You Can't Eat Democracy

There is an urgent need to make democracy work for voters in African states

I: What is the point of democracy?

You cannot eat democracy. This claim is favored by autocrats who proselytize the false choice between democracy and development and often dismissed by those with strong normative attachments to democracy as an end in itself.

Yet the claim resonates with real voters in the real world. Surveys show that voters’ assessment of political institutions and processes is closely tied to perceived impacts on material outcomes. The answer to the question what have you done for me lately? is a common motivator of vote choice. From rich to poor countries, when the rubber meets the road most voters think of politics in material terms.

The implication of this reality is clear: democracies that aren’t visibly effective in addressing citizens’ demands and that cannot improve their material conditions risk collapse. This is especially true in low-income countries (like many across Africa).

Source: BBC

This is not to say that religion, ethnicity/race, caste, or ideology cannot be important drivers of vote choice. Indeed, in some contexts, voters’ perceptions of their relative social status or psychic benefits from having “their own” identity group in government may overwhelm material concerns. However, at the end of the day, most voters participate in politics with the expectation that the process will generate solutions to collective problems in the material world — even when desired outcomes exclude perceived out-groups.

The point here is that if one cares about democracy (be it for purely normative or materialist reasons), one should also care about whether it delivers for real people in the real world. Voters want guarantees of physical safety, working schools, affordable healthcare, reliable housing, accessible infrastructure, a stable macroeconomy, and dependable jobs.

When democracy does not deliver on these demands, it is understandable that voters would seek alternative systems of government (a fact that would-be autocrats like to exploit). Importantly, the idea that voters may view democracy as a means to an end is not unreasonable. Neither is it necessarily orthogonal to normative attachments to democracy as an end in itself. If anything, believing that democracy should deliver creates the incentives to make democracy work, which in the end may reinforce intrinsic attachment to democracy.

II: African democracies are not delivering on their promises

As scholars and democracy promoters fret over democratic erosion/autocratization in the region, it is worth focusing less on the behavior of individual leaders like Patrice Talon (Benin) or Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) and more on the structural conditions that facilitate their rise (and successes at autocratization). In particular, it is worth appreciating the fact that the gap between the promise of democracy and its realized dividends over the last 30 years is arguably the biggest threat to democratic consolidation in African states.

A growing share of Africans are dissatisfied with their respective brands of democratic government. Data (from 9 rounds of aggregated Afrobarometer Surveys across dozens of countries) on voter satisfaction with democracy in African states show trends in the wrong direction. The share of voters who are very satisfied with democracy is trending downwards, while the share of those not at all satisfied is trending upwards.

The dissatisfaction with democracy is reflected in the erosion of legitimacy of the electoral process and disengagement from partisan mobilization. A majority of respondents believe that electoral processes do not result in legislative representatives who reflect the views of voters (most voters want to see effort reflected in visible and attributable outcomes). Furthermore, since Round 7 of the Afrobarometer Surveys a majority of respondents have indicated that they are not close to any political party. A good example in this regard is Nigeria, which holds elections next month. Reflecting a generalized dissatisfaction with the options available and elections’ track record in selecting leaders, turnout has been steadily declining since the return of democratic politics in 1999. As shown below, in 2019 less than 35% of registered voters bothered to show up for the Nigerian presidential election.

Source: International IDEA

These levels of dissatisfaction are objectively justified. While most African states have witnessed significant economic growth over the last 30 years, it is also true that much of that growth has not resulted in sustainable development for the vast majority of Africans. Poverty reduction in the region has stalled. Urbanization has largely created consumption rather than production cities. Whether as subsistence farmers or informal urban workers, large shares of citizens are condemned to live precarious economic lives. From climate change to inflation, few African governments seem to have any coherent policy responses. The quality of public services is abysmal in most countries. Several countries struggle to guarantee basic physical safety.

Faced with some or all of these challenges, people across the region are justified in their demand for a system of government that does more than allow for ritualistic punishment of incumbents every election cycle.

Finally, I would caution against taking false comfort in the idea that the vast majority of Africans list democracy as their preferred system of government. Data from Round 9 of Afrobarometer Surveys show that barely 30% expect the level of democracy in their country to improve over the next 5 years. This is not a ringing endorsement for expected continued democratic consolidation in African states.

III: Making democracy work in African states

Making democracy work in the 2020s and beyond will require significant unlearning of the lessons of the 1990s. Back then, and I generalize here, removing autocrats from power was the main goal. Therefore, turnover and oppositionist politics became key de facto indicators of the levels of democracy.

The underlying theory of change posited that elections would generate incentives for leaders to invest in “good governance” — broadly construed as respecting human rights, reducing corruption, being responsive to voters’ demands. There was also an implicit assumption that elections would force leaders to invest in the mechanisms of policy design and implementation (i.e. state-building). In other words, putting the right people in charge would unleash a chain reaction of improvements across multiple domains. Even in countries that saw constitutional amendments or other institutional reforms, the typical primary focus was the achievement of the first turnover (hence the focus on presidential term limits).

The legacy of this approach to democratization persists to this day. The fascination with messianic opposition politicians — as opposed to deliberate attention to interest group politics and mechanisms of delivering on campaign promises — remains strong. Entrenched oppositionist politics also gets reflected in an enduring fear of wielding power — especially among progressives/activists who attach greater moral worth to critiquing governments rather than working in/with them.

Consequently, many of Africa’s democracies are treading on thin ice and remain structurally vulnerable to autocratization. While public opinion in in the region is decidedly pro-democracy, the example of Benin shows that would-be autocratizers can leverage electoral processes to their desired ends. In other words, elections are a poor means through which to protect democracy.

Moving forward, I would suggest a rethinking of the process of democratic consolidation across the region along the following lines.

1: Elections are a poor mechanism for building effective states. Democracies that do not deliver risk collapse. However, because of the associated short time horizons, elections create disincentives to invest in the capacity to delivery sustainably over time (just look at the fiscal situations in Ghana and Zambia). African democrats should therefore conceptualize the task of building effective states that can design and effectively implement good policies as parallel to the incentive scheme associated with elections.

To put it starkly, Mali, CAR, or Burkina Faso will not be able to simply elect their way to stability and security. Elections are not a mechanism for leapfrogging the arduous task of state-building.

2: Democracy works best if founded on material motivations to participate. As a legacy of the 1990s, the arguably elitist language of rights and constitutionalism dominates the discourse on democratization in African states — often at the expense of actually paying attention to voters’ material motivations to participate in politics.

Normative motivations for supporting democratic government are great. But they work better when pared with material incentives to support democracy. This is to say that African democrats should seek to showcase how democracy works to improve voters’ material conditions — by cultivating and mobilizing voters as members of specific interest groups (farmers, trade unions, professional associations, etc).

3: Believe in the promise of decentralization. Substantive decentralization — complete with fiscal and (some) policy autonomy — is terribly underrated. Proponents of centralization often argue that subnational governments may lack capacity to provide public goods and services. This position relies on a non-falsifiable claim. Without giving subnational governments the opportunity to learn (and yes, make mistakes), the claim that they would be weak and ineffective becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

Localized self-government is the best way to ensure that democratic processes and associated habits at closely tied to voters’ material conditions. It also allows for better accountability by abstracting the electoral exchange from the typically charged (i.e., presidential) politics.

4: Embrace the idea of developmentalist democracy. Poverty is a risk factor for democratic collapse. For purposes of survival and rhetorical messaging against autocracy, African democrats should not cede development to the so-called developmentalist benevolent dictators. Developmentalist democracy is possible through investments in policies that address voters’ material demands, deepen the economic foundations of democracy, and substantive local self-government.

IV: Conclusion

There is no denying that African states have experienced significant political development over the last 30 years. Many of the same states can be counted as democracies. However, merely institutionalizing politics and routinizing electoral processes is not enough. If the region’s democracies are to grow stronger, there is an urgent need to ensure that they deliver on voters’ demands. To this end, I would argue that African democrats should (1) invest in state-building to improve service delivery, (2) deepen the economic foundations of democracy, (3) champion decentralization (even in difficult contexts), and (4) embrace the idea of developmentalist democracy.

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