Is Democracy Eluding Sub-Saharan Africa?

2014

This paper analyses the modernisation hypothesis in the sub-Saharan African region. Using a sample of 48 countries from 1960 to 2010 and dynamic panel data analysis, we find a significant and negative relationship between income and democracy, an indication that the hypothesis may not hold in the region. We also investigate further by distinguishing between exogenous and endogenous democracy. The former explains whether external factors, such as the end of the Cold War, as well as regional influence, play a role in the process of democratisation in sub-Saharan Africa. Results indicate that the end of the Cold War has a significant influence on the democratisation process probably because of the pro-democracy policies advocated by international organisations, while regional organisations play no significant role in the region. We also obtain significant results for democracy when we proxy for international organisations with an IMF programme variable.

The Social Science Journal, 2018

Previous empirical literature focuses on income per capita as a measure for economic development. Using Lipset's modernization hypothesis as our theoretical framework, we contend that this measure does not capture the fundamental quality of economic development and as such may disadvantage low income regions when conducting empirical analysis. Our initial results using income per capita highlight this, showing a negative relationship between income per capita and democracy for sub-Saharan Africa between 1960 and 2010. However when we create a composite measure for economic development by employing the principle component analysis on the indicators that are suggested by Lipset, we obtain positive and significant results for democracy. This evidence suggests that we need to be wary of income per capita as a measure for economic development as the two are not synonymous. Income per capita may not capture other factors that also encompass development in a country.

Current Research Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities

This research project addresses the question of whether democracy would be better than any other political systems to promote development. It attempts to find out whether democracy and democratization have led to a better economic performance in democratic and democratizing countries in Africa. Using data on development from the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in combination with data on regime characteristics from the Polity IV Project and Freedom House, this research project finds that democracy has weak statistical correlations with development, as indicated by the Human Development Index (HDI) and the gross national income (GNI) per capita of the fifty and so African countries since the end of the Cold War. Nevertheless, this study also finds that democratizing countries seem to have better economic performances than the other African countries.

This study aimed to clarify the relationship which exists between democracy and economic development within Sub-Saharan Africa. It strived to bring out a comprehensive analysis of the reasons why the pace of democratization is slow within this region and why until present date, there are just patches of real democracies there. The work also focuses on the reasons why despite democratic movements, economic growth rates have remained lagging behind average until of recent that, and some few countries have emerged to join the list of fastest growing economies in the world. The study further highlights the unique path of Sub-Saharan Africa democratization process should follow since it does not possess the various factors that favored the democratization processes of most developed countries. In order to obtain the objectives, previous studies and statistical data published by official institutes were analysed by using contents analysis methods. Lastly, it proceeds to explain the important role that democracy plays in inclusive economic growth.

Forum for Social Economics, 2011

Official donor policy towards Africa seems to be informed by the twin requirements of alleviating poverty on the one hand and ensuring respect for human rights and democratization on the other. In practice, when these interests conflict, as they usually do in Africa, donors tend to choose to continue supporting dictatorships, arguing that economic development will eventually lead to democratization. This paper argues that this faulty reasoning is a product of modernization theory that has had undue influence in western policy circles. Based on a broad survey of the literature, the paper shows that there is no theoretical or empirical basis for the claim that authoritarian regimes would provide better economic performance than democracies in general and particularly in Africa. Furthermore, available evidence suggests that the lack of democratization (defined broadly to include the substance of democracy such as government accountability and basic freedoms in addition to meaningful democratic elections) is a key constraint on economic and social development in Africa. Finally, the paper argues that even when the empirical case to establish a definite causal relationship between democratization and development cannot be ascertained, a very strong case can be made for prioritizing democratization for the long term societal transformation of the continent.

Economic Modelling, 2011

This paper examines the relationship between democracy and economic growth in 30 Sub-Saharan African countries. As our proxy for democracy we first use the democracy index constructed by Freedom House and then check the sensitivity of our findings using, as an alternative proxy for democracy, the Legislative Index of Electoral Competitiveness (LIEC). We find support for the Lipset hypothesis -in the long run, real GDP Granger causes democracy and an increase in GDP results in an improvement in democracy -in Botswana and Niger with both datasets, for Chad with the Freedom House data only and for Cote d'Ivoire and Gabon with the LIEC data only. Support for the compatibility hypothesis -in the long run democracy Granger causes real income and an increase in democracy has a positive effect on real income -is found for Botswana with the Freedom House data and for Madagascar, Rwanda, South Africa and Swaziland with the LIEC data. Support for the conflict hypothesis -in the long run democracy Granger causes real income and an increase in democracy has a negative effect on real income -is found for Gabon with the Freedom House data and Sierra Leone with the LIEC data. § We thank Rob Brooks, Dietrich Fausten, Fang-Fah Lam, Ingrid Nielsen for several helpful suggestions on earlier versions of this paper which have improved the content and presentation. We also thank Jade Bilardi for research assistance.

Empirical Economics, 2012

This paper studies the link between democracy and economic development for 28 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa for the period 1980-2005 in a panel data framework. A democracy index constructed from the Freedom House indices. A variety of panel data unit root and cointegration tests are applied. The variables are found to be integrated of order one and cointegrated. The Blundell-Bond system generalized methods-of-moments is employed to conduct a panel error-correction mechanism based causality test within a vector autoregressive structure. Economic growth is found to cause democracy in the short-run, while bidirectionality is uncovered in the long-run. In addition, the long-run coefficients are estimated through the panel fully modified ordinary least squares and dynamic ordinary least squares methods. Democracy has a positive impact on GDP and vice versa. These results lend support to the virtuous cycle hypothesis.

debate further, recent research suggests that democracy has only an indirect positive effect on economic growth because it increases levels of human capital and quality of life~see Emizet, 2000!.

2017

This article investigates the relationship between democracy and economic growth in five Anglophone West African countries using annual data from 1970 to 2014 and dynamic panel data estimation techniques which control for endogeneity, heteroscedasticity and spatial effects. The findings for the full sample estimation show a negative relationship between democracy and economic growth, however country specific differences apply. Consistent with the sceptical view we conclude that several other factors influence the ability of countries to grow, besides which political regime is in place. These factors among others are capital investments, human capital development, a productive labour force and technological progress.

CEFAGE-UE Working Papers, 2008

In the middle of the twentieth century S.M. Lipset sustained that various indicators of economic development were higher in democratic countries than in authoritarian ones, suggesting that development was as a condition to democracy. More recently, though, several authors have shown that there is no strong empirical evidence confirming development as a condition to democracy, suggesting in turn that the economic is not as important in democratization as it seemed in the 1950s. Despite this fact, there are some clues that indicate that economic factors do play an important role in democratization, but in a way different than that proposed by Lipset. In this article a revision of literature on some economic obstacles to democratization in Africa is carried out, its main conclusion being that underdevelopment decisively contributes to the difficulties many African countries experience in democratizing. One should not mistake underdevelopment with undevelopment though, the latter being the mere absence or delay in development and the former a specific supporting role given to developing countries within the global development process. The article's general conclusion, therefore, is that democratic development is not a question of getting richer, i.e. intensifying the development model, as much as of reforming this same model.