Democratic backsliding

By Prof John Harbeson

For the last fifteen years, democracy has been in decline worldwide in the opinion of most close observers of democratic practice. With the end of the Cold War until about 2005, there occurred a rising arc of democratic progress, most notably in the Global South countries. In sub-Saharan Africa, eastern Europe and elsewhere, dictators were no longer as coddled and propped up by the principal Cold War adversaries, the United States and the Soviet Union. A younger generation, frustrated by corruption and economic malaise in their countries created groundswells of support for political democracy with active international support. A high point of my own career was the opportunity to serve as USAID’s democracy and governance advisor for eastern and southern Africa in that period.

Since then, democratic progress has plateaued and receded for reasons still not adequately investigated. A relatively small number of new democracies, perhaps a dozen in sub-Saharan Africa, have appeared to set down hardy roots, led interestingly by mostly by smaller countries: Cape Verde, Mauritius, Ghana, Sao Tome, South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana. But elsewhere, newly elected leaders, less than fully committed to democracy and learning from each other, have found ways to erode democracy without directly abrogating it. In the late 90s, peaceful political competition metastasized into violent conflict in fragile nascent democracies. Preoccupation with elections that took place at the expense of strengthening other important dimensions of democracy, e.g,, the rule of law, has been a factor. Growing economic competition from China and other emerging economies and a focus on counterterrorism have sidelined international support for democratization.

Somewhat surprisingly, detailed analyses of specific dimensions of democratic decline have been less numerous than they should be in order to stimulate new approaches and momentum to regenerate democratic progress. For example, it has been common practice for students of democracy to cite only the most overarching scores of democratic progress, from 1 (high) to 7 (low) each for political rights and for civil liberties published annually for all countries by the widely respected Freedom House, now approaching its 50th year of annual surveys of democratic practice by all countries worldwide.

But Freedom House for years released much more granular data on democratic practice which illuminate important dimensions of both progress and decline. Its annual surveys for each country assign a score of 0 to 4 on 25 separate questions based upon extensive consultations among locally as well as regionally and internationally based specialists. (Full disclosure, I was a Freedom House consultant on Africa for several years.) Since 2006, based on scores for those questions, it has made available scores that group those questions around, three larger subcategories: electoral process. political pluralism and participation and quality of government functioning that support its overarching political rights score. It has grouped others of these 25 scores around four subcategories: in support of its overarching civil liberties scores: freedom of expression, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy rights (e.g. freedom to marry, freedom of movement, to own property, and freedom from exploitation). This year, Freedom House has also released scores on all those 25 foundational questions for 2013 through 2020.

What does this more granular data bring to light about the dimensions of democratic decline for the world, for sub-Saharan Africa and for Kenya in particular? The average score for all countries has declined from 61.1 of a possible 100 in 2013 to 56.7 in 2020. Kenya’s score has declined from 55 to 48 over the same period. Notwithstanding this significant decline, Kenya remained an overall 4 on both political rights and civil liberties over this period.

Kenya fared relatively well by sub-Saharan African standards in that the region declined on all 25 foundational indicators except corruption control at a low 1.3 out of 4, freedom to hold property without undue interference, and freedom of marriage and family size (1.8 and 1.4 of 4 respectively. By contrast, Kenya was stable over this period on most of the 25 questions except on freedom to organize parties and compete for political power under electoral process (both down from 3 to 2 out of a possible 4. Also, in the subcategory of freedom of expression, Kenya dropped from 3 to 2 on freedom of the media, 4 to 3 on academic freedom and freedom to express one’s views without fear of retribution, and from 3 to 2 in the area of associational freedom on freedom of assembly and human rights organization advocacy.

I continue to find the Freedom House scale exemplary, but it is not without possible limitations. For example, civilian control of security forces domestically is a problem, not least in Kenya. More generally, many successful democracies have been innovative democratically in certain ways. There is certainly considerable room for African democracies to add their own innovations to adapt established global standards on democracy to their particular circumstances.

— Author is a professor of Political Science Emeritus as well as a professorial lecturer for the African Studies Program, Johns Hopkins University.