Democracy and Elections in Africa (review)

This book is a path-breaking and much-needed study of the role of elections in Africa. By using numerous qualitative sources and assimilating material from existing studies, Lindberg has constructed an impressive data set which incorporates information on the quality of participation, competition and legitimacy of 232 elections in 44 countries across the continent. He uses this data to great effect, presenting a range of perspectives on the quality and impact of elections in Africa from 1989 to 2003. The core argument of the book is that de jure free and fair elections actually enhance democracy no matter how free and fair they are in practice. In other words, elections should not be seen as the end-point of democratization, but as phenomena that have a strong independent effect on democratic consolidation. Lindberg also provides compelling evidence that many of the core assumptions that loom large in analysis of contemporary African politics, such as the notion that African elections are becoming less free and fair over time, are false. For the originality of the argument and the quality of the data (which is generously made available in the appendix), this book should be required reading for all students of African politics.

The first section of the book is devoted to mapping trends in African elections. Lindberg includes all de jure free and fair elections in his analysis, coding all applicable elections according to how free and fair they are. He then estimates the ‘democratic quality’ of each election on the basis of three main qualities – political participation, competition and legitimacy – which are measured using a number of different criteria. Separating the ‘free and fairness’ of an election from its ‘democratic quality’ may seem conceptually confusing, but doing so allows Lindberg to distinguish the level of election rigging from the nature of the wider election campaign, and to identify fine-grained variation in the quality of elections at different standards of fairness over time. The early chapters of the book develop these categories into a concise and insightful analysis of contemporary African elections. Significantly, Lindberg demonstrates that contrary to much of the ‘conventional wisdom’, African elections are as numerous and as free and fair as they were fifteen years ago. Furthermore, by comparing the quality of successive elections in any one country, he is able to demonstrate that, with repetition, elections become more free and fair, and more participatory, competitive and legitimate. These findings support Lindberg’s optimistic assessment of the state of democracy in Africa, and represent a real challenge to a wide range of Afro-pessimists.

The remainder of the book focuses on the argument that de jure free and fair elections have a strong positive effect on the process of democratization. While the democratization literature generally treats elections as indicators of democracy, Lindberg argues that elections play a causal role in the consolidation of democracy. He cites seven main causal mechanisms through which elections may promote democracy more generally. Underpinning these seven mechanisms are three main insights. First, that holding repeated elections changes the incentives on offer to political actors such that it becomes in their interest to commit to the democratic process. Second, that election campaigns open up political space which can then be seized by individuals and associations to further the process of political liberalization. And third, that by participating in elections individuals become better educated about the democratic process and more committed to democratic values. The net result of these numerous processes, Lindberg argues, is that the repetition of elections leads to democracy becoming the only game in town.

The central hypothesis that elections have an independent effect on the level of democracy is subjected to five main tests, including a multiple regression analysis which controls for a wide range of potential competing explanations. Those suspicious of large-n statistical analyses of African politics will be comforted by Lindberg’s decision to code difficult cases in a way...