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Lisa Anderson (editor)
1999
11. Democratization in Africa after 1989: Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives
The upheavals in much of Africa after the Berlin Wall was opened in November 1989 have been referred to as a second independence. The anticolonial movement of the 1960s, which first won independence, was inspired by the most fundamental of democratic principles: the people should rule themselves through governments of their own choosing. However, a decade after overt forms of external political rule were removed, Africa slid under an authoritarian carapace that hardened as cold war antagonists and their aid agencies bolstered their clients, proxies, and allies.
This essay will examine some of the theoretical issues raised by the dynamics of political change in Africa within the context of the global wave of democratization. More than half the forty-seven states of sub-Saharan Africa undertook reforms leading to more competitive and pluralist political systems after 1989 for largely conjunctural reasons. This essay will explore some of the key external and internal elements of that conjuncture, as well as the nature of the unfolding political changes, whether they involved transitions to more liberalized and democratic systems or retreat to forms of authoritarianism.
An Infertile Terrain
Democratization was not supposed to happen in Africa. It had too little of what seemed necessary for constitutional democratic polities. African countries were too poor, too culturally fragmented, and insufficiently capitalist; they were not fully penetrated by western Christianity and lacked the requisite civic culture. Middle classes were usually weak and more bureaucratic than entrepreneurial, and they were often coopted into authoritarian political structures. Working classes, except in a few cases such as Zambia and South Africa, were embryonic. Who would be the social agents of democracy? 1 According to the main theories about the prerequisites or favorable conditions for democracy, most African countries constituted infertile terrain.
When Samuel Huntington wrote in 1984 that, “with a few exceptions, the limits of democratic development may well have been reached,” he did not include African countries among the likely exceptions. “Most African countries are by reason of their poverty or the violence of their politics unlikely to move in a democratic direction.” 2 Similarly, Robert Dahl did not expect “any dramatic changes in the number of polyarchies within a generation or two,” 3 and Giuseppe Di Palma considered the prospects of democracy in “Africa as a whole” to be “bleak.” 4 In fact, even close students of Africa, such as Michael Bratton, generally agreed with this prognosis. “It hinges on whether political leaders can be installed and deposed by political will and held accountable while in office. At the moment, this seems too big a question, too remote a prospect.” 5 Crawford Young spoke for the academic community, Africanist as well as non-Africanist, when he described as “stunning” the return of competitive party politics to many African countries by the end of 1991, including the electoral defeat of long-entrenched rulers such as Mathieu Kerekou of Benin and Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia. 6
The political developments in Africa and in other “infertile” areas signal the need for adjustments in the study of democratization. Dankwart A. Rustow anticipated this adjustment when he postulated “many roads to democracy” that may not always involve “the same social classes, the same types of political issues, or even the same methods of solution.” 7 Although notable attempts have been made to salvage aspects of the “prerequisites” approach to democracy and democratization, Huntington, who once actively explored conditions that appeared to favor or impede democratization, now contends that “the causes of democratization are... varied and their significance over time is likely to vary considerably.” 8
The student of democratization in Africa after 1989 does not have a ready-made explanatory framework or set of defining conditions that can simply be tested in the African context. Developments in Africa oblige us to approach seemingly settled issues anew and to adopt a critical approach regarding such fundamentals as the meaning of democracy and democratization. Students of African transitions must also become more actively engaged in formulating theory, heretofore dominated by students of other areas of the world. To be avoided is the passive application to Africa of externally devised frameworks, as well as the analysis of African politics solely within Africa-derived paradigms.
Schumpeter’s Triumph
The leaders and militants of African independence movements, while assuming control of the institutions erected by departing colonial administrations, believed they could develop political and economic systems based on theories of governance that would be more in accordance with the traditions and norms of their own societies. Although they largely failed, the exercise is not forever forsaken. After 1989 the dominant set of political institutions in western industrial nations and their theoretical justification moved to a position of near global hegemony.
Overshadowed by the struggle between capitalism and western democracy, on the one hand, and communism and socialist democracy, on the other, was the debate among western democrats over the very meaning of democracy. J. Peter Euben captured the crux of the dispute as taking place between the “contemporary consensus view” that “democracy is largely a matter of choosing among elites in periodic elections” and “what it literally meant: the kratia (power, rule, mastery) by the demos.” 9
Huntington declared that “by the 1970s the debate was over and J. D. Schumpeter had won.” 10 He rephrased Schumpeter’s formulation, to which the consensus was anchored: “in all democratic regimes the principal offices of government are chosen through competitive elections in which the bulk of the population can participate. Democratic systems thus have a common institutional core that establishes their identity.” 11 Yet this victory may not be final. It is possible to accept, according to John Dunn, that “what the demos of modern representative democracies in fact does... is to choose between relatively organised teams of candidates to govern” without believing that the most fundamental questions about the meaning of democracy, and thus of democratization, have been settled. 12 I argue here that the dominant way of characterizing democracy according to a set of electoralist, institutionalist, and proceduralist criteria must be expanded into a broader conceptualization. 13
Some authors have returned to the etymology of democracy to build a conceptualization that avoids what Parekh refers to as “democracy defined and structured within the limits set by liberalism” 14 and the attendant danger, according to Euben, that “liberalism will overwhelm democracy.” 15 The tension between democracy as an idea, and even as an ideal system, and particular institutional arrangements that communities have chosen or accepted to govern themselves cannot be eliminated just because of the economic or other efficacy of the latter. “The normative and persuasive function” of the democratic idea, in Sartori’s view, should not be buried under its “descriptive and denotative function.” 16
My understanding of democracy combines its deliberative and liberal elements. I consider a political system democratic to the extent that it facilitates citizen self-rule, permits the broadest deliberation in determining public policy, and constitutionally guarantees all the freedoms necessary for open political competition. All political systems, including western pluralist democracies, should be subject to analysis and assessment based on values that cannot simply be reduced to how well and frequently elections are conducted among organized groups of political aspirants. This definition is also consistent with well-known conceptualizations such as Robert Dahl’s, which identifies the central features of participation and contestation together with a facilitating set of civil liberties. By applying the term polyarchy to modern western pluralist democracies, Dahl retained for democracy its more open-ended and prescriptive meaning. 17 This definition also seeks to capture the arguments advanced by proponents of “deliberative democracy,” conceived as “an association whose affairs are governed by the public deliberation of its members.” 18
With regard to Africa, there are important reasons for a less culture-bound definition. African states are, as Parekh says of India, “an association of individuals and a community of communities.” 19 Pluralist and competitive democracy in Africa has tended to take the form of competition among communities rather than individuals, parties, and administrative subunits. W. Arthur Lewis argued in 1965 that in African plural societies electoral systems that yield governments based on a simple aggregation of votes and majority rule will not work, and his argument has been largely confirmed. 20 It is no wonder that power-sharing formulas and consociational systems are everywhere being actively encouraged in the post-1989 transitions.
The participatory and communal elements that were central features of Athenian democracy are also constitutive elements of many African societies. The writings of Julius Nyerere, who tried to capture these normative features, are echoed in almost every argument that emphasizes the deliberative aspects of a political system characterized by “a commitment to the resolution of problems of public choice through public reasoning.” 21 Nyerere’s notion that African democracy rests on individuals “talking until they agree,” which he contrasted with the resort to mechanical majority votes to resolve issues, is echoed in the work of contemporary scholars who emphasize the transformative capacity of democratic arenas in which individuals arrive at decisions that are “ethically based judgments about matters of common concern.” 22 Tanzania’s prolonged retention of disastrous economic policies, however, suggests the need to combine open deliberation of policy issues with the constitutional right to organize politically to challenge prevailing interests and viewpoints.
Peter Ekeh’s seminal writings on Africa’s two publics, one derived from the colonial superstructure and the other from a “deeper” African communal structure, also resonate in these discussions. 23 The authoritarian leaders who entrenched themselves throughout Africa in the 1970s and 1980s shaped communalism to their advantage, tying the fortunes and even basic security of kin groups to their hold on power. Everywhere, the exploitation of political offices for the personal benefit of their occupants was rationalized along communal lines. 24 Ekeh has recently discussed how the limited commitment to a national civic realm hinders the installation of pluralist democracies. Authoritarian rulers, under challenge to democratize, take advantage of the “fractured response to tyranny” among the different communal publics. 25
In post-1989 Africa a major challenge is the need to design institutions with procedures and practices that are socially rooted in the task of constructing national democratic systems. This project would take into account Parekh’s observation that “societies define and individuate people differently.” 26 Societies in which communal solidarity and obligation remain fundamental pose collective action problems different from those in which preferences may be superficially treated as “individual” and subject to aggregation and resolution by majority vote. 27 Relevant to this project is Rustow’s contention that democracy involves not just competition but equally conciliation and accommodation. His further argument that democracy is, “above all, a process for resolving conflicts within human groups” is particularly relevant in light of the upsurge in violent conflicts in several African countries. 28
Liberal Democracy as Virtual Democracy
Despite the extraordinary volume of writing on democracy and democratization by authors ranging from the social democratic left to liberals of various hues to conservatives, they have remarkably converged in regard to a system that may be called “virtual democracy.” Several core elements of virtual democracy can be presented as a series of paradoxes. First, it is formally based on citizen rule, but the making of key decisions, especially in the area of economic reform policies, is insulated from popular involvement. Second, hegemonic economic forces in society, as well as those in control of the state apparatus, must be secure in the protection of their interests and able to minimize threats to them by formerly excluded or dominant groups for a smooth transition from authoritarian rule to occur. Third, central to this variant of democracy is the creation of opportunities for the further development of a capitalist or market economy. While capitalism can exist without democracy, there are no contemporary democracies that are not capitalist or that do not create the institutional framework for the expansion of capitalism. Fourth, external forces are critical to the establishment of democracy in areas formerly under authoritarian rule. Now that global capitalism has no economic rivals, the institutional certainties of democratic systems are usually preferred to the arbitrariness of autocratic rule. Nevertheless, various hegemons have their own perceived interests in particular arenas which may lead them to hinder transitions from authoritarian rule. Fifth, most decisive in democratic transitions are the choices made by those enjoying governmental and social power when faced with challenges to their dominance. Such individuals and groups often realize that democratization can be manipulated to legitimize their continuation in power. Sixth, while the core institutions and practices of contemporary democracy rest on the premise of a free play of ideas and interests, certain substantive policy outcomes are ruled out, and others are assured. Participation may be broad, but policy choices are narrow. Finally, all areas of the world formerly under authoritarian systems—Africa, Asia, eastern Europe, South America, and southern Europe, whatever the prior ideological complexion of the governments—are encouraged to take a particular path when challenged to dismantle authoritarian systems. Recognition that the democratic system may be “virtual” and will not threaten established interests often facilitates this “choice.”
Joel Barkan has argued that “today the western concept of democracy is more or less accepted throughout the world.” However, he overstates his case when he adds that “western programs to support democratization are welcomed by all save those who would be dislodged by the process.” 29 Pluralist constitutional democracy in Africa represented a real challenge to autocratic regimes for no more than three years after 1989. By the end of 1992 most leaders learned “how to control the process of competitive elections so that they can win a grudging stamp of approval from western donors but still hang on to power.” 30
Democratization and Economic Distress
Between March 1957, when Ghana became independent, and March 1990, when the South African flag was lowered over Southwest Africa (Namibia), the last colony in the continent, changes in African regimes took place primarily through military coups. 31 The concept that African presidents held office only for a designated period or as long as they enjoyed the freely expressed confidence of the citizens was alien. There were few exceptions to this rule. In the 1970s Burkina Faso (then Upper Volta), Ghana, and Nigeria all conducted competitive elections. Although elected governments took power, they were soon pushed aside by the military. Authority was transferred to designated successors after the death of independence leaders in Gabon and Kenya and while the head of state was still alive in Cameroon and Senegal. In none of these countries, however, did the regime change significantly. 32 In Cameroon, the departed ruler, Ahmadu Ahidjo, tried to shoot his way back into power two years after relinquishing it in 1982. His successor, Paul Biya, was saved only by a faction of the military and security forces and subsequently reneged on his promise to liberalize the system.
By 1995 almost all sub-Saharan African countries introduced some measure of political liberalization, and a majority permitted competitive elections. 33 In just under a third (fourteen), entirely new governments were elected, and in nine of these elections incumbents were defeated. In contrast, in the three decades of postcolonial rule before 1989 an elected government peacefully took power from an elected incumbent only in the offshore island nation of Mauritius. 34 This transformation can be traced to three significant factors: the weakening of most African states by a prolonged fiscal crisis, the increasing control of international financial institutions and the allied bilateral agencies of the industrialized nations in determining economic policy, and the shift of western powers (especially the United States) after the end of the Cold War from tolerance of and alliance with authoritarian regimes to liberalization of their systems.
Private African and non-African actors steadily increased their efforts on behalf of human rights, civil liberties, and pluralist democracy during the 1980s. However, they had little impact in hindering the entrenchment of authoritarian regimes. Although the cataclysmic events in eastern Europe emboldened the African people, were it not for these three factors advocates of political reform would have been brushed aside with impunity.
Much effort has been made to relate democratization to economic change. Huntington has revised his earlier views by identifying a “political transition zone,” a range of per capita incomes in which opportunities for effecting a transformation of authoritarian systems appear to increase. 35 The most recent wave of democratization, however, has demonstrated little respect for such distinctions. It has swept across Asian countries with mounting incomes and robust economies, as well as Latin American, East European, and African ones with declining or collapsed economies. Like the Latin American fiscal crisis in the early 1980s, the economic contraction in Africa at the end of the decade seems to have facilitated political transformations. In Latin America, according to Whitehead, “lending surged and then went into reverse, leaving over-confident authoritarian regimes suddenly responsible for unmanageable fiscal crises.” 36 Their political vulnerability increased as their options narrowed; “the business interests and foreign investors that had rallied to authoritarian military regimes in the 1960s began to see these overly statist and apparently unaccountable governments as a source of danger rather than of protection, so they withdrew their support.” 37
Many authors have discussed the statist economic systems erected by most African governments under both socialist and state-capitalist auspices. Apart from extractive industries in such sectors as oil and copper, private investors increasingly shunned the African continent. Private foreign banks never reached the level of exposure in Africa that they had in Latin America. “By the late 1980s,” according to van de Walle, “more than half the nations in sub-Saharan Africa were effectively bankrupt, and most of the others were propped up by western public capital.” 38 Some case studies trace how African regimes stoutly resisted the demands of the Bretton Woods agencies to change their failed economic policies until the growing budgetary deficits, the unwillingness of their bilateral partners to continue to provide relief, and the lack of interest of private banks in the continent eventually obliged them to accept highly conditioned loans from the IMP and World Bank. 39 The self-styled Marxist regime in Benin became one of the first to permit multiparty elections, in which a former World Bank official, Nicephore Soglo ousted the incumbent. Richard Westebbe has shown how Benin became a classic case of fiscal collapse and could no longer resist demands for comprehensive reforms by the external agencies. 40
Zambia, like Benin, was another early “domino” to fall. In both countries leaders in power more than two decades had mastered a range of survival skills. Despite the great fanfare with which Kaunda, the Zambian leader, twice abandoned agreements with the IMF, he also had nowhere else to go to obtain the resources to maintain his monopolistic political system. Not having to face an organized opposition for seventeen years, he assumed that the people would support his party because of its populist and economic nationalist policies. However, in Zambia and elsewhere the stabilization and structural adjustment programs that African authoritarian governments were forced to implement as conditions for loans from multinational agencies steadily eroded their popular support. They had to sharply devalue the currency, cut back the public sector, remove price controls on basic commodities, impose fees on a range of public services, and liquidate unproductive state enterprises. In October 1991 Kaunda went down to a crushing defeat, sending a message heard around the continent that the single-party system was endangered.
One of the most determined holdouts against the international agencies was Julius Nyerere’s government in Tanzania. He eventually had to stand down, first as president, then as party chairman, when his country’s long-time generous supporters, especially the Nordic countries, would no longer shield his failed social democracy from the rigors of economic liberalization. 41 As Larry Diamond rightly concludes, the power of external donors to press for both economic and political reforms “was nowhere greater than in Africa.” Moreover, the power of these donors “to induce democratic change... through aid conditionality is directly proportional to the dependence of the aid recipients (or debtors) upon them and to the unity of the donor community.” 42
External Involvement in Political Reforms
Transitions to liberalized and democratic systems can range from the slow evolution of structures and mechanisms in Great Britain to their imposition on defeated countries after World War II. At the time of Africa’s “first independence,” except in a few instances such as Guinea in 1958 where the French pulled out abruptly, departing colonial powers had a strong hand in devising representative structures. Once the decision was made to withdraw, however, they devoted more attention to the retention of desired economic, diplomatic, and security arrangements than to the operation of new governmental institutions in accordance with constitutional and democratic principles.
After 1989, while local citizens invariably decided the details of the transition, they seldom determined the decision to introduce political reforms solely or independently. A complex and dynamic interplay between external and local forces determined particular outcomes along a continuum from renewed authoritarianism to various degrees of liberalization and democratization. Cases in which there was a sustained “push” from outside (Kenya, Malawi, South Africa) can be distinguished from regimes that were able to parry external intervention (Nigeria, Zaire). In others, the external patron rushed to the defense of beleaguered client regimes (Cameroon, Togo), while in a special group led by military economic reformers external agencies alternated between nudging and nursing (Ghana, Uganda). 43
Whatever the mix of strategies, external forces were often able to narrow the options available to recalcitrant regimes (when they were so inclined) and to encourage and bolster insurgent groups. However, they were also prepared to subordinate democracy to other geostrategic considerations (as in Algeria, where Islamic fundamentalists would have taken power) or, in the absence of any compelling external interest in the outcome, let the contestants fight it out (as in Madagascar, where the most massive demonstrations occurred). In short, they chose to act in a variety of ways, or not to act, and each decision had important implications. In his earlier work, Robert Dahl rather caustically dismissed attempts to promote democracy from abroad. “As a strategy for transforming nonpolyarchies into polyarchies, the American foreign aid program must be adjudged a total failure. As far as I am aware, it has not a single such success to its credit.” 44 Laurence Whitehead’s comprehensive review in the mid 1980s confirmed this conclusion. “Despite the rhetoric, Washington’s real achievements in the promotion of democracy in Latin America have been relatively meager.” 45 Huntington also believed that “the ability of the U.S. to affect the development of democracy elsewhere is limited” and echoed Dahl’s contention that the “process of transformation is too complex and too poorly understood to justify” such initiatives. 46
While students of democratization tend to be skeptical of external efforts to promote political reform, Rueschemeyer, Stephens and Stephens, and Di Palma make it a fundamental component of their theoretical framework. The former identify three “power clusters” as being most significant in determining democratic transitions: an external one, the state, and domestic classes and class coalitions. They contend that a balance of power “beyond a country’s borders... determines the chances of democracy.” 47 Di Palma’s focus on the top-down “crafting” of democracy also recognizes the role of external actors in “favoring (or hindering) present and impending democratization.” 48 He identifies “a new force,” “the direct exportation of democracy by democratic powers with global, regional or colonial clout,” that must be taken into account. 49 He points out that “a regional hegemon” such as the USSR could for years exercise a “veto of democracy,” a characterization that would also apply to France’s policies in most of its former African colonies. 50
The African experience, when carefully disaggregated, should contribute significantly to our understanding of why, when, and how liberalized and democratic systems have been imposed, facilitated, blocked, or treated with “benign neglect” by external actors and what factors explain their choices. The impact of external forces may also affect specific outcomes. Terry Karl argued that in Latin America in the early 1960s they “encouraged a democratic outcome while simultaneously limiting the degree of democracy in the new system.” 51 In Africa, a similar analysis could be conducted on two levels: the general impact of external forces (based on promotion of liberal democracy as virtual democracy) and, within this framework, the specific postcolonial hegemonic relationships.
Dahl remarked that “dictators and oligarchs are not easily beguiled by foreign assistance into destroying their regimes.” 52 This observation would apply to the ambivalent external demands confronting Africa through much of its modern history. However, by the late 1980s foreign assistance was no longer a discretionary component of national budgets but was increasingly the lifeline of regimes. With the resurgence of demands for political reform after 1989, external agencies were able to decide, often case by case, if that lifeline should be shortened, cut, or lengthened. African leaders, even with their backs to the wall, gradually learned that they could influence external forces and even manipulate their divisions and rivalries, as they were doing with increasing success with their domestic adversaries. 53 While external forces demonstrated a greater positive impact in the early phase of democratization after 1989 than Laurence Whitehead discerned for earlier periods, the later phase conforms to his general findings. “Policies aimed at ‘promoting democracy’... are likely to constitute an open invitation for manipulation by local political actors,” including such practices as staged elections whose results are predetermined. 54
Democracy as a Global Project
David Held posed a challenging question: “Is democratization an essentially western project, or is it something of wider universal significance?” 55 In responding to this question with regard to the Middle East, a region even more resistant to democratization than Africa, Simon Bromley described democracy as “a form of rule in which the state apparatus is formally responsible to elected decision-makers who are chosen by means of a universal and equal franchise.” 56 A critical condition for the establishment of democracy is “a significant degree of separation between the institutions of rule and surplus appropriation,” which he argues is absent for the most part in Middle East states. 57 He then refers to the “profound uncertainty” of these states as they contend with the failure of state-led economic policies under “pressure from the advanced capitalist world mediated by the World Bank and the IMF.” 58 Bromley’s discussion is relevant to Africa because he tackles several problems of the contemporary conjuncture that impart a peculiar dynamic to democratization.
Domination of the world economy by market-oriented economies, the geostrategic hegemony of western industrialized nations, and direct or indirect external pressures for democratization are critical aspects of this conjuncture. As Dunn observes, “the modern secular constitutional representative democracy, firmly founded on an essentially market economy, dominates the political life of the modern world.” While making “democracy safe for a modern capitalist economy,” it can also be seen as a “political framework... to ensure the unobstructed workings of the free market across the globe.” 59 Competitive interactions among political elites over two centuries in the former paradigmatic case of Britain laid the basis for a high degree of mutual security prior to the introduction of universal suffrage and mass politics. 60 However, contemporary transitions seek to replicate this outcome in a matter of years. While opportunities for political participation and contestation expand, it is critical that the demos, or collective citizenry, subordinate its voice to the political elites. Moreover, economically disadvantaged sections of society must be induced to postpone satisfaction of pressing material needs to an indeterminate future while economic restructuring is implemented under international tutelage.
Huntington refers to this exchange as “the democratic bargain,” a “trade-off between participation and moderation.” 61 Contemporary democratization requires concessions from those who were formerly excluded from participation; they must tolerate many years of material inequities while agreeing “to work through elections and parliamentary procedures.” 62 Studies of the outcome of democratic transitions in southern Europe and South America provide substantial confirmation of the thesis that deradicalization and even demobilization of popular forces are intrinsic to late-twentieth-century democratization. Political participation is also exchanged for substantive inequities prompted or deepened by market-based strategies. 63 There are currently no major alternatives to this paradigm and certainly none in Africa. Although the ANC-led South African government is making a bold attempt to address the massive needs of its black population, the ANC has abandoned socialist strategies and accepted the minority-dominated capitalist system explicitly or tacitly in order to assume (and share) political power. Similarly in Namibia, the Southwest Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) not only allayed concerns that it would uphold the constitutional democracy devised to transfer power from South Africa in 1989–90, but also became a strong advocate of the capitalist economy bequeathed by the apartheid regime.
In addition to political moderation, Di Palma identifies a conservative socioeconomic imperative: “in the interests of democratization, the corporate demands of business and the state may have to take precedence over those of labor.” 64 Adam Przeworski also advances a striking hypothesis: “only where the Left lost the first competitive election has the process of democratization not been reversed.” 65 The victory of economic conservatives in the first set of transitional elections may actually improve the prospects of “democratization.” 66 “We must lose in order to win” is not a banner under which democratic insurgents can comfortably fight. In Africa, such defeats are unlikely to be temporary.
Liberal democracy in the late twentieth century, therefore, connects processes of participation and contestation to a particular kind of economy and a preferred state structure. The genius of liberal democracy in Przeworski’s construction is its ability to generate “the appearance of uncertainty,” which draws the major political forces “into the democratic interplay”; while it protects key vested interests, others are convinced to postpone fulfillment of their substantive demands to a later date. 67 Scholars on the left also recognize the “social defeat” that contemporary democratic transitions entail. Rueschemeyer and Stephens observe that the political dominance of conservatives “serves to defend the interests of the upper classes within the system and keep the substantive demands of the lower classes off the immediate political agenda.” They even describe this phenomenon as “the positive contribution of the existence of a strong party of the right to the survival of democracy.” 68
In Africa, ideological distinctions have featured minimally in the competition among political parties. Electoral campaigns since 1989 have seldom revolved around alternatives to economic liberalization but rather focus on political renewal, corruption, ascriptive group interests, and the efficient and fair implementation of market reforms. Due to the economic weakness of African states and the hegemony of multilateral and bilateral agencies the “unobstructed workings of the market economy” will accompany whatever political reforms are introduced. In short, African democratization is highly consistent with the imperatives of political moderation and conservative socioeconomic policies that have been identified in late-twentieth-century transitions. A key question is what these imperatives imply for the “quality” of African democratization. 69
Democratization and Ruler Conversion
In a brief but insightful essay, Robert Bates reflected on the nature of the “end-game bargaining” between authoritarian rulers and insurgent democrats that is particularly relevant to Africa’s personalist systems. 70 While the appearance of “uncertainty” draws insurgents into the process, the prospect of institution-based security convinces autocrats to yield. As democrats “stand on the brink of political victory... tyrants convert. They seek the protection of the law and the courts; they demand due process... they propound the inviolability of persons and property. Formerly the most dangerous enemies of liberal government, they now become among its most important champions.” 71
Bates’s schema is also relevant to the market-expanding reforms that underlie and often prompt African transitions. In historical terms, the political struggle to curb monarchical power narrows to one between “revenue-seeking” leaders and “asset-owning citizens.” 72 In the late twentieth century liberal democracy offers a retreating autocrat the opportunity to benefit from the protections of life and property guaranteed by institutions. When rulers’ options become losing all by further resistance or preserving much of what they possess except hegemonic power, “tyrants convert.” Using similar language, Crawford Young commented that “aspirant life presidents such as Omar Bongo [of Gabon] appear converted to multiparty politics only as a stratagem in an old game.” 73 A preliminary classification would differentiate among apparent conversion (De Klerk, South Africa; Pereira, Cape Verde; Kerekou, Benin; Kaunda, Zambia; Saibou, Niger), feigned conversion (Compaore, Burkina Faso; Metes, Ethiopia; Eyadema, Togo; Mobutu, Zaire; Conte, Guinea; Babangida, Nigeria), concession without conversion (Rawlings, Ghana; Biha, Cameroon; Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast; Moi, Kenya; Museveni, Uganda; Mugabe, Zimbabwe), and deposing before conversion (Traore, Mali).
Most of these “conversions” were made reluctantly as tactical moves to retain power. The five “apparent conversions” agreed before 1992 to a political opening. Three were defeated in honest elections; Frederick de Klerk convinced the ANC to accept a power-sharing arrangement; and Ali Saibou retired from politics. After the pivotal Zambian election of October 1991, in which senior and respected head of state Kenneth Kaunda was humbled, “African leaders began to advise each other on how to hold democratic elections without being voted out of office.” 74 The most effective instrument in dislodging rulers in French-speaking Africa after 1989 was the sovereign national conference. Following its initial successes in Benin, Congo, and Niger, it was vigorously rejected in Cameroon, physically intimidated in Togo, and rendered chaotic and impotent through a Byzantine combination of concession and retractions in Zaire. Those who feigned conversion maintained highly repressive systems after promising liberalization, while those who made concessions without converting dismissed demands for change until they could control and dominate the forces unleashed by liberalization. Moussa Traore was the only African leader to be overthrown prior to the restoration of competitive party politics. Popular mobilization against his misrule was high, and the prevailing faction in the armed forces decided to depose him and permit a transition to proceed relatively freely. Consequently, Mali has installed one of the most open and competitive constitutional systems in Africa. Had Traore held on longer, he might have learned, like his neighbors Compaore, Conte, and Eyadema, how to survive while apparently conceding.
Impediments to Change: Rulers, Regimes, Systems
Gerardo Munck has argued that within the literature on democratization there has been a “shift from ‘prerequisites’ to ‘process’ or from structural determinants to strategic choices.” 75 This observation is highly relevant to African transitions because of the conjunctural forces that brought them into being. Because the normal underpinnings of pluralist democracy were absent or weak, political liberalization in Africa became overwhelmingly a “strategic choice” adopted with great reluctance by “regimes in distress.” 76 The new emphasis on transitions as “moments of plasticity” in which strategic actors craft democracy recalls Rustow’s emphasis on the “decision phase.” He regarded democratization as a “process of conscious decision... a genuine choice” to which “a large variety of mixed motives” contribute. 77
The triangular forces involved in African transitions—regime, domestic opponents, external agencies—are also relevant to this issue. While the 1990–91 period could be described as “stunning” because of the way long-entrenched regimes were swept away, since 1992 the struggle has become more evenly matched as African leaders constantly devise new ways to submit without succumbing. They gradually discovered the limits to which external agencies were prepared to go to support internal democratic movements and the leverage they still had, especially when they were willing to unleash their military and other security forces. Moreover, after being thrown on the defensive by the sudden collapse of external sources of support and upsurge in political mobilization by once quiescent forces, African leaders soon discovered ways of dividing their opponents at home and abroad. Even opposition political parties, which had long been viewed as threats to public order and hence proscribed, were now regarded as instruments that could be manipulated to serve the incumbent regime (especially since they could be induced to proliferate). As the transition process became more prolonged, opposition forces fragmented into ethnic and personalist groupings, while external powers were often obliged to reduce their pressure for change because of their own rivalries, as well as concerns about the upsurge of armed conflicts, collapsed states, and humanitarian emergencies.
The overwhelmingly autocratic nature of pre-1989 African political systems explains why the “strategic choices” of regimes in responding to pressure from internal and external prodemocratic forces are often discussed in personalist terms. However, another set of factors poses a more profound obstacle to the establishment of democratic systems. A particular system of rule has become consolidated in much of Africa, with differences largely of degree rather than kind among specific countries. As postcolonial governments banned opposition parties, arrested or drove into exile anyone who protested, and established de facto or de jure single-party rule, they simultaneously made their regimes the gatekeeper to economic resources of all kinds and the manager of publicly owned enterprises. 78
Although these statist systems, capitalist or socialist, civilian or military, were economically inefficient, politically they were quite effective in maintaining regimes. The prolonged economic crisis from the mid 1970s gradually undermined these systems and, according to van de Walle, contributed “to a breakdown of the accommodation process that leaders had fashioned to reward clients to maintain political stability.” 79 “The disruption of rent-seeking networks” unsettled the state elite before the upsurge of popular protests in 1989. 80 Structural adjustment programs heightened tensions by reducing such normal sources of state patronage as public employment, procurement contracts, access to foreign currency, and import licenses. In Benin and Togo, Kathryn Nwajiaku shows the relationship between the weakening or replenishment of these resources and the capability of authoritarian leaders to resist demands for pluralist democracy. 81
In virtually none of the countries of sub-Saharan Africa has it been possible within telescoped time-frames to restore full political contestation, implement draconian economic reforms, conduct fair multiparty elections, and shift to forms of governance in which the state no longer monopolizes access to wealth-making activities. Moreover, the multiplicity of factors in play in most African countries is redounding to the benefit of incumbent regimes, which have been able to ride out the initial upheavals and provoke caution among external powers regarding how much instability they are prepared to risk for the sake of rapid democratization.
Conclusion: Africa’s Uncertain Prospects
Processes of economic and political liberalization in Africa are not just concurrent events in the late twentieth century: they are part of a broader dynamic of global transformation. While substantive changes have occurred, many of these “transitions” also exhibit an illusory quality. Whitehead has referred to one outcome of the dynamic in Latin America as “democracy by default,” characterized by “a lowering of popular expectations of what can be achieved through political action.” 82 The concerns expressed by political theorists that democracy will be “overwhelmed by liberalism” has become a reality. “The only path to democratic ‘consolidation,’ ” according to Whitehead, “is through sustained implementation of drastic ‘neo-liberal’ market reforms,” which implies the exclusion of “many of the features commonly associated with full liberal democracy (high participation, authentic political choice, extensive citizen rights).” 83
In Africa, the pronounced role of external forces in promoting transitions has been a mixed blessing. The international financial agencies, which dominate economic policy and resource mobilization in Africa, are ill-equipped to play political midwife, while the diplomatic services of western industrialized countries are seldom able to counter the strategies of incumbent regimes to adopt variations of the “Chinese model,” market reforms accompanied by limited or deferred political liberalization. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, whose regime seemed doomed after 1991 when his opponents appeared to be taking control of all governmental institutions, demonstrated once again how it is possible to ride out waves of intense external financial and diplomatic pressure. Similar regimes in Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, and Kenya have done the same. In these and other countries, domestic adversaries became fragmented, brutalized, discouraged, and financially depleted.
Two further suggestions by Rustow appear particularly pertinent to the theoretical work that is currently assessing democratization in Africa. Instead of assuming that “to promote democracy you must first foster democrats,” Rustow suggested that “we should allow for the possibility that circumstances may force, trick, lure, or cajole non-democrats into democratic behavior.” 84 This argument is consistent with the emphasis on conjunctural developments in African transitions after 1989 and the important role of external actors in encouraging the “conversion” of leaders. Rustow’s recognition that the factors “that keep a democracy stable may not be the ones that brought it into existence” is also relevant. 85 While weak economies, states, and civil societies may make Africa an infertile terrain for building sustainable democracies, these factors do not explain which countries have installed such systems and which have not.
Most African countries are likely to settle into “some sort of halfway house.” A minority will continue liberalization and democratization; some will revert to repressive autocracies. 86 In the majority of cases, however, the paradoxes of “liberal democracy as virtual democracy” will reflect political life. This prognosis should not be taken as pessimistic. Pre-1989 Africa had become politically and economically calcified. After the first upheavals in 1990, the calcification began to dissolve, fully in some places, partially in others. The forces unleashed domestically and internationally were eventually wrestled to an uneasy stalemate. Despite this mixed outcome, political freedom was reborn all over Africa, extensively in several countries and dispersed in others. 87 In comparison with the nearly complete collapse of democratic systems after the end of colonial rule and the sharp swings experienced by the other areas of the world, this position is not so disadvantageous.
As the novelty of multiparty elections diminishes in Africa and the new authoritarianism in a liberal guise is widely recognized, analysis and advocacy based on a broader conception of democracy are likely to follow. Africa’s post-1989 experiences are intimately connected with global trends. It should therefore not be surprising if novel experiments in Africa to transcend the global project of Schumpeterian democracy inspire other continents.
Endnotes
The author thanks several colleagues, especially Crawford Young, for their helpful comments on an earlier draft and the Ford Foundation and Carnegie Corporation of New York for research support.
Note 1: Barrington Moore, The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Beacon Press, 1966). Back.
Note 2: Samuel Huntington, “Will More Countries Become Democratic?,” Political Science Quarterly 3 (Summer 1994), pp. 216, 218. Back.
Note 3: Robert Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), p. 208. Back.
Note 4: Giuseppe Di Palma, To Craft Democracies: An Essay on Democratic Transitions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), p. 2. Back.
Note 5: Michael A. Bratton, “Beyond the State: Civil Society and Associational Life in Africa,” World Politics 51 (1989), 430. Back.
Note 6: Crawford Young, “Democratization in Africa: The Contradictions of a Political Imperative,” in Jennifer A. Widner, ed., Economic Change and Political Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p. 235. Back.
Note 7: Dankwart A. Rustow, “Transitions to Democracy: Toward a Dynamic Model,” Comparative Politics 2 (April 1970), p. 345. Back.
Note 8: Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991), p. 39. See also Myron Weiner, “Empirical Democratic Theory and the Transition from Authoritarianism to Democracy,” PS: Political Science & Politics 20 (Fall 1987), pp. 862–63. Back.
Note 9: J. Peter Euben, “Democracy Ancient and Modern,” PS 26 (September 1993), p. 478. Cf. Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited, Part One (New Jersey: Chatham House, 1987), p. 22. Back.
Note 10: Huntington, he Third Wave, p. 109. Back.
Note 12: John Dunn, ed., Democracy: The Unfinished Journey, 508 BC to AD 1993 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 260. Back.
Note 13: Cf. Nancy Bermeo, “Rethinking Regime Change,” Comparative Politics, 22 (April 1990), p. 374, note 1. This minimalist definition significantly lowers the threshold for authoritarian regimes to democratize. Back.
Note 14: Bhikhu Parekh, “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy,” in David Held, ed., Prospects for Democracy: North, South, East, West (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), p. 157. Back.
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Note 18: Joshua Cohen, “Deliberation and Democratic Legitimacy,” in Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit, eds., The Good Polity: Normative Analysis of the State (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 17. Also, David Miller, “Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice,” in David Held, ed.. pp. 74–91. Back.
Note 19: Parekh, “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy,” p. 157. Back.
Note 20: W. Arthur Lewis, Politics in West Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965). Back.
Note 21: Cohen, p. 21. Philippe Schmitter and Terry Lynn Karl, “What Democracy Is... and Is Not,” Journal of Democracy 2 (Summer 1991), pp. 78–9, add cooperation to Schumpeter’s model. Back.
Note 22: Miller, “Deliberative Democracy and Social Choice,” p. 88; Julius Nyerere, Ujamaa: Essays on Socialism (London: Oxford University Press, 1968), and Freedom and Unity: Uhuru na Umaja (London: Oxford University Press, 1966). Back.
Note 23: Peter Ekeh, “Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17 (1975). Also, Richard Sklar, “The African Frontier for Political Science,” in Robert H. Bates, V. Y. Mudimbe, and Ken O’Barr, eds., Africa and the Disciplines: The Contributions of Research in Africa to the Social Sciences and Humanities (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 83–110. Back.
Note 24: See Richard Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Back.
Note 25: Peter Ekeh, “The Concept of Second Liberation and the Prospects of Democracy in Africa: A Nigerian Context,” paper given at the Conference on Dilemmas of Democracy in Nigeria, University of Wisconsin, November 10–12, 1995, p. 25. Back.
Note 26: Parekh, “The Cultural Particularity of Liberal Democracy,” p. 169. Back.
Note 27: See Harvey Glickman, ed., Ethnic Conflict and Democratization in Africa (Atlanta: African Studies Association Press, 1995). Back.
Note 28: Rustow, p. 358. Back.
Note 29: Joel Barkan, “Can Established Democracies Nurture Democracy Abroad? Lessons from Africa,” paper presented at the Nobel Symposium, Uppsala University, Sweden, August 1994, p. 3. Back.
Note 30: Michael Bratton, “International versus Domestic Pressures for Democratization in Africa,” MSU Working Papers on Political Reform in Africa No. 12 (November 15, 1994), p. 10. Back.
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Note 32: See Linda Beck, “Advancing Beyond Semi-Democracy in Senegal,” in Richard Joseph, ed., The Democratic Challenge in Africa (Atlanta: The Carter Center, 1994); and Christian Coulon, “Senegal: The Development and Fragility of Semidemocracy,” in Larry Diamond, Juan J. Linz, and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Politics in Developing Countries: Comparing Experiences with Democracy (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1995). Back.
Note 33: See Africa Demos (Atlanta: The Carter Center, 1990–96); Richard Joseph, “Africa: The Rebirth of Political Freedom,” Journal of Democracy, 2 (Fall 1991), pp. 11–24; and Ernest Nwokedi, Politics of Democratization: Changing Authoritarian Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa (Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 1995). Back.
Note 34: Although an elected government came to power in Sierra Leone after defeating the incumbent, a coup and countercoup intervened between the elections in 1967 and the restoration of civilian rule in 1968. See Fred M. Hayward, “Sierra Leone: State Consolidation, Fragmentation and Decay,” in Conor Cruise O’Brien et al., eds., Contemporary West African States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) p. 166. Back.
Note 35: Samuel Huntington, “Democracy’s Third Wave,” Journal of Democracy 2 (Spring 1991), pp. 30–31. Back.
Note 36: Laurence Whitehead, “The Alternatives to ‘Liberal Democracy’: A Latin American Perspective,” in Held, ed., p. 314. Back.
Note 38: Nicolas van de Walle, “Neopatrimonalism and Democracy in Africa, with an Illustration from Cameroon” in Widner, ed., p. 135. Back.
Note 39: See Thomas M. Callaghy and John Ravenhill, eds., Hemmed In: Responses to Africa’s Economic Decline (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993). Back.
Note 40: Richard Westebbe, “Structural Adjustment, Rent-Seeking, and Liberalization in Benin,” in Widner, ed., pp. 80–100. Also, Kathryn Nwajiaku, “The National Conferences in Benin and Togo Revisited,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 32 (1994). Back.
Note 41: Mwesiga Baregu, “The Rise and Fall of the One-Party State in Tanzania,” in Widner, ed., pp. 158–81. Back.
Note 42: Larry Diamond, “Promoting Democracy in the 1990s: Actors and Instruments, Issues and Imperatives,” Report to the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (December 1995), pp. 56–57. Back.
Note 43: See Nwokedi, Politics of Democratization, pp. 179–213. Back.
Note 44: Dahl, Polyarchy, pp. 212–13. Back.
Note 45: Laurence Whitehead, “International Aspects of Democratization,” in Guillermo O’Donnell, Philippe C. Schmitter, and Laurence Whitehead, Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Comparative Perspectives (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), p. 37. Back.
Note 46: Huntington. “Will More Countries Become Democratic?,” p. 218; and Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 214. Despite these demurrals, Huntington provided detailed advice to authorities in South Africa and Ethiopia on political reform strategies. Back.
Note 47: Dietrich Rueschemeyer, Evelyne Huber Stephens, and John D. Stephens, Capitalist Development and Democracy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), p. 7. Back.
Note 48: Di Palma, To Craft Democracies, p. 12. Back.
Note 50: Leaders of French-speaking countries welcomed and democratic activists condemned Jacques Chirac’s statement in February 1990 that multiparty politics were not appropriate for Africa. See Pearl Robinson, “The National Conference Phenomenon in Francophone Africa,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 36 (July 1994), pp. 585. Back.
Note 51: Terry Lynn Karl, “Petroleum and Political Pacts: The Transition to Democracy in Venezuela,” in Guillermo O’Donnell and Philippe C. Schmitter, eds., Transitions from Authoritarian Rule: Prospects for Democracy (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986). p. 216. Also, Whitehead, “International Aspects,” pp. 17–18. Back.
Note 52: Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 12. Back.
Note 53: See Nwokedi, Politics of Democratization; Bratton, “International versus Domestic Pressures.” Back.
Note 54: Whitehead,”International Aspects,” p. 45. Back.
Note 55: Held, Prospects for Democracy, p. 4. Back.
Note 56: Simon Bromley, “The Prospects for Democracy in the Middle East,” in Held, ed., p. 380. Back.
Note 59: Dunn, Democracy, pp. 250, 253. Back.
Note 60: Dahl, Polyarchy, p. 39. Back.
Note 61: Huntington, The Third Wave, p. 169. Back.
Note 63: See Adam Przeworski, “Democracy as a Contingent Outcome of Conflicts,” in Jon Elster and Rune Slagstad, eds., Constitutionalism and Democracy (New York: Cambridge University Press and Norwegian University Press, 1988), p. 63; Human Development Report 1996 (Oxford University Press, 1996) Back.
Note 64: Di Palma, To Craft Democracies, p. 97. Back.
Note 65: Przeworski, “Democracy as a Contingent Outcome,” p. 72. Back.
Note 66: But see Frances Hagopian, “Democracy by Undemocratic Means: Elites, Political Pacts, and Regime Transition in Brazil,” Comparative Political Studies 23 (July 1990), pp. 147–70. Back.
Note 67: Adam Przeworski, Democracy and the Market: Political and Economic Reforms in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 12–13. Back.
Note 68: Rueschemeyer, Stephens, and Stephens, Capitalist Development nd Democracy, p. 274. Weiner, “Empirical Democratic Theory and the Transition from Authoritarianism to Democracy,” p. 865, also contends that “transition to democratic rule is made possible by the presence of a centrist or conservative party to which power could be transferred.” Back.
Note 69: For the similar debate on “delegative democracy,” see Guillermo O’Donnell, “On The State, Democratization and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries.” World Development 21 (1993), 1355–69, and “Delegative Democracy,” Journal of Democracy 5 (January 1994), pp. 55–69. Back.
Note 70: Robert Bates, “The Economics of Transitions to Democracy,” PS (March 1991), pp. 24–27. Back.
Note 73: Young, “Democratization in Africa,” p. 243. Back.
Note 74: Nwokedi, Politics of Democratization, citing Joel Barkan, p. 202. Back.
Note 75: Gerardo Munck, “Democratic Transitions in Comparative Perspective,” Comparative Politics 26 (April 1994), pp. 370. Back.
Note 76: Jeffrey Herbst, “The Dilemmas of Explaining Political Upheaval: Ghana in Comparative Perspective,” in Widner, ed., pp. 182–98. Back.
Note 77: See Munck, “Democratic Transitions in Comparative Perspective,” p. 370; and Rustow, pp. 355–57. Back.
Note 78: See Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, “Neopatrimonial Regimes and Political Transitions in Africa,” World Politics, 46 (July 1994). Back.
Note 79: Van de Walle, “Neopatrimonialism and Democracy in Africa,” p. 139. Back.
Note 81: Nwajiaku, “The National Conferences in Benin and Togo Revisited,” pp. 434–38, 446. Back.
Note 82: Whitehead, “Alternatives to ‘Liberal Democracy,’ “ p. 325. Back.
Note 84: Rustow, p. 345. Back.
Note 86: Munck, “Democratic Transitions in Comparative Perspective,” p. 362. Back.
Note 87: See Richard L. Sklar, “Towards a Theory of Developmental Democracy,” in Adrian Leftwich, ed., Democracy and Development: Theory and Practice (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1996), pp. 25–44. Back.
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