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Abstract
Do Africans tend to view democracy in more procedural or more substantive terms? This article argues that African endorsements of liberal and procedural understandings are not as pervasive as much of the literature on democratization suggests. Drawing upon Afrobarometer survey results as well as extensive fieldwork and interviews conducted over the past decade in South Africa, it demonstrates both the historical development and significance of these definitional understandings. By employing a substantive approach and thereby bringing questions of poverty and material inequality to the centre of the analysis, this article seeks to offer a perspective on democratization that helps to explain many of the challenges to the institutionalization of democratic regimes that procedural understandings fail to capture.
Notes
Bratton and Cho, ‘Where is Africa Going?’, 14 (original emphasis).
Ake, ‘Unique Case of African Democracy’, 244.
O'Donnell and Schmitter, Transitions for Authoritarian Rule.
Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition; Dalton, Shin, and Jou, ‘Understanding Democracy’. See also Morlino, ‘What is a “Good” Democracy?’.
Collier and Levitsky, Democracy with Adjectives; Storm, ‘An Elemental Definition of Democracy’.
The first round, 1999–2001, included the following countries: Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. The fourth round completed in all but one country (Zimbabwe) by the end of 2008 also includes: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique and Senegal. (The data for this last round are not yet publicly available, but only include two more countries than the previous round of surveys conducted in 2005.)
The term ‘civic’ became a brand name for African National Congress-aligned community organizations that were first created under apartheid. While civics have become considerably weaker, they have continued into the post-apartheid period. Civics are, however, quite distinct from the social movements that were formed after the end of apartheid. Civics define themselves as community organizations that address a wide range of community needs and often attempted to mirror the wide range of tasks addressed by the various departments of government. Most post-apartheid social movements are narrower in their scope and are therefore often derided by civic supporters as ‘single issue movements’.
Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion, 69–70.
Ibid., 87.
Ibid., 275.
Bratton, ‘Poor People and Democratic Citizenship’, 19.
Bratton and Cho, ‘Where is Africa Going?’, 16–17, 19.
Bratton, ‘Poor People and Democratic Citizenship’, 17.
Bratton, Mattes, and Gyimah-Boadi, Public Opinion, 124; Bratton and Cho, ‘Where is Africa Going?’,12.
Procedural understandings of democracy allow for thin definitions; substantive understandings require thicker definitions.
Scott, Seeing Like a State, 320.
Ferguson, Global Shadows.
Freedom House, ‘Freedom in the World Country Ratings’ and ‘Freedom in the World: Methodology’.
United Nations estimates cited in News24.com, ‘UN Slams Zim Government’, July 22, 2005. Operation Murambatsvina was part of a larger campaign of terror against perceived opposition supporters and the communities in which they lived.
Dong'Aroga, ‘The Idea of Democracy’.
Scott, Seeing Like a State, 313–16.
Ayana, ‘Anchoring Democracy’.
Ake, ‘Unique Case of African Democracy’, 240.
Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa, 133.
Ekeh, ‘The Concept of Second Liberation’.
Osaghae, ‘The State of Africa's Second Liberation’.
Nzongola-Ntalaja as quoted in ibid., 5.
Osaghae, ‘The State of Africa's Second Liberation’, 4.
Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth; Okere, Njoku, and Devisch, ‘All Knowledge’.
Mamdani, Citizen and Subject.
Bratton and Mattes, ‘Support for Democracy in Africa’, 454–5.
Chipkin, ‘The South African Nation’; Salazar, An African Athens.
Congress of the People [South Africa], ‘The Freedom Charter’.
For an overview of the civics, see Heller and Ntlokonkulu, ‘A Civic Movement’; Zuern, ‘Continuity in Contradiction?’.
On democratization, see Botha, ‘Civic Associations as Autonomous Organs’; Swilling, ‘Socialism, Democracy and Civil Society’. On liberation and revolution, see Shubane, ‘Civil Society’; Friedman, ‘Bonaparte at the Barricades’.
Steinberg, ‘Indunas, Ex-Marxists and Liberalism’, 9; see also Mayekiso, Township Politics.
Pule Buthelezi, author interview, Pretoria, South Africa, July 22, 1997.
‘We are struggling to build a future SA in which the broad working masses of our country have a real control over their lives. This means control over all aspects of their lives – from national policy to housing, schooling and working conditions. This, for us, is the essence of democracy’. See ‘Democracy’, Isizwe (South Africa), March 1987, 21.
Nzimande and Sikhosana, ‘Civics’.
Zuern, ‘Fighting for Democracy’; Zuern, ‘Elusive Boundaries’; Zuern, ‘The Contentious Poor’.
Looking at the Anti-Privatization Forum, discussed here, Sakhela Buhlungu found that while ordinary residents might not support activists' more radical political goals such as the destruction of capitalism, their support for the movement did indicate support for the broader aims of the movement as voiced by its leaders. Buhlungu, ‘Upstarts or Bearers of Tradition?’.
Anonymous civic member, author interview, New Brighton, South Africa, January 22, 2001.
See Taylor and Mattes, ‘Public Evaluations’; Mattes, Davids, and Africa, ‘Views of Democracy’; Afrobarometer, ‘South Africans’ Ratings'.
Anonymous Soweto independent civic activists, author interview, Soweto, South Africa, January 16, 2001.
Treatment Action Campaign, ‘TAC Civil Disobedience Campaign – 20 March 2003’; Rukia Cornelius, author interview, TAC office, Muizenberg, South Africa, July 17, 2003.
Trevor Ngwane, author interview, Soweto, South Africa, August 8, 2006.
Mangcu, ‘Citizens and Democracy’.
Bratton and Cho, ‘Where is Africa Going?’, 36.
Bond, ‘Neoliberal urban policy’.
Unemployment remains the key concern of most South African citizens, regardless of race. Afrobarometer, ‘The Public Briefing’.
African National Congress, ‘Consolidated Report’; Marwala, ‘The Anatomy of Capital; Butler, ‘State of the African National Congress’.
Republic of South Africa, Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 108 of 1996, Chap. 2, Sec. 7.1.
Thipanyane, ‘Human Dignity and Democracy’, 240.
Calland and Graham, ‘Debate and Democracy’, 9.
Ibid.
Calland and Graham, Democracy in the Time of Mbeki.
De Tocqueville, Democracy in America; Dahl, Who Governs?.
Sen, ‘Conceptualizing and Measuring Poverty’, 35.
Nussbaum, ‘Poverty and Human Functioning’, 54.
Bratton and Lewis, ‘Durability of Political Goods?’, 31.