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Political rights versus public goods: uncovering the determinants of satisfaction with democracy in Africa
December 2007
Leonard Wantchekon and Gwendolyn Taylor
Afrobarometer
Somewhere between Aristotle and Churchill, global public opinion seemed to tend towards the idea that democracy is, in fact, the best form of government. New evidence provided by the Afrobarometer surveys show that most Africans agree. Afrobarometer survey results show widespread support for democracy as the superior form of government: 66% of respondents say that democracy is the preferable form of government, while only 12% of respondents would opt for a non-democratic system. These same survey results, however, show a wide range of levels of satisfaction with democracy. Though all 18 countries in the Afrobarometer are ostensibly democratic, over 35% of respondents reported that their country is either not a democracy at all or is a democracy with major problems. At minimum, this evidence indicates that expectations about democracy have not been met.
Public opinion polls like these should be taken seriously because expectations are vastly important in determining country-level outcomes. The expectations of the public about the management of government in their own country influence leader behavior. Bratton et al (2005) offer a striking comparison that highlights the significance of public expectations: in Namibia, where only 57% of the population claimed they would reject a system in which only the president retained political power, President Nujoma was able to push through constitutional reforms that allowed him to retain office for a third term. In Zambia, however, where 91% of the population said they would reject such as system, President Chiluba was unable to make a similar constitutional change.
This paper seeks to explain the divergence between preference for democracy and satisfaction with its outcome. We focus the way political fragmentation, a distinguishing characteristic of democratic regimes, interacts with different understandings of the meaning of democracy.
We consider two competing interpretations of democracy: intrinsic versus instrumental. In its traditional liberal sense, democracy is a system characterized by many normatively appealing characteristics like individual freedom, civil liberties and electoral competition. On the other hand, democracy is also thought by many citizens and academics alike to have instrumental value. In this context democracy is a mechanism leading to increased better provision of public goods and enhanced public services based on the incentive structure linking citizen approval with tenure in office.1 Political fractionalization can be both a blessing and a burden depending on one's point of view: a blessing for the liberalist, in that a highly fractionalized government means lively competition and intra-party negotiation, but a burden for the instrumentalist, in that fractionalization can lead to policy gridlock. As a result, in the presence of political fragmentation, divergent understandings of democracy lead to varying levels of satisfaction.
The representation of many parties in government means that many different political views have voices. In the case where the parties have relatively equal weight, each party has not only a presence but also potentially the power to veto and to force negotiations. Thus, for those who see democracy as a way to promote widespread participation and influence in government, fractionalization can seem quite positive.
These competition-enhancing attributes, however, can also have negative effects on the speed of policy formation. In a situation with multiple veto players, there is a higher probability that one party will take negotiations hostage in an effort to provide more for their constituency. Coalitions of evenly-matched parties can also find themselves in a prisoners' dilemma, in which everyone wants a compromise policy to pass, but would do better by abandoning the agreement in favor of providing more for their party members.2 The outcome of this incentive structure can be policy gridlock and distortion, excessive pork barrel politics and increased levels of corruption. For those citizens that see democracy an instrument for economic development, political fractionalization could be a cause for dissatisfaction with democracy.
Further, we investigate the determinants of a propensity to view democracy instrumentally versus instrumentally. Though it seems plausible that factors such as age, gender or wealth might contribute to one point of view over the other, we find that only education emerges as a significant covariate.
Footnotes:
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For a discussion of intrinsic versus instrumental purposes of democracy, see Sen 1999.
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See Roubini and Sachs 1989.
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