Africa’s Democratic Outliers: Benin, South Africa, and Beyond

• In Event: Democracy in Hard Places

Abstract

Sub-Saharan Africa arguably poses some of the most challenging conditions for democratic emergence, survival, and high quality practice. According to our existing theories, this is due to a number of structural conditions (low levels of economic development and industrialization; some pockets of natural resource extraction; low levels of state capacity related to colonial predation and post-colonial challenges in nation-building; multi-linguistic, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious populations). Yet the plurality of third wave democratization episodes occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and several of those remain vibrantly democratic – even increasing the quality of contestation and participation over time. Other standouts include those countries that established democracy at the moment of independence and maintained it for the decades since, such as Botswana and Mauritius. This paper will explore two most-different cases – South Africa and Benin – with highly diverse challenges and opportunities to explore the pathways through which elites and citizens alike established and maintained democracy against all odds. The paper will also offer a medium-n analysis of all African democracies using standard measures of state capacity, development, ethno-linguistic and religious fractionalization, etc to consider the regional trends in comparative analysis. In both South Africa and Benin, and across much of sub-Saharan Africa, the post-authoritarian orders are based on a set of negotiations over varied rules and resources among non-democrats. It is not democratic ideals that drive democratization, but strategic calculations among non-democrats that the bounded uncertainty democratic institutions offer can best ‘satisfice’ the competing interests of those who seek power and those who can no longer retain hegemonic control.
Sub-Saharan Africa arguably poses some of the most challenging conditions for democratic emergence, survival, and high quality practice. According to our existing theories, this is due to a number of structural conditions (low levels of economic development and industrialization; some pockets of natural resource extraction; low levels of state capacity related to colonial predation and post-colonial challenges in nation-building; multi-linguistic, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, and multi-religious populations). Yet the plurality of third wave democratization episodes occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, and several of those remain vibrantly democratic – even increasing the quality of contestation and participation over time. Other standouts include those countries that established democracy at the moment of independence and maintained it for the decades since, such as Botswana and Mauritius. This paper will explore two most-different cases – South Africa and Benin – with highly diverse challenges and opportunities to explore the pathways through which elites and citizens alike established and maintained democracy against all odds. The paper will also offer a medium-n analysis of all African democracies using standard measures of state capacity, development, ethno-linguistic and religious fractionalization, etc to consider the regional trends in comparative analysis. In both South Africa and Benin, and across much of sub-Saharan Africa, the post-authoritarian orders are based on a set of negotiations over varied rules and resources among non-democrats. It is not democratic ideals that drive democratization, but strategic calculations among non-democrats that the bounded uncertainty democratic institutions offer can best ‘satisfice’ the competing interests of those who seek power and those who can no longer retain hegemonic control."

Author

• Rachel Beatty Riedl, Cornell University