Public Opinion, Democracy, and Market Reform in Africa

Abstract

This book is a fascinating exploration of public opinion in sub-Saharan Africa. Based on the Afrobarometer, a comprehensive cross-national survey research project, it reveals what ordinary Africans think about democracy and market reform, subjects on which almost nothing is otherwise known. The authors find that support for democracy in Africa is wide but shallow and that Africans feel trapped between state and market. Beyond multiparty elections, people want clean and accountable government. They will accept economic structural adjustment only if it is accompanied by an effective state, the availability of jobs, and an equitable society. What are the origins of these attitudes? Far from being constrained by social structure and cultural values, Africans learn about reform on the basis of knowledge, reasoning, and experience. Weighing supply and demand for reform, the authors reach cautious conclusions about the varying prospects of African countries for attaining fully-fledged democracy and markets.0

The ‘Born Frees’: The Prospects for Generational Change in Post‐apartheidSouth Africa

“…Here we do have extensive social scientific evidence, and virtually all of it agrees that South Africans --of all races --pay minimal lip service to the idea of democracy, and that significant minorities would be willing to countenance one party rule or strong man dictatorship especially if these regimes would promise economic development (or may simply believe erringly that those regimes are consistent with democracy) (Mattes and Thiel 1998;Mattes 2001;Bratton and Mattes 2001;Bratton, Mattes & Gyimah-Boadi 2005;Mattes & Bratton 2007). South Africans also display high levels of intolerance of political difference (Gibson & Gouws 2003) and the highest levels of xenophobia measured anywhere in the world (Mattes, Taylor, McDonald, Poore & Richmond 1999).…”

“…Commitment to democracy is a multi-item construct consisting of respondents" answers to the widely used survey question on support for democracy ("democracy is always best") and rejection of three forms of nondemocratic alternatives: military rule, one-party rule, and presidential dictatorship (see Bratton, Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi 2005). The result can be expressed either as the percentage of respondents who support democracy and reject all three non democratic alternatives (Figure 9), or as a mean score on a five point index that runs from 0-4 ( Figure 10).…”

“…Finally, we take note of two findings about formal education. First, in contrast to the rest of sub-Saharan Africa where formal education (at least up to high school) makes a substantial contribution to support for democracy (Bratton, Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi 2005;Mattes and Bratton 2007;Mattes and Mughogho 2010), education has no significant impact across the South African population. This is understandable given that neither black nor white South Africans were exposed to pro-democratic teachings in the school curriculum, or certainly not of a non-racial inclusive democracy.…”

“…At the same time, we must take at least some note of the fact that the rapidly accumulating literature on public opinion in the new "3 rd Wave democracies" has, thus far, produced very little of important generational differences in support for democracy (e.g. Rose, Mishler and Haerpfer 1998;Shin 1999;Bratton, Mattes and Gyimah-Boadi 2005;Markowski 2005;Rose, Mishler and Munro 2006;and Chu et al 2008).…”

Social Esteem and Participation in Contentious Politics: A Field Experiment at an LGBT Pride Rally

“…As a result, previous studies have looked at self-reports of intent to participate (Inman and Andrews 2011;Klandermans 2002) or of reported past participation (e.g., Bratton et al 2005;Mueller 2013;Scacco 2012). Few, if any, of these studies examine actual participation.…”