Democracy in practice : diversity and complexity

Debates on democracy in Africa have shifted over time from conversations that could broadly be characterized as optimistic versus pessimistic, to ones in which questions of complexity and difference have taken center stage. This chapter provides an overview of this shift and introduces some of the key themes that emerge from contributions to the volume; namely, the significance of elections, the role of institutions, diversity of actors, and relationship between democracy and citizens. The importance of elections lies in their potential to remove or weaken incumbents, and thus provide a peaceful means for determining political outcomes, but also in their tendency to be associated with significant malpractice and violence, and thus with the probability of strengthening incumbents. As unpredictable political processes that actors invest much time and energy in, elections can also tell us much about the level and nature of democracy and broader political realities. At the same time, the chapter draws attention to the importance of formal and informal institutions, and to the increasingly diverse range of actors that need to be considered in an analysis of democracy in sub-Saharan Africa, and to how no single institution or actor has a clear-cut relationship with democracy. Attention then turns to the importance of ordinary people and their support for democracy; to the ways in which expectations and demands help to shape political outcomes; and to the ways in which citizenship can be used to exclude, but also to discipline. The implication is that divergence, difference, and contradictory trends in democratization are to be expected. It also means that, while the academic literature on democracy in Africa is vast and growing, it is still far from covering the full range of issues and dynamics that demand attention across the subcontinent