Robert Mattes

Public opinion, democracy, and market reform in Africa

This book is a ground-breaking exploration of public opinion in subSaharan Africa. Based on the Afrobarometer, a comprehensive crossnational survey research project, it reveals what ordinary Africans think of democracy and market reform, subjects about 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 sober conclusions about the varying prospects of African countries for attaining full-fledged democracy and markets.

Support for Democracy in Africa: Intrinsic or Instrumental?

Comparative analysis of original survey data from Ghana, Zambia and South Africa is used here to assess the attitudes of African citizens towards democracy. Is democracy valued intrinsically (as an end in itself) or instrumentally (for example, as a means to improving material living standards)? We find as much popular support for democracy in Africa as in other Third Wave regions but less satisfaction with the performance of elected governments. The fact that Africans support democracy while being discontented with its achievements implies a measure of intrinsic support that supersedes instrumental considerations. At the same time, approval of democracy remains performance-driven; but approval hinges less on the governments capacity at delivering economic goods than its ability to guarantee basic political rights. Our findings extend recent arguments about the importance of political goods in regime consolidation and call into question the conventional wisdom that governments in new democracies legitimate themselves mainly through economic performance.

South Africa: Democracy Without the People?

erhaps more than any other democratizing country, South Africagenerates widely differing assessments of the present state and likelyfuture prospects of its democracy. If one takes the long view—compar-ing South Africa today to where it was just 12 years ago—it is difficultnot to be enthusiastic about its accomplishments and its future. SouthAfrica successfully emerged from the shadow of apparently irrecon-cilable conflict and unavoidable racial civil war to create a commonnation. It has negotiated two democratic constitutions and has held foursuccessful nationwide elections for national and local government. Onthe economic front, it has avoided the triple-digit inflation that manyfeared would accompany a populist economic strategy of redistribu-tion and government intervention. It has stabilized the expanding debtand reversed the double-digit inflation inherited from the apartheid-era government. There have been impressive gains in employmentopportunities and income for the growing black middle class, and poorblacks have seen unprecedented improvements in access to basic neces-sities.Yet if one looks at South Africa’s new democracy in a comparativeperspective, one’s enthusiasm is greatly tempered, if not altogetherremoved. Crossnational analysis has highlighted three broad sets offactors crucial to democratic consolidation: a growing economy thatsteadily reduces inequality; stable and predictable political institutions;and a supportive political culture. In terms of these factors, an analysis

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

South Africas 1996 Constitution ushered in a democratic regime that brought new freedoms and rights and greatly expanded opportunities for political participation. In 1998, South Africa also implemented a new school curriculum intended, among other things, to promote democratic and other constitutional values. At the same time, South Africa has undergone rapid demographic change as growing proportions of young people enter the electorate with no working memory of apartheid. Given our knowledge of post-regime change shifts in popular attitudes in postwar Europe and Japan, theories of socialisation and democratic habituation would lead us to expect significant pro-democratic shifts in South Africas political culture, especially amongst the youngest generation, who are popularly known in South Africa as the ‘Born Frees’. Against these expectations, however, survey evidence indicates that the post-apartheid generation are less committed to democracy than their parents or grandparents.

AFRICANS' SURPRISING UNIVERSALISM

Abstract:Although Africa is a latecomer to democratization, Africans overwhelmingly support democracy, and their conception of democracy is surprisingly liberal.

Opposition Parties and the Voters in South Africa's General Election of 1999

Variance in partisan choice among South African voters can be predicted on the basis of what is known about the way voters see economic trends, evaluate government performance, perceive political parties, and rate party leaders. However, in this analysis it is demonstrated that factors related to racial divisions shape and filter how voters perceive political performance, and to some extent lead different voters to emphasize different performance criteria. But race does not affect the way voters make decisions. Thus, South Africas opposition parties are weak not because black voters, the overwhelming majority of the electorate, operate with a decision-making apparatus that emphasizes unity over performance or is hostile to pluralism and opposition. Rather, support for the African National Congress can be accounted for first, by positive ratings of its performance in government and second, by the fact that those black voters dissatisfied with the performance of the African National Congress (ANC) do not see a legitimate alternative among the existing opposition parties.

Support for Economic Reform? Popular Attitudes in Southern Africa

Abstract Do ordinary people support programs of economic reform? If so, why? If not, why not? This article breaks new ground by reporting and comparing public opinion from seven Southern African countries based on systematic Afrobarometer surveys. It finds that people support some adjustment policies (such as price reforms) but oppose others (such as institutional reforms). An eclectic explanation is offered for these attitudes that draws on structural factors (especially poverty), cultural values (such as self-reliance), and exposure to mass media. The most formative influence on mass economic opinion in Southern Africa, however, is the institutional legacy of settler colonialism as expressed through race and nation.

Does Ethnicity Determine Support for the Governing Party? The Structural and Attitudinal Basis of Partisan Identification in 12 African Nations

Structural theories predict that the cues of social identity, particularly ethnicity, should exert a strong influence upon voting choices and party support in developing societies with low levels of education and minimal access to the news media. To explore these issues, this study seeks to analyze the influence of ethno-linguistic and ethno-racial characteristics on identification with the governing party in a dozen African states. Ethnicity is compared with other structural and attitudinal factors commonly used to explain patterns of partisanship in many countries. The study draws upon the first round of the Afrobarometer, a cross-national representative survey of political and social values conducted in 1999-2001 in twelve nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Botswana to Zimbabwe. We establish three main findings. (i) Even with social and attitudinal controls, ethnicity is a significant predictor of party support in most, although not all, African societies under comparison. (ii) Yet the strength of this association varies cross-nationally, with the linkages strongest in societies divided by many languages, such as Namibia and South Africa, while playing an insignificant role in African countries where ethno-linguistic groups are more homogeneous, including Lesotho and Botswana. (iii) Moreover structural explanations are limited: evaluations of the policy performance of the party in government also influenced patterns of party support, even with prior social controls. The conclusion summarizes the results and considers their broader implications for understanding the political role of ethnicity within plural societies.

Popular attitudes toward the South African electoral system

This article is based on a survey of popular attitudes towards the pure list system that is South Africas proportional representation electoral system. While the reported findings are broadly positive there are some notable exceptions, located disproportionately among racial minorities and also among sizable numbers of black respondents. Pure proportional representation is unlikely to produce the values that the respondents say they most want from a voting system. The significance of the surveys findings is analysed and reasons are advanced for making changes to the electoral system. The government has opted to retain the status quo for the time being but in the longer term this could be negative for South Africas democracy

Judgement and choice in the 1999 South African election

Abstract In this article, we set out the basic points of the theoretical framework of voter choice that underlie the Opinion ’99 research project. In contrast to prevailing theories that have characterized voter choice in South Africa as an ethnic or racial census, this approach emphasizes the role of how voters learn about government performance and the alternatives offered by opposition parties. We then deduce a very simplified model that consciously excludes all ‘structural’ variables and includes only measures of voter evaluations of government performance and views of political parties and candidates. We use discriminant analysis (DA) to predict the partisan preferences of respondents from a nationally representative September 1998 survey with these measures. We find that the partisan choices of a very large majority of South Africans can be correctly predicted with this model.