Does Africa Need Democracy? Posted by Michael Cohen

In this weekend's Boston Globe, Joshua Kurlantzick has an interesting piece on the turn away from democracy in a number of African nations - and the corrupting influences that are undermining democratic transitions.

With a few exceptions, like Botswana and South Africa, most of these countries have failed to create truly inclusive or stable democracies. Instead, they have created systems in which leaders, representing one ethnic group or religious group, win elections and then use their time in office to enrich only their tribe or religious cohort. These divisions, exacerbated by elections, make some newer democracies more conflict-prone than old-fashioned autocracies.

It's hard to disagree with Kurlantzick's point except to note that the democratic process is rarely easy and tidy or necessarily follows a linear path. But what is somewhat troubling about Kurlantzick's piece is his solution to the problem:

The rise of failed democracies also provides a lesson for Western leaders, and their democracy-promotion outfits, who thought they had the formula right. Holding elections is not enough; and, though it might be heresy to suggest it, sometimes a strong, unelected leader may prove more effective in the short term.

While Kurlantzick is right to attack the slavish devotion of some policymakers to elections,  he is wrong to lump democracy promotion groups in with this mindset. Indeed, if there is one recurring thought in almost all democracy promotion literature it is the argument that too much focus is put on elections and not enough on the promotion of civil society. For all the criticisms one might make of the Bush Freedom Agenda -- and its own occasionally slavish focus on elections -- their support for the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Middle East Partnership Initiative -- has been a welcome addition to the democracy promotion toolbox because of its attention to institution building in emerging democracies.

In fact, Kurlantzick oddly makes this claim:

For some democracy-promotion organizations, this will mean broadening their work, to include promoting inter-ethnic dialogue and supporting other aspects of democracy, like free media, so that they are not relying on polls alone to bring societies together.

No kidding. But this is precisely what most democracy promotion groups are doing on a regular basis.

But the real beef I have here is with the notion that a strong unelected leader might be beneficial in the short-term. In fact, most evidence in sub-Saharan Africa suggests otherwise. Most bizarrely Kurlantzick points to Rwandan President Paul Kagame as the sort of unelected leader who has brought real change to Africa. One would imagine that there are quite a few folks in Eastern Congo who would argue that his country's military forays into the region prove otherwise.

While noting some of Kagame's flaws, Kurlantzick actually highlights this astounding quote:

Kagame is not without flaws. . . But before him, says Mauro de Lorenzo, an Africa expert at the American Enterprise Institute, Rwanda faced disaster. "Look carefully at what happened in Rwanda, Zaire, and Burundi, 1990 to 1994," he says. "In each case, the rapid imposition, from outside, of the structures and mechanisms of multiparty democracy leads directly to the unprecedented cataclysm that subsequently engulfed each place. People here [in America] forget or never knew; those who lived through it learned some lasting lessons."

This is simply beyond bizarre. To blame multi-party democracy directly for the problems in these countries is not only wrong, it's borderline perverse. Indeed, this is the sort of language adopted by unelected leaders to explain away their own, undemocratic practices.

Kurlantzick's heart is in the right place here - he sees quite properly the problems in focusing on elections versus larger institution building. But this is not a zero sum game. To ensure democratic viability and, most important, accountability from elected leaders, there must be in place some sort of democratic competition. To assume the best intentions of unelected leaders is a surefire recipe for continued undemocratic rule.  Finding the right mix and the right political timing for elections is frequently tricky, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater and make the turn toward endorsing autocratic rule.

The response to Africa's democratic u-turn is not to make elections the end-all, be-all, but instead to continue the focus of America's democracy promotion on strengthening civil society and nascent democratic institutions while never losing sight of the importance of elections in clarifying and legitimizing democratic transitions.

Comments

[Zathras]

Is it not fair, then, to say of all the democracy promotion groups that are not entirely focused on elections, but are instead properly sponsoring development of civil society and the other supposed foundations of democracy, that they are failing miserably in Africa?

I'm not suggesting an alternative policy. I'm just asking. Is the conclusion to be drawn from the withdrawal from democratic practice in several African states that democracy promotion efforts by Western governments and non-profits are still necessary and require only more time? That they are still necessary and require redoubled effort? That they have failed and should be reevaluated? Or that there is no way they can work, at least not now, in many African countries?

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I think a realist who, against the background of the political situation in Africa today, contemplates the prospects for democracy, would not find very much that would raise fresh hope for humanity. Such hope would need to be firmly founded on faith: faith is the strength, the appeal and the universality of the values of democracy.