Nic Cheeseman

Why There’s a Case for Giving Foreign Aid to Authoritarian Regimes

Aid has never been just about helping people. It’s also about gaining influence and exercising soft power.

Should democracies give foreign aid to countries that are not democracies? Democratic aid donors don’t have enough money to do all the things they want to in the world, so they need to find ways to decide how to ration aid. This means that not choosing to give their taxpayers’ hard earned money to authoritarian governments might seem like an easy decision.

For starters, isn’t it hypocritical to demand respect for human rights while simultaneously aiding governments that abuse them? And how can donor countries incentivise authoritarian states to be more democratic if they help them to fund their budgets, and – albeit indirectly – their repressive activities?

But things are a little more complicated than they may first appear. I argue that four main justifications can be made for sending aid to authoritarian states, and that even the most evangelical democrat must accept two of them.

Different principles

It’s useful to start by seeing things through the eyes of a committed democrat. If governments and individuals care about democracy enough to not give aid to authoritarian regimes, then presumably they also care about having more democracies in the world.

But the same governments and individuals can hardly expect to influence foreign states if they don’t engage with them. And, engaging in trade and other aspects of cooperation without supporting the building blocks of democracy – education, civil society, the rule of law – is likely to do more harm than good.

Also read: Why the Election is Unlikely to Bring Real Change to Democratic Republic of Congo

So, don’t even the most committed democracies have an obligation to provide aid to democratic initiatives in authoritarian states? This might be called the “democratising” principle: we can justify giving money to non-democracies as long as we can see that it’s helping them to move in the right direction. Support to electoral commissions in countries like Nigeria and Ghana, for example, helped to smooth the first transfer of power in these countries.

Things get even more complicated when considering the situations the most vulnerable citizens of authoritarian states may find themselves in. These might include famine, civil war or a deadly disease outbreak. The current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is an excellent example.

Why should they suffer because of their repressors’ actions? We might call this the “humanitarian” principle: it’s OK to give aid money to non-democracies as long as it’s used to help those in desperate need rather than to strengthen the government.

Of course, the moment we move away from a focus on democracy to recognise that democratic states have a number of goals, including promoting their own safety and well being, things get ever murkier.

Motives behind giving aid

Aid has never just been about helping people. It’s also, realistically, about gaining influence in the world and exercising soft power. Providing aid money can generate valuable access and generate a sympathetic cohort of people who can be called upon to further down the line.

This might be called the “self-serving” principle: we should only send aid money to authoritarian states when it promises to strengthen our international standing in the long-run. Note: this might not be quite as selfish an argument as it first seems, because what better way is there to increase a donor country’s ability to promote democracy abroad in the future, than to expand the international influence of democratic states?

Democrats might also not want to apply “democracy” criteria to aid if they think that this will make it harder for other countries to economically develop. For example, if it is true that in some contexts strong authoritarian governments will be more stable than weak democracies, it might make sense to tolerate them on the basis that they are more likely to achieve development and lift people out of poverty – an argument that’s often made in reference to Paul Kagame’s Rwanda.

Also read: Why Ebola Is Proving Hard to Beat in the DRC

This might be called the “one thing at a time” principle: democracies should give money to non-democracies whenever it’s clear that authoritarian rule has a better chance of improving ordinary citizens’ standard of living.

As with self-interest, this argument can loop back to strengthening global democracy in the long-run. This is because many researchers have argued, effective national infrastructure, a strong economy and respect for the rule of law are required to facilitate a smooth process of democratic consolidation.

It turns out, then, that you don’t have to be someone who doesn’t believe in democracy, or promoting it abroad, to want to give aid money to authoritarian regimes. Instead, committed democrats may have good reasons not to want to channel all of their aid budgets to other democratic states. Even if you reject one or two of the arguments above, you may have to accept others.

I believe that aid should be the way democracies try and make the world a better place for others, so I am unpersuaded by the “self-serving” principle. I also think the empirical evidence suggests that, on balance, democracies are better placed to generate and maintain economic growth. So, I reject the “one thing at a time” principle.

However, I do find the “democratising” and “humanitarian” arguments compelling. So, if I got to run a democracy for a day, I would send aid money to some authoritarian regimes – but only under tight conditions, and even then I would want to regularly review the situation. Otherwise democratic donors risk falling into the trap of aiding authoritarian governments not out of principle, but out of habit.

The author will be debating this topic with leading thinkers from Islamic Relief, Oxfam GB, and British politics at the University of Birmingham on 31 January.

Nic Cheeseman, Professor of Democracy, University of Birmingham

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Democratic Breakthroughs in Africa Are Worthy of Celebration, but Worries Still Linger

Political repression and economic inequality has increased in Africa, calling into question the extent of the continent’s democratic gains.

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta flanked by his Deputy William Ruto addresses the nation at State House in Nairobi, Kenya September 1, 2017. Credit: Reuters

There is much to celebrate as the world marks International Day of Democracy. The last year has seen important democratic breakthroughs in Africa. In Gambia an entrenched autocrat was forced from power. In Ghana, a sitting president lost an election for the first time.

In just the last few weeks, Kenya has also joined the club of precedent- setting nations, after the Supreme Court ruled that the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta was illegal and must be held again. Not only was this a first in Kenya, it was also the first time that the election of a sitting president had been overturned by the judiciary in Africa.

These changes reflect a broader trend in sub-Saharan Africa and much of the world. An increasing number of countries are holding multiparty elections. And an increasing proportion of these states have witnessed a transfer of power from one party or leader to another.

It’s true that more elections are now being held than at any time in human history. But recent highlights in Gambia, Ghana and Kenya mask a problematic reality, namely that the expansion of multi-party politics has often gone hand-in-hand with political and economic exclusion. Over the past five years, the level of political repression and economic inequality has increased in Africa. In turn, this has called into question the extent of the continent’s democratic gains.

Rising repression

In recent times high levels of repression have been witnessed across much of the continent. These include the arrest of opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, as he campaigned against his defeat in the 2016 presidential election in Uganda. Also, in Kenya there were a high number of human rights violations when security forces cracked down on opposition protests during the election.

According to Freedom House, an American think tank that rates the level of freedom in every country in the world, the quality of civil liberties in Africa has fallen every year for a decade. Seven out of the 15 countries that showed the biggest deterioration in the quality of their political environment over the last 12 months were African. They are the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Niger, South Sudan, and Zambia. Next year, Tanzania may well join that list.

Other forms of political exclusion are also prevalent. Rwanda leads the world on female legislative representation while Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda also perform well on this metric. But very few women are ever elected in the continent’s largest states such as Angola, Nigeria and the DRC.

Minority groups often suffer a similar fate. In Botswana, a state often lauded as one of those leading on democratic rights in Africa, the indigenous San community have been largely excluded from the political process. Similarly, lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer citizens typically find that their human rights are undermined. Fortunately, this is not true of countries with more progressive constitutions such as South Africa.

Rising inequality

In many states, political exclusion has gone hand in hand with rising economic inequality. As a result the relative poverty – the gap between the rich and the poor – is growing. This is despite the fact that the level of absolute poverty has fallen in a number of countries.

In other words, serious developmental gains are occurring at the same time that other forms of economic exclusion are intensifying.

One of the most stunning facts about the continent is that the Human Development Index – a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and per capita income indicators – shows that every country in Africa is today less equal than it was in 2010.

More worryingly, there is no evidence that democracies are performing better than authoritarian systems on this issue. If anything, the reverse is true. Indeed, one of the most intriguing paradoxes of African democracy is that it is those countries that are most democratic that are most unequal. Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa, three of the continent’s most secure democracies, feature the highest levels of inequality in the world.

The combination of political and economic exclusion in Africa is important for intrinsic and instrumental reasons. Intrinsically, democracy is failing to deliver if it is not helping the worst as much as the best off. Instrumentally, the combination of economic and political exclusion increases the risk that political grievances will develop into instability.

Building a more inclusive world

One reason that democratisation has not always reduced the degree of exclusion is that political systems in Africa, much like the rest of the world, tend not to feature inclusive political arrangements.

The continent only features a handful of states that are federal or feature high levels of political devolution. These include Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa and Sudan. Moreover, even within this small sample the ability of opposition parties to get elected at the sub-national level has often been limited, especially in Ethiopia and Sudan. As a result, individuals and groups that lose out in the race for national office rarely enjoy the kind of local self-government that might make them feel that they have a stake in the political system.

Institutional mechanisms to ensure a form of power sharing are also rare. By and large African states are presidential and highly majoritarian. They also do not feature constitutional provisions that guarantee minorities and losing parties a seat at the table.

Indeed, Burundi is currently the only country that comes close to the consociational “ideal type” of inclusive politics outlined by the famous political scientist Arendt Lijphart. But even there the authoritarian bent of President Pierre Nkurunziza has undermined both the letter and the spirit of the country’s carefully designed constitution.

Absent political representation, and with so few checks and balances on the exercise of power, it is unsurprising that minorities and opposition groups get such a raw deal. Of course, this is not to say that political inclusion is a cure-all: there are many established democracies with less exclusive political arrangements that have failed to reduce economic inequality. But until African political systems become less majoritarian and do a better job of protecting the rights and interests of minorities, the true benefits of democratic government are unlikely to be realised.

Nic Cheeseman is professor of democracy at University of Birmingham.

This article was originally published in The Conversation.

Democracy Is Taking Root in Africa. But That Doesn’t Mean It Works All the Time

When it comes to elections there are at least two Africas: one that has not become much more democratic since the early 1990s and another in which elections have become entrenched and the quality of the process has improved.

When it comes to elections there are at least two Africas: one that has not become much more democratic since the early 1990s and another in which elections have become entrenched and the quality of the process has improved.

Elections in Africa are of two types : one that has not become much more democratic since the early 1990s, and another in which elections have become entrenched and the quality of the process has improved – though not always consistently – over time. Credit : Wikimedia

The questions that I get asked most often by students, policy makers and political leaders are: “can democracy work in Africa?” and “is Africa becoming more democratic?”.

As we celebrate Africa Day and reflect on how far the continent has come since the Organisation of African Unity was founded in 1963, it seems like a good time to share my response.

Some people who ask these questions assume that the answer will be “no”, because they are thinking of the rise of authoritarian abuses in places like Burundi and Zambia. Others assume that the answer is “yes” because they remember recent transfers of power in Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria.

Overall trends on the continent can be read in a way that supports both conclusions. On the one hand, the average quality of civil liberties has declined every year for the last decade. On the other, the number of African states in which the government has been defeated at the ballot box has increased from a handful in the mid 1990s to 19.

To explain this discrepancy, I suggest that we need to approach the issue a little differently. Instead of focusing on the last two or three elections, or Africa-wide averages, we need to look at whether democratic institutions such as term-limits and elections are starting to work as intended. This tells us much more about whether democratic procedures are starting to become entrenched, and hence how contemporary struggles for power are likely to play out.

When we approach the issue in this way it becomes clear that democracy can work in Africa – but that this does not mean that it always will.

The rules of the game

Democracies are governed by many different sets of regulations, but two of the most important are presidential term-limits and the need to hold free and fair elections. Because these rules have the capacity to remove presidents and governments from power, they represent a litmus test of the strength of democratic institutions and the commitment of political leaders to democratic principles.

So how are these institutions faring? Let us start with elections. Back in the late 1980s only Botswana, Gambia and Mauritius held relatively open multiparty elections. Today, almost every state bar Eritrea holds elections of some form. However, while this represents a remarkable turn of events, the average quality of these elections is low. According to the National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy data set, on a one to ten scale in which ten is the best score possible, African elections average just over 5.

As a result, opposition parties have to compete for power with one hand tied behind their backs. This helps to explain why African presidents win 88% of the elections that they contest. On this basis, it doesn’t look like democracy is working very well at all.

If we move away from averages, though, it becomes clear that this finding masks two very different trends. In some countries, such as Rwanda and Sudan, elections are being held to legitimise the government but offer little real choice to voters.

Things look very different if we instead look at Benin and Ghana, which have experienced a number of transfers of power. In countries like these, governments allow voters to have their say and – by and large – respect their decision.

This suggests that when it comes to elections there are at least two Africas: one that has not become much more democratic since the early 1990s, and another in which elections have become entrenched and the quality of the process has improved – though not always consistently – over time.

Constraints on presidential power

When it comes to upholding the presidential term-limits that most African states feature in their constitutions, the picture is also mixed. In many countries, leaders who were never committed to respecting a two- (or in some cases three-term) limit have been able to change or reinterpret the law in a way that allows them to remain in office indefinitely. As a result, term limits have been overturned in Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.

But, as we saw with elections, the picture is not as bleak as it may at first appear. To date, African presidents have come up against term-limits 38 times. In only 18 cases have presidents sought to ignore and amend the constitution, and in only 12 cases were they successful. Put another way, of the 42 countries that feature term-limits, so far they have only been overturned in 13.

This is remarkable. On a continent known for “Big Man” rule and which has often been described as being institution less, one of the most important democratic institutions of them all is starting to take root in a surprising number of states. So far presidents have accepted – or been forced to accept – the ultimate check on their authority in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sao Tome & Principe, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia.

Thus, while it is important not to overlook the ability of leaders to subvert the rules of the game in the continent’s more authoritarian states, it is also important to recognise that the constraints on presidential power are greater than at any time in the last 50 years. In contemporary Africa, term limits are more likely to be respected than broken.

Can democracy work in Africa?

This evidence demonstrates that democracy can work in Africa. In those countries in which high quality elections go hand in hand with entrenched term-limits, we are witnessing processes of democratic consolidation. Some of these processes are just starting, and all are vulnerable to reversal, but there is no longer any reason to doubt that democracy can function in a number of African countries.

So what separates the success stories from the rest? What we know is that there are a number of factors that serve to insulate governments from domestic and international pressure to reform, and so undermine the prospects for democratisation.

One is the presence of strong security forces that can be used to put down opposition and civil society protests. Another is the presence of significant oil reserves. With the exception of Ghana and possibly Nigeria, Africa’s petro-states are all authoritarian.

A third is support from foreign governments, which is often given to regimes that are geo-strategically important and willing to support the foreign policy goals of other states, whether they are democratic or not.

These factors do indeed make it harder to break free of old authoritarian logics. But it’s also important to keep in mind that they don’t make it impossible. Nigeria, for example, ticks most of these boxes and yet witnessed a peaceful transfer of power in 2015.

Given this, and the many other positive stories that have come out of the continent, it is seems apt to end by repeating the final line of my 2015 book. Despite all of the negative stories that dominate the headlines

‘It is far too early to give up on democracy in Africa.’

This is of great importance because there is already evidence that on average more democratic states spend more on education and achieve higher levels of economic growth.

We therefore have good reasons to believe that in the long-run living under a democracy will improve the lives of African citizens.

Nic Cheeseman is a Professor of Democracy at University of Birmingham

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

We Need to Talk About Zambia as It Falls From Grace Under President Lungu

The world’s media, which has in the past found Zambia uninteresting, are suddenly paying more attention to the impoverished nation, for all the wrong reasons.

Zambian President Edgar Lungu has been criticised for turning the country into a dictatorship. Credit: Reuters/Rogan Ward

Zambia has often been ignored by the international media. One reason for this neglect is that it’s been comparatively unexceptional, on a continent with more than its fair share of extremes.

Since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in 1991, the country has neither been a clear democratic success story like Ghana or South Africa , nor a case of extreme authoritarian abuse, as in Cote d’Ivoire and Zimbabwe.

Instead, Zambia has occupied a middle ground lacking a hook with which to sell coverage of the country, journalists have tended to steer clear. But in the last few months things began to change. First, the opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema was arrested on trumped up treason charges.

Shortly after, the Conference of Catholic Bishops released a strongly worded criticism of the government that concluded:

Our country is now all, except in designation, a dictatorship

As a result, the country has returned to the headlines, and whether one agrees with the bishops’ evaluation or not, one thing is clear: it’s time to start talking about Zambia.

Democratic success

Until now, Zambia’s progress under multi-party politics has been quietly impressive.

Although the level of corruption has remained high, and a number of highly controversial elections, the country has consistently pulled back from the brink when authoritarian rule appeared a possibility.

Things appeared to be going downhill, for example, when Zambia’s second president, Frederick Chiluba, manipulated the constitution to prevent his predecessor, Kenneth Kaunda, from running against him on the grounds that he was not really Zambian. This strategy was clearly illegitimate. After all, Kaunda had run the country for over two decades.

But, Chiluba’s position was weaker than he understood and he overplayed his hand by trying to secure an unconstitutional third term. He ultimately left office when his second term expired at the end of 2002.

While Zambians have been willing to defend their new democracy, political leaders have shown a greater willingness to share power than in many nearby states. On the one hand, presidents from a number of different ethnic groups have occupied State House, which has helped to manage tension. On the other, opposition parties have been able to use populist strategies to attract support in urban areas and build effective political machines. As a result, Zambia is one of the only countries on the continent – along with Benin, Ghana, Madagascar, and Mauritius – that has experienced two transfers of power.

Over the last year, though, things have changed.

Zambia’s fall from grace

According to the Conference of Catholic Bishops – one of the most influential bodies in the country – Zambia doesn’t deserve to be called a democracy. Instead, under the leadership of President Edgar Lungu and the Patriotic Front it has become a dictatorship – or getting there.

This statement needs to be taken seriously for two reasons. First, the bishops rarely speak out publicly. Second, many catholic leaders were seen to be sympathetic to the governing Patriotic Front, when it won power under Michael Sata in 2011. So, their actions cannot simply be put down to party political bias.

So what has changed? The bishops identify a number of recent developments as causes for concern.

First, they point to the treatment of opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema. Not only was his arrest conducted in an unnecessarily brutal manner, but the government has not yet provided any evidence to substantiate the treason charge. Instead, it appears that his detention is punishment for refusing to recognise the legitimacy of the president, who Hichilema believes won the last election unfairly.

Zambia’s opposition leader and presidential hopeful Hakainde Hichilema. Credit: Reuters/Rogan Ward

For obvious reasons, his detention and the question of whether he will be released has been the focus of recent media coverage. But for the Bishops, Hichilema’s arrest is clearly just the tip of the iceberg. The worries expressed in their statement are less about the fate of the opposition leader, and more about the systematic weakening of the state.

For example, the Bishops lament the fact that the Constitutional Court failed to effectively hear the opposition’s election petition, believing the judiciary have “let the people down”.

They also note that the politicisation of the police force has resulted in the violation of citizens’ rights and that, partly as a result, the media has become entrapped in a “culture of silence”. The Bishops suggest that the political manipulation of these institutions has enabled the government to launch attacks on a number of civil society groups that have dared to challenge its authority, including the Law Association of Zambia.

While the charges against Hichilema may have triggered the Bishops to act, their letter is underpinned by a deeper and broader concern about the declining quality of governance under President Lungu.

What next?

This is not the first time that a Zambian president has sought to consolidate their authority by manipulating state institutions. Nor is it the first time that opposition leaders have been arrested, or civil society groups intimidated. In the recent past, these moments of high political tension have often been resolved peacefully and it’s not impossible that a similar thing will happen this time.

For example, the president may decide to release Hichilema and to pull back from the prohibition of the Law Society of Zambia in the wake of considerable criticism. If the recent spate of attacks has been designed to intimidate his rivals, Lungu may feel that his goal has already been achieved and that he has little to gain by following through with his threats.

But even if this were to happen, it’s unlikely that it would signal a period of a more accountable government, or that Lungu will cede his quest to remain in office. Many things have changed since Chiluba failed to secure a third term in office almost twenty years ago.

First, key civil society groups such as the trade unions have been weakened by privatisation, informalisation and unemployment.
Second, the Constitutional Court that’s responsible for interpreting the constitution was handpicked by Lungu, and is highly unlikely to oppose him.
Third, Lungu’s case is more complicated than Chiluba’s. In 2001, the second president had served two fill terms in office and wanted one more. Today, Lungu is arguing that he should be allowed to have a third term because his first period in office did not count, as he was just serving out the final year of Michael Sata’s term following his untimely death in office.

This reading of the constitution is highly questionable. The clause that stipulates that a period in office only counts as a full term if it’s longer than three years is limited to a set of cases that doesn’t include the way that Lungu actually came to power. But, it is less clear-cut than Chiluba’s power grab.

All of this means that Lungu is likely to get his way. But, his third term will not come without a cost. Opposition protests are inevitable, as is some civil society criticism. If past form is anything to go by, Lungu’s government will respond with threats and intimidation, fuelling public fears that Zambian politics has become significantly more violent since the 2016 election campaign. Given this, the Bishops’ recent letter is unlikely to be their last, and we need to talk about Zambia for some time to come.

Nic Cheeseman is a professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.