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- Convenor:
-
Nic Cheeseman
(University of Birmingham)
Send message to Convenor
- Formats:
- Papers Synchronous
- Stream:
- Political regimes and leadership
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
This panel will explore whether authoritarian or democratic leadership has been better for development in Africa & Asia, as part of a broader conversation about the specific conditions under which different types of regime do - and do not - promote development.
Long Abstract:
The question of whether authoritarian or democratic political systems are more effective at providing development is a classic debate within both political science and development studies. Recently, the impressive performance of authoritarian states such as Ethiopia and Rwanda - along with the rise of China - has led to a resurgence in popular and academic arguments that authoritarian regimes might perform better. Yet comparative and quantitative research has consistently found that authoritarian states in Africa tend to underperform, whether it comes to delivering economic growth or public services. By contrast, authoritarian states in Asia appear to have a better - though of course far from unblemished - record. Taking off from this finding, recent research by Nic Cheeseman and Robert Foa suggests that the effectiveness of authoritarian models of development depends on a number of mediating factors including the strength of formal institutions and the existence of informal checks and balances. As a result, the question of whether authoritarian or democratic systems work better for development may not have a single answer, but may vary both between and within regions. This panel will explore this idea by looking at the record of developmental leadership in Africa and Asia. Panellists will be invited to either focus on a specific region or to explicitly compare between the two.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 June, 2020, -Paper short abstract:
This paper offers a comparative analysis of how institutional change transforms the governance of informal economies, exploring how democratization has led to partial, if flawed, attempts to support informality in Cape Town while de-democratization has furthered marginalization in Kampala.
Paper long abstract:
The importance of institutions in shaping the governance of informal economies is receiving belated attention from both scholars and policymakers. A particularly significant theoretical insight that has emerged from this work is that competitive electoral processes allow the urban poor to secure vital forms of livelihood support, from favourable policies and enforcement patterns to protection arrangements, by leveraging their position as a crucial urban voting bloc. Based on extensive fieldwork in Cape Town, South Africa and Kampala, Uganda, this paper argues that while political rights provided by democratic systems of governance are indeed crucial for protecting the interests of individuals engaged in informal economic activity, social and economic rights that offer concrete livelihood protections are equally vital for providing security against the vagaries and capriciousness of politics. It illustrates how the democratic transformation that accompanied the end of apartheid in South Africa has shifted the governance of informality in Cape Town away from exclusion and repression towards early forms of recognition and support, but suggests that the neglect of social and economic rights means that the underlying causes of informality remain unaddressed. It contrasts this experience with that of Kampala, which has, conversely, undergone a more recent experience of de-democratization, resulting in increased repression and vulnerability in the informal economy. Both cases demonstrate the importance of democratic systems in facilitating inclusive development, but also highlight how these must be paired with broader forms of social and economic empowerment for the urban poor if they are to realize their potential.
Paper short abstract:
This study examines the relationship between governance and development performance in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Southeast Asia (SEA) from 1995 to 2017. The results reveal considerable variations in the relationship between governance and development across countries both in SSA and SEA.
Paper long abstract:
Understanding Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) requires explaining whether, why, and how it responds differently to particular variables (i.e., institutional quality) compared to other developing regions. This study contributes to this exercise and adds to the recent research comparing development processes and outcomes between SSA and Southeast Asia (SEA). According to these studies, based on SEA experience, good governance "as defined by donors" should not be regarded as a prerequisite for development success in SSA. This study calls this view into question by examining the relationship between governance and development performance in SSA and SEA from 1995-2017. It defines good governance according to the governance effectiveness (GE) indicator of the World Bank's Worldwide Governance Indicators. It focuses on development performance as progress in the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Program. It uses the hybrid (or within-between) random effects model, which accounts for heterogeneity. The study finds a positive and significant association between improvements in GE in a given period and development progress in the subsequent period. The results also reveal considerable variations in the relationship between governance and development across countries, suggesting the importance of context. The paper concludes by providing some recommendations for institutional reform and further research on governance and development.
Paper short abstract:
The Ethiopian case of authoritarian developmentalism is an outcome of the interplay between permissive and productive conditions occurred at three consecutive critical junctures since 1941. The paper examines temporal processes & their role in shaping the evolution of developmental institutions
Paper long abstract:
The experiment of Ethiopian ruling elites to build a developmental state has attracted the attention of several development scholars and practitioners. The focus of analysis includes industrial policy, social policy, state-society relations, and state-business relations. One aspect that has been missing in analysing the Ethiopian case is a macro-historical analysis of the Ethiopian state system and the interplay between institutions, agents and power across time. I argue that Ethiopia's version of authoritarian developmentalism is an outcome of the interplay between permissive and productive conditions of consecutive critical junctures. The three critical junctures are the 1974 Ethiopian Revolution, The 1991 Regime Change and The 2005 National Elections. By analysing these three critical junctures, the paper puts forward the following two inter-related arguments. First, the recent developmental success from 2004 - 2016 is significantly shaped by 'a political set up' that defied formal institutions of federalist decentralisation and democratisation by imposing de-facto re-centralisation and authoritarianism. Productive conditions that occurred after the 2005 elections enabled authoritarian leadership particularly under the late Meles Zenawi. Second, the ongoing political crisis and structural opening become a possibility because the productive conditions that sustained authoritarian developmentalism come to a dead end. As a result, one can argue that there is a critical juncture in the making which might end up reinforcing authoritarianism or a move towards a democratic but certainly less developmental regime.
Paper short abstract:
In the Neoliberal world order, the issues that define the age-old debate about the relationship between capitalism and democracy are explored as a debate about two contemporary movements referred to as neoliberal democracy and authoritarian neoliberalism from Africa, Asia, Latin America to the West.
Paper long abstract:
In the contemporary Neoliberal world order, the issues that define the age-old debate about the relationship between capitalism and democracy have become more nuanced and critical. In the 21st C, the democracy-capitalism conundrum that Joseph Schumpeter grappled with in the 20th century (Schumpeter, 2008) has become a debate about the relationship between two paradigmatic processes referred to as "neoliberal democracy" and "authoritarian neoliberalism" in the UK, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US. Using the two concepts to frame the discussion, the paper explores five dimensions that shape the relationship between capitalism and democracy reflected around the world in practice in the contemporary global world order. We apply all five models to case events that illustrate contemporary political-economic transformations in the UK, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the US, and that examine democratic impact, change, and transformation. The paper concludes that authoritarian neoliberalism has emerged as a dominant regime type around the world whose impact has been to increasingly destabilize liberal democracy in the West and to stunt the substantive consolidation of democracy in the Global South.
Paper short abstract:
While legacies of violence and fragile institutions combine to give mainstream elites voice that prioritise its interest coalition, the interest and voice of broader social groups are silenced from leverage even within most indigenous African leadership against rule of law.
Paper long abstract:
In order to work with but not for elite interests, we need to understand how and why moving elites towards a more citizen-oriented leadership and law enforcement structure provide a difficult security perspective particularly in some African post-conflict contexts negating global leadership evolution and best practices to address critical issues of climate emergency, identity-based inequalities, poverty, violence, ill-health, resource plunder, and digital surveillance. While legacies of violence and fragile institutions combine to give mainstream elites voice that prioritise its interest coalition, the interest and voice of broader social groups are silenced from leverage even within most indigenous African leadership against rule of law. The focus of the study therefore, is to examine elite interest coalition in the context of indigenous leadership and law enforcement structure in Nigeria. It argues that elite interest antagonizes that wider population rendered vulnerable to violence abuse, predation making it difficult for them to become a force in their own right. In addition, the paper points to the indigenous social and institutional texture of post-conflict nature of power relations in the political settlement is less dense and resilient in Africa than in more developed world. Adopted as framework is Moore, (1979) Structural Functionalism perspective, qualitative approach and content analysis served for data gathering. Preliminary findings reveal that in contrast to citizen-oriented leadership, mainstream entrenched interest coercively imposes its will on minority indigenous elite to silence majority vested interest to frustrate rule of law as ideal for new leadership against global law enforcement challenges.