This episode explores the current state of democracy across Africa. What are the main achievements since the 1990s and what are the biggest internal threats to consolidation of democracy? Why have democratic governments failed to deliver? Listen to how unfulfilled promises and aspirations for a better life have shaped the current context.
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DiQ S6 EP4
Ken Opalo on the Prospects of Democracy in Africa
Glossary
What is the African Union?
(31:02 or p.8 in the transcript)
African Union (AU), formerly (1963–2002) Organization of African Unity, is an intergovernmental organization, established in 2002, to promote unity and solidarity of African states, to spur economic development, and to promote international cooperation. The African Union (AU) replaced the Organization of African Unity (OAU). The AU’s headquarters are in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The OAU was established on May 25, 1963, and its activities included diplomacy (especially in support of African liberation movements), mediation of boundary conflicts and regional and civil wars, and research in economics and communications. The OAU maintained the “Africa group” at the United Nations (UN) through which many of its efforts at international coordination were channeled. The OAU was instrumental in bringing about the joint cooperation of African states in the work of the Group of 77, which acts as a caucus of developing nations within the UN Conference on Trade and Development. The principal organ of the OAU was the annual assembly of heads of state and government. In 2000, in a move spearheaded by Libyan leader Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, it was proposed that the OAU be replaced by a new body, the African Union. The African Union was to be more economic in nature, similar to the European Union, and would contain a central bank, a court of justice, and an all-Africa parliament. A Constitutive Act, which provided for the establishment of the African Union, was ratified by two-thirds of the OAU’s members and came into force on May 26, 2001. After a transition period, the African Union replaced the OAU in July 2002. In 2004 the AU’s Pan-African Parliament was inaugurated, and the organization agreed to create a peacekeeping force, the African Standby Force, of about 15,000 soldiers. source
What is the Sahel Crisis?
(33:18 or p.9 in the transcript)
The central Sahel region, which includes the countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, is facing one of the fastest growing displacement crises in the world. More than 2.7 million people have been forced to flee their homes and at least 13.4 million are in dire need of humanitarian assistance. People began fleeing the central Sahel region in 2011 after an outbreak of violence in Northern Mali. Poverty, unemployment, and the presence of armed groups in rural areas of Northern Mali all contributed to an increase in forced displacement. Armed groups have rapidly expanded, spreading violence to central parts of the country and to neighboring countries, such as Burkina Faso and Niger. As a result of the conflict, millions of families have been displaced across the region, including 650,000 people uprooted in 2019 alone. Approximately 1.8 million people have been internally displaced. In Burkina Faso, at least 1 million people – approximately 5 percent of the country’s population- have fled violence inside the country in the past year, many seeking refuge in areas that are also affected by violence and poverty. Armed conflict, economic insecurity, and the adverse effects of climate change are some of the biggest challenges affecting the region. Indiscriminate attacks against civilians and public infrastructure – including schools and health facilities – have threatened the lives of millions of people and their livelihoods. The conflict has claimed more than 6,500 lives in the last year and threatens to leave at least 7.4 million people suffering from acute malnutrition. source
Ken Opalo
Shalini Randeria (SR): Welcome to "Democracy in Question," the podcast series that explores the challenges democracies are facing around the world. I'm Shalini Randeria, Rector and President of Central European University in Vienna, and Senior Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Center on Democracy at the Graduate Institute Geneva. This is the fourth episode of season six of "Democracy in Question," and I'm very pleased to welcome today Ken Opalo, assistant professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. Trained in comparative politics and focusing on Sub-Saharan Africa, Ken has a wide range of research interests. He has published on legislative institutions and political development, subnational administration and decentralized government, elections and democratic consolidation in Africa.
His book, "Legislative Development in Africa. Politics and Post-Colonial Legacies" looks at the evolution of African legislatures in the wake of the transition from autocracy to democracy. It provides a comparative and historical explanation of variations in the institutionalization and strengthening of legislatures across the continent. He is currently working on two book projects, one on the process of “Colonial and Post-colonial State Building and Decentralization in Kenya," and another on the "Politics of Education in Tanzania." Today, I am going to focus in my conversation on the challenges of democratization across the African continent. I hope to welcome Ken back on the podcast next season for a sequel, which is devoted to broader questions about the geopolitical challenges faced by African democracies. In this episode I discuss with him the state of democracy across Africa today. What are the main achievements since the 1990s ushered in through a continental wave of democratization and what are the biggest internal threats to the consolidation of democracy? How do ordinary Africans understand democracy and what do they expect of it? Why have democratic governments failed to deliver? Could these unfulfilled promises and aspirations for a better life fuel anti-democratic sentiment? Ken, welcome to the podcast, thank you for joining me today.
Ken Opalo (KO): Thank you, Shalini, for having me, and looking forward to our conversation today.
SR: Let me begin with a historical question, Ken. The early 1990s marked a historic transition, not only for countries of the former Soviet bloc but also for many on the African continent. Over the course of the last three decades, a wave of democratization has swept across Africa as many former autocratic regimes gave way to free elections and elected parliaments. And according to a recent Freedom House ranking, most people in Sub-Saharan Africa, so say 61%, live in free or partly free countries. In a policy brief that you've written for the Brookings Institution, you expressed however cautious optimism about the overall trend of increasing institutionalization of democratic politics. Having said that, you also noted, and I quote you, "African states are far from the ideal state of liberal democracy, most of the region's elections are not free and fair. And while the region's legislative elections are marked by high turnover, they are yet to deliver meaningful levels of political accountability."
And you acknowledged further, and I quote you here as well, "Elections in most of the region’s states tend to be fought on the basis of personalities, ethnicity, or the ability to deliver short-term clientelistic benefits." So, it may be tempting on the one hand to regard Africa as an exception to the trend of democratic backsliding in many parts of the world, but if I follow your analysis, it would certainly be optimistic. Let me ask you to provide your rather sober assessment about the state of democracy in Africa today. Where do you think the main advances have been made, and could you illustrate this with a few examples of the problems that some of the democracies are still facing?
KO: That's a great question. I think, the first thing to note is that there's quite a bit of variation as you allude to in your question. We're talking 54 sovereign states with lots of different histories and definitely lots of different trajectories since the early '90s transitions. Broadly thinking about the region, some of the main advances have been: number one, the institutionalization of politics. The idea that elections are the legitimate way of deciding who gets to govern, whether in the monarchies that have elected legislatures and appoint prime ministers or in the republics that have elections for president, I think the institutionalization of electoral processes and politics more generally, is a welcomed development.
This is in contrast to prior decades, '80s, '70s, and the late '60s where politics were a lot less institutionalized. Coups were very common and the political sphere in general was characterized by very high levels of elite political instability. The second thing I would say, which is a positive trend, is the increasing consolidation of term limits, at the presidential level. Despite the fact that several countries in the region had backsliding on this question here, I'm thinking of Uganda, places like Cameroon that revoked term limits, it's also true that term limits have fairly stuck in several African countries. And that trend itself continues to provide ammunition for democracy promoters in the places where presidents revoked term limits to continue fighting for term limits.
Again, the consolidation of the idea that presidents serve two terms and leave office, is baked into politics. And you see this happening even in countries with very strong, hegemonic parties. CCM in Tanzania, you see it in Angola, you see it in Mozambique, you see it in South Africa. Places where the ruling party itself internally decides that term limits have to be enforced. So, it's not like the limits are being enforced by the constitution, or the opposition necessarily because those parties have enough majorities to override any such attempts or popularity, through a referendum process to override term limits, but parties themselves, developing internal constraints. So, I'd say that those are two big developments that, I think, are changing the nature of democracy in the region.
Now, on the sort of not-so-good side, I think one of the remaining stumbling blocks to continued consolidation is the inability of African states to enable politicians to deliver on their promises. If you think about the political market, it has different components. Voters elect politicians. Once in office, politicians are supposed to implement policy. And then voters are supposed to be retrospectively evaluating the performance of the politicians and then voting on the basis of whether politicians deliver on their promises. Voters always have this notion that once elected politicians can do something. Now, the challenge with democracy in Africa is that the “can do something” bit is severely limited by the inability of African governments to deliver.
And this is not because they're necessarily corrupt or bad. Certainly there are some who are corrupt and not fit for public office. But it's also because African states are simply too weak to deliver on campaign promises. There isn't enough money to spend on schools, on roads, on water systems, on healthcare. And so what you end up having is this bad equilibrium of endemic voter discontent, that's not fixable by simply electing better people. One of the follies out there is that if only African voters can elect better politicians, or if only we ended corruption tomorrow, things would be better. But I see the problem as more structural and bigger than that. Even if corruption were to end tomorrow, African governments would still struggle. And I'll give you the example of Malawi Cashgate, which happened under President Banda, involved the huge sum total of $32 million. That was one of the biggest corruption scandals in Malawi. $32 million is definitely scandalous, but if we stopped Malawi from losing $32 million, it would not appreciably improve service delivery in Malawi. The point here is that the biggest weakness to the process of democratic consolidation, and which those of us in the academy and practitioners don't pay enough attention to, is this fundamental weakness of states such that the political market is broken. Even when you elect good politicians, they're simply not able to deliver. Not because they're bad, not because they're corrupt, but because they don't have the tools to deliver.
SR: Let me press you on this point a little further. You have a recent essay with a provocative title, which I just love. It says, "You Can't Eat Democracy." In that essay, you point out that this is just not a cynical slogan by autocrats, but it's a popular sentiment, widely shared by ordinary citizens who feel that democracies have not delivered the kinds of promises that were made. So, there is a gap between expectations and promises. We see this gap in many countries of the world. That's part of the reason for some of the democratic backsliding I think we see in Central Europe, as well. While listening to you, the question which came to my mind was there is, as you say, a high demand for democratic elections for certain kinds of procedures, maybe also for certain institutional aspects of democracy. But what exactly do people associate with the idea of democracy beyond going to cast a ballot?
KO: I think in the African context, most people have this instrumental understanding of democracy. That it's not just a philosophical commitment to personal freedom, regardless of outcomes. When pressed people have a very instrumental understanding of democracy, that you elect politicians so that they serve the public by solving the public's collective problems. And to the extent that the process doesn't solve people's collective problems. People often have reason to either exit the process, that is stop participating, or look for alternatives. In the West, the last five, six years, we've seen the rise of alternatives, to elites who are generally sincerely committed to democracy.
And in Africa, what we see is the popular understanding of the democratic process that it's supposed to deliver development, because people view underdevelopment as one of the more pressing challenges. People want infrastructure, want more schools, want better hospitals. People want access to water, agricultural extension services, etc. People view democracy as being the mechanism that is supposed to facilitate government provision of these essential public goods and services. And because that's also how it has always been pitched over the last 30 years. That poverty was endemic in the region because of autocracy. You get rid of the autocrat, you elect accountable leaders, and they do good things that result in development.
And so it's really ironic that despite the pitch of democracy being that democracy will deliver development, and will deliver human rights, and will deliver physical security, there has been very little investment in the actual capacity to deliver. And hence my opinion that we need a greater focus on the capacity to deliver. I like to say that we've run the race on governance, and it's time to also start running the race on government. It's hard to have good governance without an effective government.
SR: In effect, the argument you're making is that for most people, democracy is a means to an end, not an end in itself. One of the things we do see in many contexts, both soft authoritarian and democratic, is that parallel to elections, people continue to mobilize on the streets, and they continue to use the courts in order to put pressure on the government. Could you say something about the kinds of mobilizations which various African societies have seen, not only as waves of protest against authoritarian regimes, which then helped bring about the change to democracy but also civil society activism, some of it through NGOs? The reason I'm asking this is that many people have argued that the habits of these non-governmental NGOs, sometimes quite professionalized and also funded by external donors from the 1980s and '90s, with their orientation towards these international donors, are actually standing in the way of some kind of deepening of democratic projects and practices. So, could there be alternative strategies of engagement besides this kind of professional civil society activism?
KO: I think the civil society activism in Africa has been instrumental in pushing the democratization agenda. In insisting that the legitimacy to rule has to be tied to electoral processes. I think that was a major success. Also, popularizing the idea that process matters, that it's not just delivery that matters. And I think the majority of voters in nearly all countries hold onto that belief. The process also matters. Now, when it comes to the current moment, the fact that many of the questions are now settled. I think people have developed strong attachments, or had those attachments reawakened by the last 30 years.
It's important for us to rethink the role of civil society in the next phase of democratic consolidation in the region. So that the old model of being funded by foreign donors, which often meant being willing to promote democracy but without being partisan. In the sense that, just opposing the incumbent president if they were not being democratic, but without doing the extra work of developing alternative political platforms or overtly supporting specific candidates that could act as alternatives. What I'd like to see is a move away from the standard oppositionist approach to civil society political mobilization and agitation to a more sort of programmatic approach where civil society organizations, morph into more like think tanks that provide concrete policy alternatives. That are daring enough to support specific candidates, that support those policies, and that are brave enough to accept that everything that they do is political. And so they can't hide behind some notion of being apolitical and only focus on valance issues.
And if they did what I'm proposing they should do, they would also then see the need to have a greater connection to voters. So, that their work is not just elite talk about democracy as an end in itself in the capital, but a very programmatic approach, which sees democracy as a noble sort of aspiration, but also one which is instrumental in the improvement of people's material conditions, which would then push them to programmatic attention to voters' demands. So, that when we are critiquing the government, we critique the government with specifics, agriculture, looking at the agricultural budget, tying it to specific farming constituencies, and I think that makes for a better politics. And also finding and cultivating politicians who are interested, say, in agriculture, again, tied to specific agricultural constituencies and interest groups, which would ensure that the political process is tied to specific material conditions, which would then make it increase the value add of democracy in people's lives, which I think would even deepen voters' commitments to the democratic process.
SR: On the one hand, this would mean paying much more attention to democratizing politics at the local level, so that it's tied into everyday life concerns of people. But if we go back for a moment to the national level and think of the liberal democratic institutions that need to also sustain democracy in the sense of acting as checks and balances on elected governments. So, it would be formal constitutional mechanisms on the one hand, separation of powers and therefore judicial independence, for example, on the other hand. Can you say something about the forms that these have taken constitutionalism and the independence of the judiciary?
KO: The broad trend that we see with regard to constitutionalism, and this gets back to my point about increasing institutionalization of politics, is that we've seen, a commendable convergence of constitutions on paper. So, that the newer constitutions that have been written, especially since the mid-'90s, have included strong protections for civil liberties, strong protections for different branches of government, parliaments, and judiciaries. Many have also had the acknowledgment that there's need for subnational self-government in the form of decentralization or devolution. And I think those are welcome. Now, the next sort of step as you alluded to in your question, is to activate the latent powers of different institutions and agencies in African constitutions.
And I think here is where the rubber meets the road. And in my view, it's where activism can really help push the needle in using existing constitutions to push the agenda of further democratization. And I'll give you the example of say, Uganda. Uganda has one of the stronger constitutions in the region in terms of empowering different branches of government besides the executive and also different agencies, and entrenching decentralization. However, Uganda is also still led by Yoweri Museveni, who violated term limits and has been in power since '86. Now, activists in Uganda have been very smart in strategically using the judicial process, which provides some protections at the margins, and winning court cases that have forced the president to roll back some of his autocratic tendencies.
The Ugandan parliament is also fairly independent. And for a brief period between 2000 and around 2011, was actually very vocal and instrumental in platforming Uganda's emerging opposition. From the early the '90s till about 2005, Uganda had an apolitical system where partisanship wasn't legal for all intents and purposes. But the new legislature platformed the opposition in very strong ways. So the president's position wasn't in question, but the parliament as an institution was able to pass laws that sometimes the president did not like, or raise questions that the president and his cabinet found uncomfortable. Now, most of that has been rolled back as Museveni gets older and evermore autocratic.
That window gives us hope that we shouldn't forget that the institutions still matter, the constitutions still matter, and activists should still keep fighting the formal fight making sure that on paper things look like they ought to. And the last point on this is that when Kenya was writing its 2010 Constitution, Uganda's parliament in parliamentary powers in Uganda was actually an inspiration for the Kenyan process as well. Which in Kenya has produced an arguably much stronger parliament because Kenya has a more open political system. And here we see this process of the convergence of formal systems, the constitutions, but also still seeing constraints imposed by whether a country has moved further, vis-a-vis presidential elections and term limits, etc.
As someone who studies a formal institution in the form of the legislature, one of the core arguments that I make in the book and in other writings is that we shouldn't see constitutions, or judiciaries, or legislatures as mere window dressing. The formal process matters, and we should definitely fight to make sure that the formal process is as good as it can be. But at the same time, activation of the latent powers in the formal constitutions depends on active politics out in the streets. So, we need to get the formal institutional mechanisms in place, but we also still need to invest in the sort of street politics and popular politics that create incentives for elites to activate the latent powers that they have, as per the formal constitutions.
SR: Your Ugandan example brings me to one of the arguments you make in the book, which is about the preponderance of presidential power concentration with widespread autocratic tendencies. As in the Ugandan case that in post-colonial African politics, legislatures can then be rendered quite irrelevant with little institutional autonomy. So, that if we try to understand democratic politics in Africa, we cannot simply take for granted the dominant conceptual frameworks of political analysis, which all come from the historical experience of a few Western European and the U.S. and Canada, such as separation of powers or intra-elite checks and balances. So, one of the really interesting things which struck me while reading the book was, that your work charts in a way the opposite process to what we are seeing at the moment in many parts of the world, which is the rise of soft authoritarian forces which exploit and turn to their own strategic advantage the inherent weaknesses of liberal democracy, dismantling it from the inside. You show the opposite process where democracies in post-colonial Africa continue to be colored by, informed by the legacy of earlier autocratic structures. So, let's look at some of these historical analyses which you give in order to explain the current unevenness of democratic transformation in African societies.
KO: History matters. The transitions in the early '90s didn't completely wipe off this slate. And in my reading, my understanding of political development in Africa, and here I'm going to paint the region in broad strokes, you have the colonial establishment of territorial governments and the boundaries that exist today. The process of colonization was inflected by existing politics in the different colonies. In the book, I compare Zambia and Kenya in greater detail. To illustrate how even within the same colonial powers, i.e., the U.K., you still had variation in the types of institutions that they set up, depending on local political economies.
In some contexts, there emerged local political economies, because those colonies had more wealth to be generated by having a vibrant local economy. In some contexts, extraction was predominant. And so in those contexts, there wasn't much attention paid to actually building local political economies. And so the process of decolonization freezes in place whatever structural, political, economic conditions existed in the different territories. Now, in the post-colonial era, what you have is then, a question of do you have a government that's dominated by one party, or do you have a government that is dominated by multiple parties in coalition or relatively weak parties, again in a coalition? Such that the variation that was present in the colonial era gets manifested in the post-colonial era. And here, I argue that forms of elite coordination are key in explaining subsequent outcomes because elites are pivotal players for political outcomes, such that stronger parties often meant that the president could discipline elites much more easily than presidents who, for structural reasons, that came to place during the colonial era, found themselves having to give more because they didn't have stronger parties.
And the core argument in the book is that in places where presidents had to give more because they didn't have stronger parties, there was a greater chance for legislatures to be stronger, even under autocracy. So, that even during the autocratic period, while many people at the time, and certainly these days, look at that time as a time that's almost depoliticized in the sense that, the autocrats get cast as omnipotent. I argue that if we look at the data, which I do in the book, you see variation even under autocracy, both across countries and over time in presidential power and presidential ability to influence outcomes in legislatures. Now, legislatures that for the reasons I've just described find themselves with more space, they're still in very tight corners because they're under autocracy, but they have relatively more space.
Those legislatures were likely to do much better following the end of autocracy in the early 1990s. In addition to current discussion about democratic consolidation or democratic backsliding, I like to take the long view. And that long view, I think is a little bit more optimistic than most commentators would give. Which is that the process of political development is certainly, at a much higher play now than it was in the '60s, '70s, '80s, or even the '90s. I would be less worried about reactions to shocks to the democratic process. I think in the long run things appear to be moving in the right direction.
And to the extent that there's democratic backsliding in places like Benin, or briefly in Tanzania, I see that as a warning about the continued inability of states to facilitate delivery via the democratic process. I would pay much more attention to that than say, the problem of individual leaders. I think Europe and the U.S. and other contexts, with more consolidated democracies, in those countries, you could argue that the problem appears to be sort of misguided elites, who lean too heavily on populism. While in the African context, I think that the big problem is still one of inability to deliver, which really boosts the brand of would-be autocratic leaders.
SR: How about the lingering geopolitical influence of former colonial powers? I'm thinking in particular, not of the Anglophone influenced former British colonies you mentioned, but of Francophone Africa which seems to suffer really from the negative effects of French interventions. I'm thinking of really notorious examples like Mali or Chad, Burkina Faso now, more recently the Central African Republic.
KO: I think you're spot on there that French influence in Francophone Africa has been a major impediment to political development and democratic consolidation. And this, in the autocratic era France intervened actively, fomented coups, which stifled political development under autocracy. Those countries were still characterized with high levels of elite political instability. Contrasted with the Anglophone countries where, even under autocracy, you saw a fair amount of political development, i.e., continuing institutionalization of politics. French intervention in Francophone Africa stifled that process and continues to stifle that process because France remains very much willing to intervene in politics. I would say only say Senegal and Benin have really escaped the direct influence of Paris in their politics.
I'm sure Senegalese and Beninois would dispute this characterization because they still see a lot of French presence. But I'm speaking here in relative terms. I guess I would add Mauritania to that long list of three. In the rest of the countries, including even Cote D'Ivoire, the biggest Francophone economy, there's still very much direct French influence. Which leaves no room for political development and consolidation of political economies in those countries in ways that reflect objective realities on the ground. I think France is a major cause of instability because of this legacy in the region.
SR: Let me close our conversation today with a question which picks up a point which you made about your optimism or optimism about the trajectory of democratization being on the right track and ask you something about how further integration along the lines of regional cooperation, cross-national cooperation is proceeding, which could strengthen the position of states which are able to pull sovereignty in some way. Could you tell us something about the African Union and its achievements, also its weaknesses, but also some of its major achievements from the perspective of deepening democracy across the continent?
KO: I'll start with the weaknesses I see in the African Union. I think the African Union still remains weak because it's not an effective guarantor of rights for individual African citizens. It would be great if the African Union served as a platform for a symbolic indictment of governments that are not delivering for their people. So, that a naming and shaming mechanism can help highlight the gaps in the governance architectures in different African countries. The other weakness I see is that the African Union for a long time was little more than a dictators’ club. It hasn't championed democracy promotion. And here, I understand that as an international organization, maybe there are constraints to being overtly pro-democracy, especially if you have member states that are not democracies. It could launder its democracy promotion by championing specific sort of principles that advance individual liberties, and force African governments to adopt different kinds of autocracy.
In very realist terms, understanding that autocracy in, say, Qatar today, which is a petrostate looks very different from autocracy in Equatorial Guinea, another petrostate. If the African Union should have principles that force elites in Equatorial Guinea to want to adopt the Qatari model, even if they don't want to be democracies, at a minimum they could adopt a model where the standard operating procedure is that you deliver as a government. Even as you're trying to maintain power. Those two are core weaknesses that I see in the AU structure right now. And now on the positive side, I think the AU moved very well in the direction of further democratic consolidation by adopting the norm against coups. The governments that come to power via coups get suspended from the African Union.
Now, the current challenges in the Sahel are beginning to strain this norm, in the sense that I think the region rightfully sees the problem as a bit more complex than domestic autocratization. There's France, there's a problem caused by Islamist insurgencies because of the fall of Libya. So, they see the geopolitical causes of some of the challenges we see in the Sahel. Now, in terms of trade integration, I think this will perhaps be the biggest contribution by the AU toward democratic consolidation in the region. Because as I keep arguing, democracy will make sense if it delivers and economic integration will unlock a fair amount of growth in African countries, which will go a long way in improving people's material conditions and generating revenue for governments so that they can continue to provide essential public goods and services.
So, to the extent that you know, the AU through, say the African Continental Free Trade Agreement facilitates democratic consolidation, it will go a long way in advancing popular support for democracy. And one last thing on this, I think the AU is also waking up to the security challenges facing the region. I think there's a renewed sense that conflicts need to end. And I think by being more aggressive, i.e., willing to fight for peace as opposed to just negotiating endlessly for peace, the AU is moving the region in the right direction because conflict and associated instability and fragility, I would say is also a major impediment to the process of democratic consolidation. So, if you are in the Central African Republic, it’s hard to elect your way to stability and prosperity. The CAR needs help in fighting insurgents so that it can act like a state and therefore, create room for regular politics and regular economic and social life.
SR: Thank you so much, Ken, for this really wide-ranging conversation on the processes but also challenges to democratization across Africa, both a broad comparative sweep that we've had today with you and also a deep dive into some historical legacies and their complexities as they're playing out today. So, thanks very much for being with me.
KO: Thank you for having me. I really enjoyed our conversation today.
SR: Let me sum up my conversation with Ken really briefly. We’ve heard a fascinating comparative and historical analysis of variations in the institutionalization of democratic institutions across the African continent. The role of national elites and domestic party politics is crucial in understanding the current state of democracy there. The major challenge that the African governments face is that they are too weak to deliver on their electoral promises. Apart from corruption, it is the weakness of state institutions and especially the lack of resources available for adequate social welfare provision for health, education and infrastructure that poses a problem. People expect not only economic, but also social development from their governments. The disappointing performance of democracies to keep their promises therefore leads to widespread voter discontent. It is not as if people are dissatisfied with democracy, they are disappointed with the quality of existing democracies. What is thus needed is investment in state capacity to deliver the public goods as that seems to be the main reason for democratic backsliding in some African countries. Civil society activism, too, needs now to move away from its earlier oppositional strategies and politics and transform itself into think tanks that strengthen democracy by working on concrete policy alternatives, support also candidates advocating those policies. Civil society organizations should recognize that their work is indeed political and not outside the realm of politics. Constitutions matter, but so does decentralization and evolution of power to the local level. However, political economy matters too, when it comes to assessing the performance of democracies in Africa. Trade integration, for example, would be the biggest contribution that the African Union could make towards consolidating democracy across the continent. Finally, we also need to bear in mind the enduring neocolonial influences on the contemporary trajectories of the African democracies. These have included direct military intervention by French government in Francophone countries in Africa, that fomented coups, stymied democratic development, but we should be aware of also more subtle forms of economic and financial dependance not only on former colonial powers, but also on international financial organizations.
This was the fourth episode of season six of Democracy in Question. Thank you for listening and join us again for the next episode in two weeks’ time when my guest will be the social anthropologist Mukulika Banerjee, London School of Economics. We will discuss how democratic norms are cultivated in everyday life in rural India and how these non-political rural rituals, agrarian rituals may explain astonishingly high voter turnouts in Indian elections. Please go back and listen to any episode that you might have missed and of course let your friends know about the podcast if you’ve enjoyed it. You can stay in touch with the work of the Central European University at www.ceu.edu and the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy at www.graduateinstitute.ch\democracy.