Democracy and Elections in Africa

2. On Democracy and Elections

chapter two On Democracy and Elections Studying frequencies of and trends in specific democratic qualities of elections obviates the need to make awkward decisions about the point at which an election becomes fully democratic or when real democracy has been attained in a particular country. Nevertheless, a few conceptual clarifications are in order, to ensure a correct reading of the following empirical analysis. Qualities as a scientific term simply denotes characteristics that in principle can be either positive or negative. Adding the adjective democratic is a refinement that requires specification of the defining value(s) of democracy. Based on the identification of this core value, the essential attributes we call democratic qualities can be deduced. Following the classic rules of mutually exclusive definitions, specifying what democracy is necessarily involves clarifying also what it is not. In the following pages, this is considered from four approaches . Is democracy an object in itself or an attribute? I argue that it makes more sense to view democracy as an attribute of the political system than as an object in itself. Second, it is argued that in the present context it is preferable to use a degree approach rather than a dichotomy between democracy and nondemocracy. Third, every empirical definition of democracy necessarily must be based on a normative justification, and the baseline in this book is a deliberately “thin” understanding of representative, liberal democracy that can travel across sociocultural contexts. The fourth approach involves identification of a definition of democracy that lends itself to attribution and graduation. Anticipating the argument, the core value of democracy is understood to be self-government and the three necessary attributes are equality of political participation, free political competition, and procedural legitimacy. In general, I recognize that there is no necessary link among a particular term, like democracy, the conceptual construct in the mind, and the empirical phenomenon to which it refers.1 These relationships have been discussed at length already by scholars like Pierce (1958), Ogden and Richards (1923), and de Saussure (1915/1974).2 While our conceptualizations always condition our observations—if we define swans as white birds the category will lack the black Asian variants of swans—the consequence is that we need more, not less, precise and explicit specifications of concepts. Hence, the inclusion of a little elaboration on democracy and its qualities. Good empirical research must rely on observation—preferably systematic and comprehensive—if we wish to make valid causal inferences that speak to the empirical implications of the theory (cf. King, Keohane, and Verba 1994; Brady and Collier 2004). In this sense, Popper’s proposition that empirically falsifiable theories are the evidence of robust scholarship (Popper 1953/1999, 57 ff.) is still an appropriate guiding tool, and the definition of democratic qualities we use must lend itself to empirical evaluation. Still, the way we choose to frame and define our study object in a sense shapes the data collection and processing. For example, elections is a term used to denote various concepts that in turn refer to a mass of phenomena in the world. If we are to believe cognitive psychology (e.g., Dawes 1995, 81–83; Høyrup 1995, 9–12; Piaget 1972; Rosenberg 1995, 123), our concepts are formed in a perpetual reflexive process involving encounters with empirical phenomena and our own reactions to these phenomena. The more encounters we have had with a particular type of phenomena—election-related phenomena, for example—the more are our percepts influenced by expectations based on our earlier encounters (e.g., Garfinkel 1984; Giddens 1982; cf. Flyvbjerg 1991, 64–65). In other words, our concepts contribute to the construction and recording of even as “purely” empirical phenomena as elections. The protection against the dangers of relativism is clear and precise specification of concepts and theories followed by empirically sound, relevant, and preferably (if possible) systematic data collection. In specifying our concepts we lay open the prerequisites of our study, and in demarcating and operationalizing our theory we clarify its descriptive or causal claims, as well as what would falsify our statements. These are additional reasons for a slight exploration of the concept of democracy within the limited scope of the research objectives: to descriptively chronicle and analyze elections in Africa with a view to engaging comparative theories of democratization. making a conceptual choice Elections are one of many ways of choosing leadership and disposing...