Breaking BAD: Understanding the Backlash Against Democracy in Africa

The research project “Breaking Bad: Understanding Backlash Against Democracy in Africa” has come to an end. Over the past 4,5 years, in part stalled by a global pandemic, researchers from seven different countries and ten institutions have worked together on a myriad of projects connected through a common aim to better understand various and interconnected dimensions of Africa´s democratic trajectories since the early 1990s. The research group have jointly produced a book, Democratic Backsliding in Africa? Autocratization, Resilience, and Contention (edited Arriola, Rakner and van de Walle) that will appear (Open access) at Oxford University Press in November 2022 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/democratic-backsliding-in-africa-9780192867322 Each member of the research team has contributed to the book that summarizes the key findings of our multi-country and multi-methods research agenda. In addition to the book, the research group has published 20 peer-reviewed publications, including a special issue, and produced over 70 popular science contribution ranging from op-eds, policy briefs, pd-casts, lectures and panel debates. The research group has held a master course and a PhD course on the topic of democratic backsliding, two MA theses has been written as part of project in addition to a PhD. While few analyses have focused exclusively on Sub-Sahara Africa, recent scholarly accounts suggest that a broad trend of democratic backsliding is occurring across sub-Saharan Africa, as in other parts of the world. Our research has combined quantitative and qualitative data collection on a broad range of restrictions both within and across African states and within the six comparative country case studies. Overall, our research indicates no overall trend of democratic backsliding among African countries. We find instead that the region’s democratic experience over the past two decades reflects status quo politics, meaning neither substantial progress nor regression in advancing political and civil liberties since the initial transitions of the early 1990s. This seeming stagnation in African democratization belies ongoing efforts by incumbent leaders to actively undermine key actors (e.g., civil society) or structural conditions (e.g., growing urbanization) that might otherwise have led to greater liberalization. Africa’s incumbent leaders have sought to contain democratizing pressures through the use of legal institutions and manipulation of international relationships. Political elites have relied on the law and courts to curtail the ability of domestic actors to mobilize against them. At the same time, African incumbent leaders have been able to manipulate their international relationships to neutralize the democratizing influence of external actors such as foreign donors and transnational civil society. Yet, the verdict over Africa´s democratic backsliding and autocratization is not uniform. Important judicial decision to annul elections not deemed of sufficient quality such as Malawi 2021 and Kenya 2019 are important markers of enhanced horizontal accountability linked to electoral policies. A key finding resulting from our research is that it is not democracy per se, but the liberal aspects of democracy that are challenged by incumbent political elites. The driving force for political change in Africa today is an increasingly restive population and the resulting rise in contentious politics. Africans are increasingly urbanized, educated, and globalized; perhaps as a result, they have developed more critical and demanding attitudes toward their governments. Political participation has increased significantly since the onset of multiparty elections in the early 1990s, with the number of civic associations and interest groups in constant growth. We also see that even when the electoral playing field is tilted heavily in favor of incumbents, elections do retain the potential to change the political equilibrium. Yet, as indicated by the cross-national democracy indices and data collected for the research project, overall, the powers of executives have remained high and unchallenged. Arguably, what we are witnessing in Africa is less of a democratic backsliding and more of a liberal deficit. Across our cases, we witness political elites that are content to use the electoral mechanism to gain access to power, but thereafter resist restrains to that power. The job is left for civil society to address this deficit to hold political authorities accountable. It is in this aspect of democracy- the liberal component- that we witness key challenges to ongoing democratization.

The research project “Breaking Bad: Understanding Backlash Against Democracy in Africa” is one of the first research projects to empirically investigate the nature and extent of democratic backsliding on the African continent. Partially stalled and delayed by a global pandemic, researchers from seven different countries and institutions have worked together to gain new empirical and theoretical perspectives on African democratic trajectories since the early 1990s. The research group has collected quantitative and qualitative data on a broad range of restrictions both within and across African states with five comparative country case studies that have permitted in-depth process tracing. The research group of have jointly produced a book Democratic Backsliding in Africa? Autocratization, Resilience, and Contention (edited Arriola, Rakner and van de Walle) that will appear (Open access) at Oxford University Press in November 2022. . In addition to the book, the research group has published 15 peer-reviewed publications, including a special issue, and more than 70 written and oral public dissemination events (blogpost, journal articles, newspaper op-eds, interviews and pod casts). The research group created a project website https://www.democraticbacklash.com/ where field reports, published materials, blog posts and datasets on restrictions on NGO rights have been published. Throughout the project period (including digitally during the pandemic) the research group members have actively participation in public debates, pod casts, debates and in written contributions to non-scientific outlets. The project group has disseminated its findings at numerous international conferences and symposiums. We have organized project panels at seven international conferences (APSA (3), African Studies Association (3), International Political Science Association (1), European Consortium of Political Research (1), Nordic Political Science Association (1)). The panels have included participants from African research institutions as well as PhD and post-doctoral candidates. We have organized three scientific workshops and conferences one in Ghana, two in Bergen.

African countries are clamping down on democracy, adopting legal restrictions on key civil and political rights that form the basis of democratic rule, including freedoms of association, speech, and information; the ability to choose political leaders; rule of law with recourse to independent courts; and rights and freedoms related to reproduction and family life, gender equality, sexual orientation and gender identity. Domestically, the restrictions privilege some social groups at the expense of other groups, increasing social and economic inequalities and contributing to social unrest and outward migration. Internationally, the African democratic backlash challenges global actors who have pressured developing countries to politically liberalize in the post-Cold War period. Yet, we have insufficient understanding of why this democratic backlash is happening, what the implications are, and which responses are effective under different conditions. The proposed research project aims to fill this gap by using a novel mixed-method approach combining the creation of cross-national datasets on a broad range of restrictions across African states, with detailed, comparative case studies utilizing survey and field experiments, focus groups and key-informant interviews. Five core country case studies will be examined: Ethiopia, Malawi Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The selected country cases vary along two key dimensions: The level of international leverage and electoral uncertainty. The in-depth country case studies permit process tracing of our main areas of inquiry over time and space across four foundational rights: participation, contestation, gender, and judicial rights. We explore linkages between the various restrictions and scrutinize the logic of their adoption, analyse variations in how these restrictions are implemented and with what effects; and provide an in-depth assessment of the response strategies that affected actors have used to resist the backlash