Democracy and development revisited

Conveners: Staffan I. Lindberg and Valeriya Mechkova, V-Dem Institute, Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg

Contact: valeriya.mechkova@v-dem.net

Through Goal 16 the newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals put democratic institutions as a top priority on the development agenda for the next 15 years. Central targets to the ambitious Goal 16 are building accountable, participatory and inclusive institutions, and providing access to justice for all, which are institutional characteristics describing the core values of democracy. While subject to numerous studies, the link between democratic institutions and development is yet a controversial topic. The capability of democracies to foster economic growth, provide public goods and thus tackle problems like poverty, poor public health or lack of access to sanitation, has been challenged by many scholars. This argument could suggest that developing countries should move their focus from issues like rule of law or providing participatory environment for all to executing practical developmental policies. At the same time, some recent studies show that democratic institutions pay off in terms of better development outcomes.

The panel explores the latest findings regarding the important question of the relationship between democratic institutions and development goals like poverty reduction, alleviating hunger, improving the quality and access to education, water and sanitation. The objective is to analyze the development agenda as a whole and to identify synergies between different goals. Particular emphasis is placed on low-income countries facing limited resources and challenges in implementing the entire set of ambitious development goals. Finally, a key related question concerns the role of external actors in the promotion of development practices that are also supportive of democracy and institution building.

Session A: 23 Aug., 11:00–12:30, Ahlmann Lecture Hall

  • State first, then democracy: using cadastral records to explain governmental performance in public goods provision. Michelle D’Arcy, Trinity College Dublin and Marina Nistotskaya, University of Gothenburg.
  • Democracy and Development in East Africa; The Missing Link. Daniel Ngugi, Karatina University.
  • Is accountability developmental? Anna Lührmann, Kyle L. Marquardt and Valeriya Mechkova, University of Gothenburg.
  • Democracy, Civic Engagement and Obstacles to Development: Evidence from Indonesia. Mohammad Iqbal Ahnaf, Gadjah Mada University.

Session B: 23 Aug., 14:00–15:30, Ahlmann Lecture Hall

  • Political Conditions for Effective Democracy Assistance, Anna Lührmann, Kelly McMann and Carolien van Ham, University of Gothenburg.
  • Access to Water and Democracy: Water distribution as a political problem. António Luís Dias,  Universidade Nova de Lisboa.
  • The democracy and development thesis: a dissenting view from Ghana’s experience for reclaiming the African development project. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, University of Ghana.
  • Gender and electoral integrity: a pilot study of election violence in the Maldives. Elin Bjarnegård, Uppsala University.

Abstracts

State first, then democracy: using cadastral records to explain governmental performance in public goods provision. Michelle D’Arcy, Trinity College Dublin and Marina Nistotskaya, University of Gothenburg.

An extant political economy literature suggests that the institutions most capable of delivering human development are states that are both strong and democratic: effective social order depends on the ability of states a) to solve collective action problems by efficiently monitoring individual contributions to collective endeavors and punishing free-riding (credible enforcement) and b) to refrain from the predatory use of power (credible commitment). However, these accounts do not address the issue of sequencing. Credible commitment and credible enforcement both matter for human development, but do different sequences of these institutional ingredients produce the same result? Since Huntington’s first exploration of this question (1968), there has been vibrate debate on the relationship between state capacity and democracy without a clear theoretical or empirical resolution, which at times has turned the debate to be more normative than analytical. In this paper we bring theories of the institutional determinants of development to bear on the sequencing debate. Building on rational choice theories of public goods production, we argue that credible enforcement before credible commitment – democratizing after the state has acquired high levels of state capacity – lends to a more efficient social order than the opposite sequence. Using a theoretically grounded and novel indicator of historical state capacity – the extent and quality of cadastral records – our analysis shows that those countries where the state developed extensive enforcement capacities before democratization exhibit, on average, better provision of essential public goods and less corrupt. Our findings are robust to alternative measurements and different model specifications.

Democracy and Development in East Africa; The Missing Link. Daniel Ngugi, Karatina University.

In east Africa, there have been perceptions on democracy as if it’s only meant for political development and not for socioeconomic development. Majority of persons may not associate democracy with development. This is because of the disconnect that exist between the politics and development. Based on experiences from East Asia, mixed and autocracies form of ruling do not bring forth ultimate growth and development and has not been in any way significant over the last 40 years. However, democratic form of ruling has been identified with a 0.5% growth in per capita in East Asia. In East Africa’s three main countries; Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania have different democratic systems. Kenya embraced democracy earlier than the other countries and her economic development has been performing better than as compared to Uganda and Tanzania. The relationship between democracy and development should not be underrated particularly in the emerging economies. Unfortunately, due to lack of awareness and literacy levels, majority of people in East Africa do not have a clear understanding on the link between the emphasized democracy and their well-being. It is at this juncture the paper sought to find out the extent to which this relationship is understood and recommending the way forward to enhance socioeconomic development in the region.

Is accountability developmental? Anna Lührmann, Kyle L. Marquardt and Valeriya Mechkova, University of Gothenburg.

Accountability is one of the cornerstones of good governance. Public officials and bodies need to be held to account for their actions in order to ensure that they provide public goods in a committed, impartial and effective manner. Consequently, scholars have argued that accountability matters for human development. However, a lack of disaggregated data sources has limited cross-national research on the role of different types of accountability for development. Addressing this research gap, this paper develops a multi-faceted accountability index utilizing the new V-Dem data and investigates the effect of different types of accountability on various governance outcomes. Furthermore, we pinpoint the role of specific types of accountability in improving developmental outcomes and their interrelationship.

Democracy, Civic Engagement and Obstacles to Development: Evidence from Indonesia. Mohammad Iqbal Ahnaf, Gadjah Mada University.

Indonesia’s remarkable experience of democratization poses a paradox. The country embarked into an open democracy that ended decades of authoritarian government despite the fact that it lacks structural and cultural conditions required for democracy. The country’s level of economic development, diverse societies and history of authoritarianism are theoretically obstacles for the success of democratization. One explanation to this paradox points at the robust civic engagement that offers active civil society and popular activism; it thus constrains elites from hijacking democratic process against the interest of the public. Following this line of argument, this paper suggests that Indonesia’s democratization has been shaped by active societies that mobilize public participation in democratic institutions. However, from there it departs to a rather different view with regard to the nature of role of civic engagement in democratization. It suggests that active civic engagement does not necessarily supports improvement toward deliberative democracy.  The nature of civic engagement’s role relies on the type of the civil society promoting the engagement. Taking the case about the rise of so called (un)civil society in Indonesia’s province of Yogyakarta, this paper shows that the role of democratic institutions in development sector is incapacitated by the relational dynamic between political elites and the successful public engagement of (un)civil societies. It offers evidence on the obstacles to reforms and development caused by this type of engagement. Effective democratic institution is therefore critical to maintain civic engagement in the sphere that is conducive to development.

Political Conditions for Effective Democracy Assistance. Anna Lührmann, Kelly McMann and Carolien van Ham, University of Gothenburg.

Amidst the global authoritarian rollback, political conditions for democracy assistance have become increasingly challenging (Carothers 2015). In many countries, international democracy promoters face the resistance of increasingly self-confident authoritarian incumbents. Existing large-N studies have shown average effects of democracy aid on democratization, but did not investigate contextual conditions for successful democracy aid (Finkel et al 2007; Kalyvitis et al 2010; Scott and Steele 2011). However, case studies demonstrate that contextual factors – such as intractable incumbent regimes – can limit the impact of democracy assistance (e.g. Peou 2007). Therefore, this large-N study investigates the impact of democracy assistance in different political contexts. Building on recent literature on elections in autocracies, we develop a theory of the strategic interests of authoritarian incumbents with regards to democratic assistance. Specifically, we argue that some types of democracy assistance – e.g. assistance for civil society - maybe more suitable than others to circumvent the resistance of strong authoritarian incumbents. To test our hypotheses we make use of disaggregated data on OECD/DAC donor spending on democracy aid 2002-2012 in combination with Varieties of Democracy data on disaggregated indicators of democracy to investigate the effectiveness of different types of democracy aid in diverse contexts. Two-stage regression methods are employed to account for selection effects. 

Access to Water and Democracy: Water distribution as a political problem. António Luís Dias, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.

Promoting access to an improved source of safe drinking water was one of the Millennium Development Goals established during the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. While this goal was achieved there are still 663 million people without access to an improved source of water, with acute regional asymmetries in this domain. It was predicted that substantial economic resources and technological innovation were necessary to achieve this goal but there was also the need for political will. Which raises the question: do democratic regimes do a better job of granting access to this precious resource when compared to non-democracies? This paper will try to answer this question using the recent Varieties of Democracy dataset and UN data relative to water distribution, a dataset that covers almost all the countries in the world for the period between 1990 and 2015. During this period the proportion of the world population with access to an improved water source rose from 76% to 91%. By looking both at between country and within country variation we will assess if in fact populations living in democratic countries do enjoy an improved access to water. Moreover we will distinguish which dimensions of democracy promote better water distribution as it might be expected that different components of democracy affect differently this problem.

The democracy and development thesis: a dissenting view from Ghana’s experience for reclaiming the African development project. Dan-Bright S. Dzorgbo, University of Ghana.

Once again, democracy is put forward as critical precondition for promoting the broader global developmental agenda for the next 15 years. To be sure, the last 15 years or so have witnessed democratic renewals across much of Africa on the premise that democracy and development go hand-in-hand or democratic politics is precondition for development. Surely much has happened in Africa in these years and the while the experiences remained to be properly accounted for, impressionist data suggest that the results are mixed, if not disappointing, yet democracy for development thesis remains a key mantra of neo-liberal development discourse. This paper argues that the “democratic-development discourse” that is supposed to inform action and policy choices in recent times has been grossly dehistoricised and decontextualized thereby becoming irrelevant, if not deceptive, and unless it is meant to advance the interest of the dominant western countries, it is not serving any meaningful development purpose in Africa. Using mainly Ghana’s recent democratic experience as a basis, (albeit other experiences are alluded to) the paper argues (contrary to received wisdom) that democratic politics in its present form inflicts enormous burden on African societies and perhaps constitute the greatest internal obstacle to development. The paper calls for an alternative discourse and praxis: “development first, democracy later”. It concludes that what is urgently needed as precondition for development in most parts of Africa is the construction of a ‘rational-developmental state’ and not democracy.

Gender and electoral integrity: a pilot study of election violence in the Maldives. Elin Bjarnegård, Uppsala University.

This paper explores intimidation and violence targeting politicians in elections. Election violence is important because it is more than a violation of personal integrity: it also violates electoral integrity and decreases democratic quality (Norris 2013). Seen from a democratic perspective, election violence broadly defined is often used in order to affect electoral outcomes or to intimidate or threaten certain politicians from running a campaign or delivering their message. The project distinguishes itself from existing research on election violence in at least three ways: it focuses on a region less researched by zooming in on Asia, it focuses on violence directly targeting political candidates, and, importantly, it explores gender differences in the type of intimidation and violence experienced. The paper thereby sheds light on synergies and potential trade-offs between development agenda goals that prescribe effective democratic institutions (SDG 16) and goals to increase gender equality (SDG 5). This paper uses new and unique survey data and interview material from a pilot study in the Maldives to map the extent and type of intimidation, harassment and violence experienced by male and female candidates in the national election in 2014. The paper shows that women candidates are victims of psychological intimidation, often with sexual connotations, to a much larger extent than men. Moreover, it also suggests that women do not only experience different types of violence, but more violence than their male colleagues.