Staffan I. Lindberg

Conceptualizing and Measuring Democracy: A New Approach

InthewakeoftheColdWar,democracyhasgainedthestatusofamantra.Yetthereisnoconsensusabouthowtoconceptualizeand measure regimes such that meaningful comparisons can be made through time and across countries. In this prescriptive article, we argueforanewapproachtoconceptualizationandmeasurement.Wefirstreviewsomeoftheweaknessesamongtraditionalapproaches. Wethenlayoutourapproach,whichmaybecharacterizedas historical, multidimensional, disaggregated,and transparent.Weendby reviewing some of the payoffs such an approach might bring to the study of democracy.

The Surprising Significance of African Elections

In a time when a greater part of the world hails elections as the hallmark of democracy, skepticism of their true value has severely increased in the academic community. Building on an analysis of 232 elections in Africa, this article argues that an uninterrupted series of elections tends to cause any society to become imbued with democratic qualities since the mere repetition of multiparty elections—regardless of whether they are free and fair—leads to increases in human freedom and the spread of democracy.

What Accountability Pressures Do MPs in Africa Face and How Do They Respond? Evidence from Ghana

This study seeks to establish the composition of one key political institution (the office of Member of Parliament of Ghana-MPG) in one African country (Ghana) in terms of both the formal rules and the informal norms, and to explore the relationship between the composition of the institution and what the office holders provide in terms of public, collective, club, and private goods.

Exploring Voter Alignments in Africa: Core and Swing Voters in Ghana

This article describes and analyses voter alignments in the new democracy of Ghana in two recent elections, 1996 and 2000. These elections are a part of the Fourth Republic that began with a ‘ founding ’ election in 1992, ushering Ghana into Africa’s new wave of democratisation. First the size of the core voting population is established to be about 82 % of the voting population, refuting the assumption that voting volatility in new and transitional democracies is always extremely high. A second conclusion is that core and swing voters cannot be distinguished by structural factors, whereas thirdly, the factors behind the party alignment of core voters are similar to Western patterns ; primarily level of education, the rural-urban divide, income, and occupation. Finally, swing voters seem to be characterised by a conscious evaluation of government and candidate performance in a sign of relatively ‘ mature ’ democratic voting behaviour.

The Democratic Qualities of Competitive Elections: Participation, Competition and Legitimacy in Africa

This article analyses the democratic qualities of core institutions of representative democracy: multiparty elections. Focusing on the three basic democratic values participation, competition and legitimacy, the empirical examination of Africa compares both over time and between founding, second, third and following elections. The results, based on 203 observations of presidential and parliamentary elections, show that there are significant improvements of democratic qualities in Africa and breakdowns typically occur only after founding elections. The core institutions of representative democracy may have a future in Africa. Hence, there is a cotinuing case for demo-optimism on the continent.

Mapping Accountability: Core Concept and Subtypes

The recent surge in popularity of ‘accountability’ in public administration and international development seems in part divorced from centuries of conceptual and empirical work done in related disciplines of finance and accounting, and in political science. This article brings together the core meaning of accountability as used in hundreds of previous works, and seeks to bring order to the litany of subtypes in this literature. An organizing scheme with three dimensions (source of control, strength of control, and direction of relationship) captures all the existing varying types of accountability. The resulting typology also clarifies that varying subtypes have not only different actors and characteristics, but also seek to uphold varying values and are facing different challenges. These have important implications both for research and the (im-)possibility of translating findings from one subtype field to another; as well as practical implications for the policy world. Points for practitioners Accountability has several different forms depending on the actors (e.g. citizens–politicians; politicians–bureaucrats; or judges–citizens). These types of accountability seek to protect different values, and are accompanied by varying challenges. Yet, everything is not accountability: it is but one of many possible ways to constrain the (mis-)use of power. This article clarifies the core idea of accountability. It then depicts the full range of subtypes with their different characteristics and problems. This can function as a guide for policy makers and practitioners when seeking to address weaknesses in accountability of varying actors based on acknowledging their differences.

Women's Empowerment and Democratization: The Effects of Electoral Systems, Participation and Experience in Africa

This article investigates three hypotheses suggested in the literature on women’s political empowerment, operationalized here as increased legislative representation. These hypotheses are that (1) electoral systems manipulate women’s political empowernment; (2) increased popular participation empowers women in particular; and (3) accumulated experience gained over several electoral cycles facilitates increased political empowerment of women. In Africa, as well as in other parts of the world, majoritarian systems discriminate against women, while the effect of large parties in proportional representation systems is more ambiguous, and popular participation and repetitive electoral cycles are increasing women’s legislative representation. This article demonstrates the value of studying gender relations under democratization, even with a narrow institutionalist focus using an elitist perspective. Finally, it shows that institutions can travel over diverse contexts with constant effects.

Narrowing the Legitimacy Gap: Turnovers as a Cause of Democratic Consolidation

Democratic consolidation depends on common perceptions of institutional legitimacy among citizens aligned with governing and opposition parties. Elections always result in winners and losers, but if they also create subservient insiders and aggrieved outsiders, the future of the democratic system will be uncertain. This article theorizes about why certain electoral qualities (elections that produce turnovers, are peaceful, accepted by opposition parties, and free and fair) should reduce winner-loser gaps in perceived institutional legitimacy. The hypotheses are tested using a hierarchical two-step statistical procedure to analyze three rounds of Afrobarometer microlevel data combined with national-level data on African elections between 1989 and 2006. The analyses indicate that electoral turnovers (and only turnovers) have a significant moderating effect on the citizenry. Following alternations of power, winners and losers converge in their attitudes about their institutions, thus furthering the consolidation of democracy.

Does Democratization Reduce the Risk of Military Interventions in Politics in Africa

This article investigates whether there is an association between a trajectory of political liberalization, democratization, and military interventions. In what is arguably the ‘least likely case’ region in the world, this study analyzes the experience of 55 regimes in Africa between 1990 and 2004 and finds a striking regularity. Liberalizing, and in particular democratic, regimes have a significantly different track record of being subjected either to successful or failed military interventions. The analysis suggests that democratic regimes are about 7.5 times less likely to be subjected to attempted military interventions than electoral authoritarian regimes and almost 18 times less likely to be victims of actual regime breakdown as a result. Through an additional case study analysis of the ‘anomalous’ cases of interventions in democratic polities, the results are largely strengthened as most of the stories behind the numbers suggests that it is only when democratic regimes perform dismally and/or do not pay soldiers their salaries that they are at great risk of being overthrown. Legitimacy accrued by political liberalization seems to ‘inoculate’ states against military intervention in the political realm.

V-Dem: A New Way to Measure Democracy

In the last few decades, Western governments have spent huge sums of money to promote democracy abroad. We do not know which, if any, of these programs actually work. If we cannot measure democracy in sufficient detail and with the necessary nuance, we cannot mark its progress and setbacks or affect its future course. While distinguishing the most democratic countries from the least democratic ones is fairly easy, it has proven to be much harder to make finer distinctions. Here we present a new effort aimed at measuring democracy, the Varieties of Democracy Project (V-Dem).