There is a raging debate today in political science and policy circles about the extent and depth of democratic backsliding across the globe. Arriola, Rakner, and van de Walle take up this important question with theoretical and empirical precision in the African context, offering a compelling answer and a counter-question: Why have most African countries not achieved greater political liberalization?
The editors, along with the chapter contributors, argue that there is no generalized trend of unidirectional democratic retreat in Africa today. Instead, varied and distinctive country trajectories point to high levels of ongoing contention around democratic rights, practices, inclusion, representation, and accountability. Just as many incumbents deploy tools of manipulation to maintain themselves in power, individual citizens, civil society groups, and political parties have sporadic and intense periods of contestation to mobilize for their rights and representation through accountable democratic governance.
In this way, the book underscores some of the core mechanisms highlighted in the new attention to democratic backsliding around the world: elected incumbents using the institutional levers of executive, legislative, judicial, and administrative control to limit contestation and participation through technically democratic—and potentially legitimating—processes. From Kenya’s constitutional bargaining to Zambia’s legal and legislative restrictions on opposition mobilization, the chapters demonstrate the processes through which elected political elites use institutions to maintain democratic stagnation or forms of competitive authoritarianism while they tilt the playing field and concentrate power.
At the same time, Arriola, Rakner, and van de Walle also emphasize that these mechanisms result in stagnation, rather than further autocratization, because of the significant, if sporadic, mobilization for democracy through civil society, electoral mobilization of opposition parties, and the electorate. Voters remain committed to democracy in theory and practice. Protests against autocratic overreach create constraints for greater executive aggrandizement and bolster judiciaries in some cases to overturn flawed elections, such as in Malawi. The significant contestation between would-be autocrats and those pushing for greater democratic reform leads to a kind of stasis, a stagnation of the democratic trajectory in Africa that is underpinned by continuing struggle.
When we compare the findings of the book to the global trends, we find that, empirically, Africa in aggregate has not experienced dramatic downturns in democracy rankings like in Hungary, Turkey, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and others that are driving the trendlines. As the authors make clear, this is in part a function of the starting point: democratic backsliding measures require the country to start clearly above a threshold of electoral democracy. Only a few countries across the continent have reliably been classified as such, and so the starting point matters when we are discussing the number of countries that are experiencing democratic backsliding. It is also true that even where autocratization has occurred in Africa over the last decade, the level of democratic decline has been attenuated. Autocratization has solidified several countries’ position as competitive authoritarian regimes, but they have not experienced the kind of extreme closing of political space and hard autocratization that we observe in Nicaragua or Hungary.
It is important not to lose sight of what the underlying and ongoing contestations between pro- and antidemocratic forces can tell us, even while they average out in aggregate to what appears to be a steady state. In this respect, the authors provide three key takeaways that accord with the broader emerging literature on democratic backsliding. First, the autocratizing political elite are generally institutionalists who use legal mechanisms to try to consolidate power and tilt the playing field.
Second, international factors weigh heavily in old and new ways. The traditional role of donors, political conditionalities, and international linkage is still apparent but is less significant in the current geopolitical context with the War on Terror and the emergence of China as a significant regional actor. Economic growth and the emergence of international remittances and foreign direct investment have decreased the macroeconomic dependence on donor aid and, therefore, donor leverage. The new twist on the international is that incumbents also use ideational resources and marshal sovereignty claims against external agents to defend themselves and stymie the opposition. Here again, the preexisting factors are leveraged in new ways as pro- and antidemocratic actors continue to evolve in their contestation strategies.
Third, African citizens continue to care about democracy, and voters and opposition parties mobilize around elections and protest points. Yet, resource constraints and the co-optation of civil society and leading elites have weakened democratic actors. The opposition has to work harder just to maintain ground in the face of incumbent institutionalized power concentration.
In sum, the book’s conclusions are inspiring and troubling, paralleling the ongoing forms of contestation. Democratization in Africa has stalled and often stagnated; incumbents have successfully honed tools to limit the further deepening of democracy but have not necessarily completely derailed pro-democracy actors. Across the continent, we see a great deal of struggle and ongoing contention: the fate of democracy may still be in citizens’ hands as they demand and practice it.
In memory of Nicolas van de Walle.
