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Excerpts from Afrobarometer's report, Demand for Democracy Is Rising in Africa, But Most Political Leaders Fail to Deliver:

What explains popular perceptions of the supply of democracy in Africa?

Based on analysis of public attitudes in 34 African countries in 2011-2013, the quality of elections is closely linked to the supply of democracy. If citizens see the last national election as largely free and fair, they are also likely to consider that political elites are supplying democracy. Indeed, fully 89% of those who perceive clean elections also regard their country as an extensive democracy.9 In short, ordinary Africans make a direct connection between the quality of elections and the nature of the resultant political regime.

Other factors also matter. In keeping with persistent personal rule in some places, people still also use the job performance of the national president to judge the degree of democracy. If they think the president has done a good job over the previous year, they are likely to give higher democracy ratings. And, given widespread poverty, they also often make reference to their material well-being; if the national economy has performed well, they tend to equate it with the delivery of democracy.

But which of these explanatory factors matters most? When a regression analysis on the supply of democracy was first done for 12 African countries in 2000, the most important factor was the performance of the president. Since that time, however, the situation has changed. Across 34 countries in 2011-2013, the leading explanatory factor is now the quality of elections.10 In other words, the order of the leading explanatory factors has been reversed.

This result can be read as evidence of gradual political institutionalization. Appraisals of the quality of an institution - elections - now trump the public's assessment of the behavior in office of a big man president. Thus, popular attachment to institutions is slowly but surely displacing mass loyalty to dominant personalities.

Moreover, the quality of political institutions (in this case, elections) continues to explain more variance in democratic supply than the condition of the national economy. As such, the results of the Afrobarometer's latest survey reconfirm that democracy building depends primarily on the delivery of political goods (like clean elections and good governance) and is less beholden to economic recovery than might conventionally have been thought.

Are there regional patterns of democratization in Africa?

...In East Africa, more than half of all adult citizens demand democracy (54%) and a similar proportion also think it is being supplied (52%). A case can be made that, on average, political regimes are relatively more democratic in this region than in other parts of Africa. But the level of democracy is intermediate at best. And because demand and supply are in rough equilibrium there are few pressures for further regime change in either a democratic or autocratic direction.

In Southern Africa, a similar pattern prevails. Supply (46%) and demand (47%) are in rough equilibrium, but at an even lower level than in East Africa.

Read the original:
Africa: Africans Now Back Institutions More Than 'Big Men' - Afrobarometer