Who should be called to account for good governance in Africa?

Democratization

Volumn 7, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 186-210

  Baker, Bruce ^a  

^a Faculty of Engineering and Computing   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACCOUNTABILITY; DEMOCRACY; ELECTION; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; POLITICAL SYSTEM;

AFRICA;

EID: 0033915957     PISSN: 13510347     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13510340008403665     Document Type: Article

References (79)

1. Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis and Béatrice Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa (Oxford: James Currey, 1999).
2. Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (eds.), The Global Resurgence of Democracy, Second Edition (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University, 1996).
3. Norberto Bobbio, The Future of Democracy: A Defence of the Rules of the Game (Oxford: Polity Press, 1987), pp.27-36.
4. L. Rudebeck, '"To seek Happiness": Development in a West African Village in the Era of Democratisation', Review of African Political Economy, Vol.71 (1997), p.82.
5. Richard Sklar, 'Democracy and Constitutionalism', in Andreas Schedler, Larry Diamond and Marc Plattner (eds.), The Self-Restraining State: Power and Accountability in New Democracies (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1999), p.53.
6. World Bank, Governance and Development (Washington, DC: World Bank, 1992, p.129;
7. cf. OECD, Orientations on Participatory Development and Good Governance (Paris: OECD, 1994).
8. Recently there have been the South Asian Regional Seminar on Accountability and Good Governance, 1998 and the International Conference on Democracy, Market Economy and Development, 1999.
9. Department for International Development, Making Democracy Work for the Elimination of Poverty (DFID Information Department, 1999).
10. Clare Short (Secretary of State for International Development), ministerial speech, 5 Sept. 1997.
11. Andreas Schedler, 'Conceptualizing Accountability', in Schedler, Diamond and Plattner, op. cit., p.23.
12. Terry Karl and Philippe Schmitter, 'What Democracy Is and Is Not', reprinted in Diamond and Plattner, The Global Resurgence of Democracy, p.50.
13. Terry Karl and Philippe Schmitter, 'What Democracy Is and Is Not', reprinted in Diamond and Plattner, The Global Resurgence of Democracy, p.50.
14. Goran Hyden, 'Governance and the Study of Politics', in Goran Hyden and Michael Bratton, Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1992), p.14.
15. Crawford Young and Babacar Kante, 'Governance, Democracy and the 1988 Senegalese Elections', in Hyden and Bratton, Governance and Politics in Africa, p.62.
16. See Schedler, Diamond and Plattner, op. cit.; Patrick Chabal, 'A Few Considerations on Democracy in Africa', International Affairs, Vol.74, No.2 (1998), p.302.
17. See Schedler, Diamond and Plattner, op. cit.; Patrick Chabal, 'A Few Considerations on Democracy in Africa', International Affairs, Vol.74, No.2 (1998), p.302.
18. David Beetham and The Democratic Audit of the UK, Conducting a Democratic Audit, mimeo (1997), p.1.
19. David Held (ed.), Models of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1996), p.309.
20. Giovanni Sartori, The Theory of Democracy Revisited (London: Chatham House, 1987), p.66.
21. For example, A. Birch, The Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy (London: Routledge, 1993).
22. Quoted in The Times (London) 22 July 1999.
23. Patrick Chabal, Power in Africa: An Essay in Political Interpretation (New York: St. Martins, 1992), p.208.
24. This in part reflects the fact that I have not surveyed all the sub-Saharan states for all seven points and therefore cannot make comparative assessments, and also the fact that subjective judgements of factors by any single individual (especially when heavily reliant on the media with its predilection for the negative and failures, rather than the positive and successes) may be susceptible to systematic error. See Kenneth Bollen, 'Liberal Democracy: Validity and Method Factors in Cross-National Measures', American Journal of Political Science, Vol.34 (1993), pp.1205-27.
25. In its most elegant form none can beat Edmund Burke: 'Your representative owes you not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of Parliament.' Burke's election speech, Bristol, 1774, repoduced in L. Bredvold and R. Ross, The Philosophy of Edmund Burke: A Selection From His Speeches and Writings (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1960), p.148.
26. Thomas Christiano, The Rule of the Many (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1996), p.219.
27. See The Economist, 10 July 1999.
28. Oliver Furley and James Katalikawe, 'Constitutional Reform in Uganda: The New Approach', African Affairs, Vol.96, No.383 (1997), p.253.
29. John Holm and Patrick Molutsi, 'State-Society Relations in Botswana: Beginning Liberalization', in Hyden and Bratton, Governance and Politics in Africa, p.82.
30. See Peter Burnell, 'The Politics of Poverty and the Poverty of Politics in Zambia's Third Republic', Third World Quarterly, Vol.16, No.4 (1995), p.683.
31. Richard Vengroff and Moctar Kone, 'Mali: Democracy and Political Change', in John Wiseman, Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (London: Routledge, 1995), p.66.
32. Rudebeck, op. cit., p.82.
33. Joel Barkan, 'Elections in Agrarian Societies', Journal of Democracy, Vol.6, No.4 (1995), p.110.
34. Mahmood Mamdani, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996).
35. See Robin Luckham, 'The Military, Militarisation and Democratisation in Africa: A Survey of Literature and Issues', in Eboe Hutchful and Adoulaye Bathily (eds.), The Military and Militarism in Africa (Dakar: CODESRIA, 1998), pp.12-13.
36. International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 1998/9 (London: IISS, 1998).
37. Jennifer Widner, 'Building Judicial Independence in Common Law Africa', in Schedler, Diamond and Plattner, op. cit.
38. Africa Research Bulletin, Vol.35, No12 (1998), p. 13379.
39. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Susan Strange, States and Markets (London: Pinter, 1988).
40. Susan Strange, The Retreat of the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Susan Strange, States and Markets (London: Pinter, 1988).
41. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p.133.
42. For example, Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); David Held (ed.), Models of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
43. For example, Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); David Held (ed.), Models of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
44. For example, Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); David Held (ed.), Models of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
45. For example, Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Benjamin Barber, Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1984); C.B. Macpherson, Democratic Theory: Essays in Retrieval (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973); David Held (ed.), Models of Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1996).
46. Robert Dahl, After the Revolution: Authority in a Good Society (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1970), p.120.
47. William Reno, Warlord Politics (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), p.100.
48. Macpherson, op. cit., p.136.
49. Robert Dahl, A Preface to Economic Democracy (Cambridge: Polity, 1985), p.115.
50. Béatrice Hibou, 'The Social Capital of the State as an Agent of Deception', in Bayart, Ellis, and Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa, p.76-9.
51. Bayart et al., op. cit.
52. Reno, op. cit.
53. Jean Grugel, 'Contextualizing democratization: the changing significance of transnational factors and non-state actors', in Jean Grugel (ed.), Democracy without Borders: Transnationalization and Conditionally in New Democracies (London: Routledge, 1999), pp.16-17.
54. J. Gibson and A. Gouws, 'Support for the Rule of the Law in the Emerging South African Democracy', International Social Science Journal, Vol.152 (1997), p.188.
55. Richard Joseph (ed.), State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1998), p.6.
56. Widner, op. cit., p.191.
57. P. Engberg-Pedersen, P. Gibbon, P. Raikes and L. Udsholt, L. (eds.), Limits of Adjustment in Africa (Copenhagen, Centre for Development Research and Oxford, James Currey, 1996), p.21.
58. It is likely that in the next decade the Multilateral Agreement on Investment will be imposed by donors, requiring governments to virtually abandon their controls on foreign investment within their borders. It is reported that the Africa-Caribbean-Pacific group associated with the European Union has already been pressed by the European Commission in this respect.
59. Roger Southall, 'Re-forming the State? Kleptocracy and the Political Transition in Kenya', Review of African Political Economy, Vol.79 (1999), p.106.
60. Barber, op. cit., p.256.
61. David Beetham, 'Key Principles for a Democratic Audit', in David Beetham (ed.), Defining and Measuring Democracy (London: Sage, 1994).
62. Raymond Gastil, 'The Comparative Survey of Freedom: Experiences and Suggestions', in A Inkeles (ed.), On Measuring Democracy: Its Consequences and Concomitants (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1991), p.22.
63. See Bruce Baker, 'The Quality of African Democracy: Why and How it Should be Measured', Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Vol.17, No.2 (1999), pp.271-86.
64. The United Nations Development Programme's resident representative in Zambia, Gary Davis addressing the National Workshop on Transparency and Accountability on 21 April 1998, said that it was essential that Africa should define its own interpretation of good governance and set its own standards as it would take into account the different cultural, social and historical backgrounds of Africa. 'This is not to say that those standards are lower than international standards, but rather that in order to be effective, they must be defined by Africans for Africans' (www.africaindex.africainfo/no; 22 April 1998).
65. Beetham, 'Key Principles for a Democratic Audit'.
66. B. Baker and H. Catt, 'Are Demands for a "Politics of Presence" Detected by the "Democratic Audit"?', Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, Vol.37, No.1 (1999), pp.56-70.
67. Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Delegative Democracy', in Diamond and Plattner, The Global Resurgence of Democracy; Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies', in Schedler, Diamond, and Plattner, op. cit.
68. Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Delegative Democracy', in Diamond and Plattner, The Global Resurgence of Democracy; Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies', in Schedler, Diamond, and Plattner, op. cit.
69. Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Delegative Democracy', in Diamond and Plattner, The Global Resurgence of Democracy; Guillermo O'Donnell, 'Horizontal Accountability in New Democracies', in Schedler, Diamond, and Plattner, op. cit.
70. See John Clark, 'National Conferences and Democratization in Francophone Africa', in John Mbaku and Julius Ihonvbere (eds.), Multiparty Democracy and Political Change (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998).
71. Department for International Development, web-site 'Making Democracy Work for the Elimination of Poverty', http://www.dfid.gov.uk.
72. See J. Abbink and G. Hesseling (eds.), Election Observation and Democratization in Africa (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); D. Anglin, 'International Election Monitoring: The African Experience', African Affairs, Vol.97 (1998), pp.471-95; M. Cowen and L. Laakso, 'An Overview of Election Studies in Africa', Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.35, No.4 (1998), pp.717-44.
73. See J. Abbink and G. Hesseling (eds.), Election Observation and Democratization in Africa (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); D. Anglin, 'International Election Monitoring: The African Experience', African Affairs, Vol.97 (1998), pp.471-95; M. Cowen and L. Laakso, 'An Overview of Election Studies in Africa', Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.35, No.4 (1998), pp.717-44.
74. See J. Abbink and G. Hesseling (eds.), Election Observation and Democratization in Africa (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999); D. Anglin, 'International Election Monitoring: The African Experience', African Affairs, Vol.97 (1998), pp.471-95; M. Cowen and L. Laakso, 'An Overview of Election Studies in Africa', Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.35, No.4 (1998), pp.717-44.
75. US State Department, The 1998 Human Rights Report (1999).
76. A legal right for citizens to have access to information about government decisions and decision-making can produce gains in transparency (such as the South African Constitution), and hence is normally resisted by government. The Open Democracy Bill which is meant to provide a legislative framework for the constitutional right of access to information has already undergone significant watering down between its first draft in 1996 and the one published in 1997. The latter removed the section that allowed citizens access to meetings of government bodies.
77. O'Donnell, Delegative Democracy, p. 101.
78. Strange, The Retreat of the State, p.4.
79. J. Moncrieffe, 'Reconceptualizing Political Accountability', International Political Science Review, Vol.19, No.4 (1998), pp.387-406.