The democraticness of traditional political systems in Africa

Abstract

Traditional political systems (TPS) are an important part of the political landscape in Africa. They govern subnational communities and differ from nation states, both in their institutional set-up as well as in their legitimacy. Yet, we have little comparative knowledge on these political systems and, in particular, whether they can be described as democratic. In this article, we analyse the democraticness of TPS based on a new expert survey. Using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), we show that the more than 140 ethnic groups we analyse vary meaningfully in their democraticness. Measures of public preference input and of political process control contribute particularly to a latent measure of democraticness. Furthermore, we find some indication for regionally interdependent institutions, with slightly more democratic systems in Southern Africa and less democratic systems in West Africa. Yet, no such interdependence exists between the state and the group level. Finally, we find that more hierarchically organized political systems, kings, and chiefs, as well as those organized in segments, are on average less democratic, while the presence of elders is associated with higher levels of democraticness.

African traditional institutions and support for democracy

“…This process leads them to create an index of democraticness that is based on eight of the eleven components. While Neupert-Wentz et al (2022) judge this index to be the most accurate metric of traditional political systems' democraticness, I show elsewhere in the appendix that my findings are robust to using other versions of the democraticness measure. For more detailed information on the expert survey and construction of the different democraticness measures, see Neupert-Wentz et al (2022).…”

“…While Neupert-Wentz et al (2022) judge this index to be the most accurate metric of traditional political systems' democraticness, I show elsewhere in the appendix that my findings are robust to using other versions of the democraticness measure. For more detailed information on the expert survey and construction of the different democraticness measures, see Neupert-Wentz et al (2022). Notes: "Democraticness (experts' assessment)" is the subjective assessment of the level of democracy within a given traditional political system as determined by the experts surveyd by Kromrey (2016).…”

“…• Democraticness (index of 8): Aggregated index of democraticenss constructed based on eight features of traditional political systems. Data comes from Neupert-Wentz et al (2022).…”

“…The various measures of democraticness that I use in the main analyses or this appendix are based on data collected by Daniela Kromrey (2016) during her dissertation work. The specific measures themselves are then developed and explained in a co-authored article titled "The democraticness of traditional political systems in Africa" (Neupert-Wentz et al, 2022). Almost 300 academic experts from fields such as political science, law, anthropology, history, and cultural studies participated in a web-based survey that took place in 2014.…”

“…Scores derived from different experts were averaged to derive individual scores for each group. Using this data, Neupert-Wentz et al (2022) then use confirmatory factor analysis to assess which components correspond to the latent variable of democraticness. This process leads them to create an index of democraticness that is based on eight of the eleven components.…”