conclusions about the supply of democracy as expert judges. To obtain the sharpest focus, we examine the correlation of aggregated popular evaluations of the extent of democracy and four expert based indices (Freedom House’s Status of Freedom Index; the Polity IV Autocracy-​Democracy Score; the World Bank Voice and Accountability Index; and the Mo Ibrahim Institute Index of African Governance’s measure of Rights and Participation). Correlations across thirty-​five countries run from 0.608 (Polity) 357

358

Robert Mattes 70%

52% 50%

59%

57%

60%

53%

50%

53%

50%

47% 40%

40%

39% 30%

53%

44%

48% 40%

34%

20%

10%

0% 2002/2003

2005/2006

2008/2009

Perceive country as a democracy

2011/2013

2014/2015

Satisfied with democracy

SUPPLY OF DEMOCRACY

Figure 24.8  The perceived supply of democracy over time, sixteen countries, 2002–​15

to 0.754 (MIIAG). Popular evaluations of the extent of democracy correlate at 0.691 with the widely used Freedom House Status of Freedom Index. This is an encouraging finding, suggesting that it is difficult for undemocratic elites to fool their publics about the true state of democracy in their country. But our optimism should be tempered by at least two considerations. First, the proportion in each country that considers the country to be a democracy is itself an average, meaning that many citizens are more critical than the median respondent, but also that many citizens are more forgiving. Second, there are considerable cross-​national differences in national proportions, even at the same level of expert judgment. Consider the upper left-​hand panel in Figure 24.9. At the reversed Freedom House score of 3.5 (which would equate to the same score in their actual ratings), which Freedom House considers “partially free” and most analysis term as an “electoral democracy,” popular evaluations of democracy range widely from approximately two-​thirds or more in Zambia, Liberia, and Niger (who rate the country as completely or mostly democratic), to around four-​ in-​ten in Kenya and just one-​in-​four in Tunisia.

Dissatisfied democrats While a great deal of effort has gone into measuring attitudes to democracy around the world, in the conviction that “democracy requires democrats,” the actual evidence of the political impact of support for democracy is weak (Mattes 2018). In a notable exception, Qi and Shin 358

359

Percent who say country completely/mostly democratic

Public opinion and democratic legitimacy R2 Linear = 0.478

100.00

Botswana Ghana Zambia Tanzania Namibia Liberia Mauritius Sierra Leone Benin Niger Senegal Cabo Verde South Africa Mozambique Burkina Faso Uganda Malawi Algeria y=26.01+8.47*x Lesotho Nigeria Kenya Guinea Mali Togo

80.00

Burundi

60.00

40.00

Cameroon Sudan

Swaziland Madagascar Zimbabwe

20.00

Morocco

Tunisa

Egypt

.00 .00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

Freedom House, reversed rating 2012

Figure 24.9  Public ratings of the extent of democracy and selected expert ratings, 2011–​13

(2011) have found that popular preferences for democracy and rejection of authoritarianism do matter, but only when that support is matched with a sense of dissatisfaction with the way democracy works. Using a sample of forty-​six “transitional regimes,” which excludes established Western democracies, they found that—​at the micro-​level—​“dissatisfied democrats” (counted as those who scored above the median on both a scale of support and rejection, and below the median on scale of satisfaction with democracy and confidence in government, legislature, and political parties) are more likely than others to report participating in activities such as signing petitions and taking part in boycotts and demonstrations. More importantly, at the macro level, the proportion of those disatisfied was strongly related to subsequent levels of democracy and had an even stronger impact on the extent of change in the level of democracy, even after controlling for a range of country level factors. In contrast, Africa’s dissatisfied democrats are not any more likely to contact public officials or protest, and only slightly more likely to join civic or religious community groups,15 or attend community meetings and join with others to address an important issue.16 However, they are more likely to support civil liberties,17 and see themselves as responsible for holding elected officials accountable between elections,18 and they are much more likely to support a range of vertical and horizontal limits on government.19 More importantly, the data offer at least some macro-​level evidence that the overall number of dissatisfied democrats shapes that country’s prospects for subsequent democratization or backsliding. As displayed in Figure 24.10, I calculated the percentage of “dissatisfied democrats” (those who were consistent democrats yet scored below the midpoint on the scale of Supply of Democracy) as measured in 2011–​13 and correlated that score with the extent of democratic regress or progress in the four years following the country survey (as measured by the Freedom House Status of Freedom Index). The evidence yields a positive and statistically significant, relationship between the two variables (r = 0.417, p = 0.013, n = 35), and one can 359

360

Change in FH status of freedom score from year of survey over next 4 years

Robert Mattes

R2 Linear = 0.185

1.50

–.50

Nigeria Togo

Tunisa Malawi

.50

.00

Zimbabwe

Madagascar

1.00

Burkina Faso

y = –0.46+0.03*x

South Africa Algeria Botswana Senegal Sudan Morocco Mali Ghana Namibia Benin CaboVerde Mauritius Liberia

Ethiopia

Côte d’Ivoire

Guinea Cameroon

Egypt Lesotho MozambiqueZambia Kenya Tanzania Sierra Leone Niger Swaziland Uganda

–1.00 Burundi

–1.50 .00

10.00

20.00

30.00

40.00

50.00

Percent who demand democracy but rate supply of democracy