This week we looked at democracy and development politics. In this blog I will consider what it means to be democratic, and how democracy and development are linked – a great ‘chicken and egg’ question! I will also look at African democracies as examples of the complexity of democratic ideals versus the reality of political application before drawing some conclusions.
What does it mean to be democratic?
One of my earliest life memories is an election. The Prime Minister had been sacked by the Governor General; the furore that accompanied that event and the subsequent election imprinted the importance of politics and voting into my impressionable young brain! I grew up with the notion that, as a citizen, it was my civic duty to engage with the democratic process, and, although I may have been variously bemused or angered by the political parties and their politicking, I did engage (and anyway, I got fined if I didn’t… Australia enforces compulsory voting!). It was only as I began to travel and come to some understanding of how other countries were governed that I realised what a treasure Australia’s system and the way of life it enabled really was. However, if you asked me what democracy was, I would have responded that it is principally a political electoral process. For me this would include regular competitive and fair elections between multiple parties or independents, access to information about what the candidates stand for and what they are seeking a mandate to do once in power, the right to vote (full adult suffrage), the right to run for office, freedom of expression, freedom of association and so on. I.e. It would be my opportunity to participate in the direct political process, in whatever capacity I chose, in order to make decisions about the ongoing creation and development of our society. Other institutions and freedoms foundational to Australian society I would have considered part of government (or protected by the law and civil society) – enabled by rather than democracy per se. These would include things such as the Australian constitution, separation of legislative, executive and judicial powers to three separate branches of government, the ‘public service’, rule of law and equality of all before the law, civil rights and human rights. I have now discovered that my understanding of democracy would be considered a ‘thin’ definition (or procedural), and a ‘thick’ definition of democracy (performance-based) would also include a range of other institutions and freedoms (like the ones I mentioned above), with the ‘thickness’ of the democracy depending on what is included.
I was very interested to explore these various thin and thick definitions of democracy through a number of publically reported democratic indices (all based in the global North). The one with the ’thinnest’ definition is Polity IV (American). It ranks democracy by considering election competitiveness, openness and level of participation. Freedom House (American) measures democratic freedom along two broad axes – political rights (including electoral process, political pluralism and participation, and functioning of government) and civil liberties (including freedom of expression and belief, associational and organisational rights, rule of law and personal autonomy and individual rights). The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) (British) expanded their definition beyond Freedom House’s political rights and civil liberties into three more areas they believe to be critical to sustainable democracy – functioning of government, political participation and political culture. The differences in classification and ranking by these indices can be stark. For example, a comparator table in Wikipedia included The Freedom House and EIU indices above, along with two others – the Index of Economic Freedom published by the Wall Street Journal and Heritage Foundation, and the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders. Argentina was variously ‘free’, ‘flawed’, ‘repressed’ and ‘satisfactory’ – hardly consistent! However, for the purpose of collecting views and creating data that can be analysed, these are helpful, even if they do generate a storm of debate once an interested group like our cohort starts delving into the underlying questions. Some of the points I found particularly enlightening included: Is it important that there is a universal right to vote if (say) only 70% of people exercise their right to vote? History and culture are not taken into account – are there good proxies for those? Is the government secular or openly religious? Are the parties ethnically-based? There is free media in my country – but only in English (the local-language press is far more propagandist) – does that count? Why is a ‘belief that democracy benefits economic performance’ included? It is good that Sovereignty is included – what use is having participation if the real power is being pushed in from abroad? There should be measures of inequality or human development index. This only looks at national level – how to measure democracy at the level people mostly engage with it? I found these great questions rounded out not only issues related to enabling democratic participation processes, but also the type of government, society and economy – development – the political systems enable. So, how are these two things related and is there any particular direction of causality?
Democracy and Development – is there any causal relationship?
The discussion below largely draws on ideas from articles by Menocal (2007) and Carothers (2007).
In my example above, democracy definitely plays a strong and ongoing role in the development of Australia. However, that is in a country with a long history of democracy (of some form) and high levels of development – but it is hard to know whether one actually ‘caused’ the other. This question is of great interest, as if there is a causal relationship, an astute country may be able to develop faster, including the development of democratic institutions. The Modernisation Theory of development is a useful frame of reference here as it is possible to compare empirical results to the theory, which predicts a ‘linear’ path between societal transformation, economic development and political development, with democracy as the crowning achievement. However the ‘third wave’ of democracy, which has swept through the developing world since the 1980s, challenged those assumptions; many of the countries involved had societal and cultural attributes at odds with modernisation, and most were in the bottom third of the human development index. Scholars arguing that authoritarianism is best suited to kick-start development assert that, free from the messy, unpredictable and time consuming democratic decision-making process, autocratic regimes can make rapid development progress… witness the speed at which the Egyptian constitution was re-written by the president when he temporarily suspended democracy for autocracy just for that purpose last year! However, despite a few high-profile exceptions eg. the ‘East Asian Tigers’, autocrats generally deliver poor outcomes for economic development, rule-of-law, state-building and for other freedoms. Their priorities tend to be elsewhere. Carothers calls these sequencing assumptions adopted by democratic and authoritarian advocates ‘fallacies’. There is just too much variability of experience to be able to define a ‘one size fits all’ development path. The upshot of all this is that there is no conclusive evidence of a causal relationship between democracy and development in either direction, nor for that matter is there conclusive evidence of a causal relationship for autocracy and development in either direction. What is agreed is that the determination (or political will) of the state is what usually leads to development success. Research has also found no structural preconditions necessary for the emergence of democracy, such as rule of law or economic development. So where does this leave us?
People tend to want democracy. Many or even most of the states transitioning to democracy have done so because the people demanded it. The large shift throughout the developing world shows that there is a case for democracy as a system with intrinsic value in and of itself. However, one thing clear from experience is that both democracy and development need a strong state to underpin them. Most developing countries are emphatically not in this position. They need to build both at the same time – a tough ask. The challenge for these countries (and for the donor community in support of them) is to manage expectations about what can be delivered from a development perspective in the short-term whilst continuing to build the necessary political culture and institutions towards democracy. In contrast to sequencing, Carothers proposes a ‘democratic gradualism’. Here a country is clear regarding some simple goals eg. end of monopoly rule of power. Steps and strategies are adopted so citizens and elites can engage in iterative and cumulative ways to agree on the future ‘rules of the game’, develop trust, and learn how to peacefully negotiate. This could include activities such as allowing political advocacy by civil society organisations, permitting political associations apart from the ruling party, local elections and nurturing independent media. There is certainly a risk that autocrats will simply use this as a ruse to retain power by promising change but not delivering it. However, if citizens can see that there is clarity on the goal and is confident that the delay in commencing democratic process is time-limited and purposeful, they are likely to support it, as should the international community. I am inclined to believe that this is a more sustainable approach than rushing into elections and finding that the outcomes deliver little change from the past.
Case Study
It is always useful to look at case studies to illustrate issues and complexities. In 2011 The Economist published a fairly upbeat article about democratic progress across the countries of Africa. It noted that between 1960 and 1991 there was only one peaceful democratic transfer of power across 53 African countries, but that in the twenty years since 1991 there were more than thirty. Yet despite undoubted progress, there are still many instances of repression and some democratic gains are even losing ground. Lockwood, in a 2006 book about Africa and poverty, describes the roots to Africa’s unique form of politics. The colonial systems were classic ‘divide and conquer’. Colonial masters used tribal leaders to control ‘native’ populations via a mix of customary law, ethnic identity, coercion and patronage. Nationalist movements began in the urban areas where the actual lack of civil rights for Africans was most visible. When de-colonialism occurred, it happened in a rush – months and years rather than decades – and political parties and loose coalitions were rapidly assembled for the purposes of looming elections. The personality and patronage systems that had worked so well for indirect rule were used to both mobilise the new electorates and to bind people to candidates and parties. This continued at the state level, but with the president and small groups of elites having access to the very resources of the state to consolidate their power! Two types of state emerged. Neither created robust formal institutions, and neither delivered positive results for the majority. One was very centralised and bureaucratic and accountable only to the president. In this form patronage was centralised to the president and the state became quite stable, with large bureaucracies staffed through favour appointments. Examples included Kenya, Tanzania, Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire. In the other, a ‘spoils politics’ emerged with personal rule and patronage continuing in a decentralised, but ‘winner-takes-all’, way. This became very unstable as intense political competition resulted in looting, violence and extreme corruption. Examples included Nigeria, Uganda, Chad and Somalia. The advent of multi-party elections in the 1990s had little impact on these systems. The power of the president remained paramount, and patronage continued in the manner it always had – in some cases even strengthening long-dominant parties.
Conclusions
Even though countries in Africa are having elections, I struggle to accept much of this as democracy. Many aspects, even by the ‘thin’ definition, are patently not being delivered. Rather it is being used to ‘legitimate’ many repressive and coercive regimes. So is it worth it? I find the notion of democracy as a system with intrinsic value in and of itself very appealing so think, probably yes. Yet I am concerned with how people – and nations – actually hear the term democracy in the global discourse. Democracy as ‘free and fair elections’ will not enable sustainable developmental change without the state having a serious wider commitment to development for the benefit of all of the people. I would thus prefer to see mature democracies promote democracy as much more than elections. This should include encouraging space for debate between leaders and people to create a vision for the future, and to synthesise how democratic process and institutions can work in their country. Finally, gaining some experience before moving to a full formal electoral process would be valuable. The role of the international community in encouraging democratic transition in many of these incredibly fragile and complex contexts should be handled with great care.
References
Carothers, T. (2007) How Democracies Emerge: The Sequencing Fallacy. Journal of Democracy, 18(1):12-27
Collier, D. and Levitsky, S. (1997) Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research. World Politics, 49(3):430-451
Freedom House http://www.freedomhouse.org/report-types/freedom-world accessed 24 April 2013
Hewitt, T. (2013), Development Politics – 2013 Module Handbook, Birmingham: University of Birmingham
Lockwood, M. (2006), The state they’re in: An agenda for international action on poverty in Africa, 2nd. Ed. Rugby: Intermediate Technology Publications Ltd. Chapter 6 “Politics in Africa”.
Marshall, M., Polity IV Project: Political Regime Characteristics and Transitions, 1800-2011 http://www.systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm accessed 24 April 2013
Menocal, A.R. (2007) Analysing the relationship between democracy and development: Defining basic concepts and assessing key linkages, Wilton Park Conference on Democracy and Development, Wilton Park
Mueller, T. (2008) The Political Economy of Kenya’s Crisis, Journal of Eastern African Studies, 2(2):185-210
Spagnoli, F. blog http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/category/measuring-democracy/ accessed 24 April 2013
The Economist, Democracy in sub-Sarahan Africa: It’s progress, even if it’s patchy (1 Oct 2011) http://www.economist.com/node/21531010
The Economist, Democracy Index 2011
Wikipedia, List of Freedom Indices, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_freedom_indices accessed 6 May 2013
Zakaria, F. (1997) The Rise of Illiberal Democracy. Foreign Affairs, 76(6)22:43
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