Has decentralization contributed to democratization at the local level in Mali? : a comparative study of three local governments : Kontela, Mopti, and Tambaga

In this thesis I have studied the democratic decentralization reform in the West-African country Mali. The reform was implemented in 1999, as part of the nationwide democratization process, which started with the establishment of the national democratic republic in 1992. The reform has been examined by doing three comparative case studies of local governments, the two rural cases of Kontela and Tambaga in the Kayes region and the urban case of Mopti in the Mopti region. Most different systems analysis has been employed to study the differences between the three cases. In addition, most similar systems design has been used to analyze the changes within the cases over time. Further, the thesis has assessed the three cases as to whether democratization has materialized in them by using the substantial democracy/democratization definition and analytical framework by Törnquist (2002, 2003). This framework has a more encompassing definition of democracy than most mainstream liberal democracy definitions do, stating that human rights and political actors’ capacity to use these rights and the institutions of government, administration and civil society have to be in place in order for democracy/democratization to be substantial. In addition to using this framework to assess the cases, I added some elements from Crook’s and Manor’s framework of democratic decentralization, because these represented a better operationalization of the aspect of accountability. The main conclusion of the thesis, deriving from the assessment of the three cases was that the reform has lead to fulfillment of only some elements of substantial democratization. These elements was that a local government and state administration have been established, most civil and political rights examined were respected, and a democratically oriented civil society existed to some extent in one of the cases, Mopti. However, the three cases of local governments diverged on the extent to which the different elements of democratization were fulfilled. The urban local government in Mopti had reached further than the other two rural local governments in terms of its institutions and rights having better quality and a wider scope, reaching out to the population. Further, more actors had the capacity to use the institutions and rights. Moreover, the civil right of equal treatment before the law only existed somewhat in Mopti, and not in the other two cases, due to the use of customary law principles. In order to explain the differences between them, as well as the general result of the assessment, I used the general explanations of the two analytical frameworks, as well as three contextual theories. The employment of these five sets of explanations made me capable of assessing their explanatory value on the cases. Altogether, these frameworks and theories helped explain the cases’ outcome regarding substantial democratization. Their factors helped illuminate many explanations to the cases’ outcome regarding democratization. For instance, the importance of the local social and political context by Crook and Manor depicted why the three local governments were not representative, accountable nor open, because existing local political elites, i.e. the upper caste of the nobles have captured all seats on local government in the two rural cases of Tambaga and Kontela. Furthermore, the fact that a widely distributed free press only existed in Mopti, provides an additional explanations to the lack of democratization in Kontela and Tambaga. Further, Crook and Manor emphasized the necessity of having a substantial amount of resources in local government, and in all three cases, the local governments lacked resources, which made it difficult for them to implement their decisions taken. Turning to one of Törnquist’s explanations that was valid for the cases’ outcome is the aspect that if a reform is elite-based reform, it will rarely end in popular democratization. The Malian reform did not involve the local population sufficiently enough, and this factor thus helped explain the cases’ outcome. Another factor Törnquist outlined that might threaten democratization and it actually did in the cases is politicization of single issues and clientelism. Regarding the explanations by the theory of ”political instrumentalization of disorder” by Chabal and Daloz (1999) one if its factors that depicted why democratization has not materialized is the instrumentalization of communal belonging, that is belonging to a family, caste, and a village. People instrumentalized such belonging in voting and participating in political parties. Moreover, another factor the theory outlined was the presence and instrumentalization of reciprocal and vertical relations in politics. These exist in the cases and conditioned local politics. They further explained why the three local governments were not fully representative, open, nor accountable, because reciprocal and vertical neo-patrimonial relations between the electorate and the politicians existed and determined political participation and representation. However, this theory had two failures. The first was that it did not present the underlying causes for why variations existed between the cases as to the presence of all its theoretical aspects. The theory’s second failure was that it could not explain why some factors were not important in the cases anymore. It argued that all its factors were general for Africa (ibid.:xix), and likely to persist for a long time. This was because “there is an interlocking neo-patrimonial logic” between politicians and the electorate (Chabal and Daloz, 1999:162). Due to this argument, it could not explain why communal belonging was not present in Kontela and Tambaga before decentralization. Concerning the second theory I used to explain the cases’ outcome on democratization, “the bifurcated African state” by Mamdani (1996), this theory contained some relevant explanatory factors for the thesis. It explained the difference between the three local governments as to the materialization of substantial democratization, because elements of a bifurcated state existed in Mali. This bifurcated state character implied that rural local governments were governed by decentralized despots applying customary law, thus making people subjects, while urban local governments were governed by civilized governments, applying modern law and people are citizens. Although there were no decentralized despots in the two rural cases, they have had repressive rule before decentralization and customary law was applied by the judiciary in the two cases. Further, the village chiefs had strong influence on the elected local government as well as civil society. In Mopti, the village chief and the ward chiefs also had an impact on local government, and customary law was used in dealing with natural resources, but this urban government was generally better off than the other two as to accountability, since it had elements of civilized rule, due to use of modern law, having an elected local government and a partly civilized civil society. Still, since there was no decentralized despotism in the other two cases, the theory did not provide a comprehensive explanation for why the cases differed on the various elements of substantial democratization. As to the theory’s second argument of the lacking balance between the previously mentioned aspects, this made clear some of the causes for the cases’ outcome regarding substantial democratization. This was due to that a balance between decentralization and centralization, autonomy and alliance, and participation and representation did not exist. Until devolution and de-concentration is completed, there is centralization in all cases. Since they were all dependent on state transfers, this leads to municipalities’ alliance rather than autonomy. There was also lack of balance between participation and representation, because all castes, ages and both gender participate in political parties, but voters elect only middle age men and nobles to Tambaga’s and Kontela’s councils (with the exception of two ex-slaves in Kontela). In Mopti, caste and gender did not matter, but neo-patrimonial relations contributed to the lack of balance between participation and representation. Altogether, the theory has some explanatory value for the cases’ outcome, because as long as elements of a bifurcated state and a rural-urban divide are present, decentralization will not lead to democratization. Regarding the third theory, the one by Bierschenk and Sardan, all its factors apply to the three cases, and the theory thus helped explain why not all elements of substantial democratization have materialized in Mali. As to its arguments on the existence of several power arenas and hence fragmentation of power, this counted for the cases. Due to several power arenas and fragmentation of power, the local governments and the state administrations have not obtained legitimacy and accountability in the cases. It further explained that the village chiefs were still strong in the cases, because they maintained their separate power arena. Moreover, the cases fitted the theory on its argument that the arenas were all formal and informal institutions with fluid characters. The theory’s overall strength is that it explained why there was variation between and within the cases. However, the emphasis of variation between different cases by Bierschenk and Sardan also made it difficult to outline theoretical arguments from it, because the theory is based on contextual and empirical arguments. All in all, in order for substantial democratization to materialize in the three cases, all the factors discussed here have to be dealt with. Most of all, democratization requires a restructuring of local government and equal participation and representation in local government, as well as in village politics. This implies that the power monopoly of the upper caste of nobles has to be dissolved