Struggle for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa
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Struggle for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa Tatu Vanhanen Department of Political Science, University of Helsinki, Suopolku 4D, 01800 Klaukkala, Finland. E-mail: [email protected]
This article seeks explanation for the success and failures of the process of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa. Point of departure is the idea that the distribution of power resources is crucial in this respect. The comparative analysis confirms this idea, both on the global level as for the sub-Saharan countries. The cross-national variation within Africa is discussed on the case-level, which allows to take other explanations like violence and ethnicity into account. Acta Politica (2004) 39, 207–247. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500066 Keywords: democratization; sub-Saharan Africa; measures of democracy; explanation of democratization; statistical analysis
Introduction Most of the 45 sub-Saharan African countries are not yet democracies, but it is remarkable that there is striving for democracy in practically all of them and that some countries have successfully crossed the threshold of democracy.1 The purpose of this paper is to seek explanation for the successes and failures of democracy in sub-Saharan Africa.2 How to explain the considerable variation in the level of democratization among African countries? Is there any common explanation? My central argument is that the evolutionary resource distribution theory of democratization used in my global studies provides a satisfactory explanation for the level of democratization in sub-Saharan Africa, too. Various theoretical explanations for democracy and democratization have been presented in research literature (see, for example, Dahl, 1971, 1989, 1998; Diamond et al., 1990; Arat, 1991; Hadenius, 1992; Rueschemeyer et al., 1992; Midlarsky, 1997; Diamond, 1999; Berg-Schlosser and Mitchell, 2000; Przeworski et al., 2000). I discuss these and some other theoretical explanations in my book (Vanhanen, 2003), which covers 170 contemporary countries. The space does not allow to review them in this connection. The problems of democracy in sub-Saharan Africa have been explored from different perspectives in many excellent recent studies (see, for example, Glickman, 1995c; Clark and Gardinier, 1997; Decalo, 1998; Chazan et al., 1999; Idehuru, 1999; Mbaku et al., 2001). I will refer to some of them in connection to single African countries.
Tatu Vanhanen Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa
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An Evolutionary Resource Distribution Theory of Democratization I have derived a causal explanation for democratization from a Darwinian interpretation of politics (see Vanhanen, 1997, 21–26; 2003, 25–31). Briefly stated, it is argued that the political struggle for power and scarce resources constitutes a forum of the general struggle for existence, which is explained by the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. The struggle for existence is inevitable and omnipresent in nature (see, for example, Dobzhansky et al., 1977, 86–99; Alexander, 1980, 15–22; Mayr, 1982, 479– 480; 1988, 215–232).
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