The Art of Democracy in Africa

Day 1: MAY 27

8:30-9:20

Breakfast & Opening Remarks

9:30-11:00

Panel 1 – Political Imaginations and Democratic Exceptionalism

1. Decolonization and the Idea of Democracy in Mozambique, 1960-1974

( Benedito Machava, Yale University)

2. Arts and Democratic Imaginations in Mozambique

( Eduardo Lichuge, University Eduardo Mondlane )

3. Why Liberia Stands Out in the West African Democracy Struggle.

( Udoi Rateng, University of Michigan )

Chair: Keith Breckenridge (WiSER, Wits University)

Coffee Break

11:15-12:45

Panel 2 – Mozambique’s Democratic Crisis

1. Why has Mozambique’s democratic transition been stalled?

( José Jaime Macuane, University Eduardo Mondlane )

2. Ambivalent energopolitics: Electricity and authoritarianism in Mozambique

(Idalina Baptista, University of Oxford )

Chair: Celso Monjane (Wits University)

13:00-14:00

Lunch Break

14:15-16:00

Panel 3 – Technology, Social Media, and Citizenship

1. Social Media and Democracy in Africa: Promises and Pitfalls.

( Elena Gadjanova, University of Exeter )

2. Rethinking the possibility of democracy through technological infrastructures: The case of biometric voting registers in Cameroon.

( Georges Macaire Eyenga, WiSER, Wits University)

3. Citizenship is the Problem: How defending the integrity of the population register became a driver of mass exclusion.

( Keith Breckenridge, WiSER, Wits University)

Chair: Idalina Baptista (University of Oxford)

Coffee Break

16:15-17:15

Keynote Address

Keynote Speaker:

Adriano Nuvunga (University Eduardo Mondlane & Center for Democracy and Human Rights, Mozambique)

Chair: Anne Pitcher (University of Michigan)

18:30

Dinner for Participants at Restaurante Sagres

Day 2 - May 28

8:30-9:00

Breakfast

9:00-10:45

Panel 4 – Post-Apartheid South Africa Revisited

1. The Revisionists: Democracy and Its Discontents, 1994-2024

(Hlonipha Mokoena, WiSER )

2. Power to the People? On the Perceptions of the Purpose and Power of Government in Post-Apartheid Soweto

( Adam Ashforth, Michigan University )

3. Deathly ‘care’: The limits of representation in South African democracy

( Shireen Hassim, Carleton University and WiSER )

Chair: Martin Murray (University of Michigan)

Coffee Break

11:15-1:00

Panel 5 – Politicized Accumulation, Transnational Kleptocracy and the Consequences for Democracy

1. Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions

( Michaela Collord, University of Nottingham )

2. Officers, Politicians, and Businesspeople: The effects of military political and economic power for democracy and human rights in Mozambique

( Anne Pitcher, University of Michigan & Celso Monjane, Wits University )

3. What is Kleptocracy and Why Does It Matter?

( John Heathershaw, University of Exeter )

Chair: Elena Gadjanova (Oxford University)

13:00-14:00

Lunch Break

14:15-16:30

Site Visit to Matola Raid Memorial

Dinner for Participants at Restaurante Costa do Sol

Day 3 - May 29

8:00-15:00

Visit, Discussion & Lunch at Ponta De Ouro

Dinner for Participants at Restaurante TBD

Benedito Machava, Assistant Professor, History Department, Yale University

Decolonization and the Idea of Democracy in Mozambique, 1960-1974

This paper examines the arena of political imagination that the prospect of decolonization opened up in Mozambique. It explores the heated arguments about the possible paths that Mozambique could take after colonial rule by people in the margins of the liberation struggle. This is not a simple case of shifting the cast of characters of African decolonization from anti-colonial nationalists – who have dominated scholarly accounts of decolonization – to marginal figures. Rather, it is about widening the field of political action and thinking from the rural battlegrounds and exile where the Mozambican nationalists operated to the urban milieus where anti-colonial activism took a different form. For a settler colony ruled by racial laws that policed the boundary between white citizens and black subjects, the underground anti-colonial activism that emerged in two of Mozambique’s largest cities, Lourenço Marques and Beira, blurred the color line. Forced to operate underground by the colonial regime, progressive settlers and African intellectuals met in the clandestine networks of political activism and built coalitions that produced a particular way of imagining Mozambique beyond colonial rule. What they envisioned was a democratic and multi-racial dispensation, a vision that collided with – and ultimately gave way to – the exclusivist project of revolutionary nationalists.

Eduardo Lichuge, Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology, University Eduardo Mondlane

Arts and Democratic Imaginations in Mozambique

In Africa, the concept of democracy signifies more than a political system and it has its genesis in the traditions and cultural practices of the African people. An example of this is the Copi people of the Province of Inhambane in the south of Mozambique, who articulate their political thoughts through music. Canonically known as “copi music”, it is performed on the timbila, an instrumental ensemble made up of several mbila or wooden lamellophones composed on average of 16-18 keys. The performance is called ngodo. The term ngodo refers to a complex system that incorporates multiple meanings from the performance where the articulation between movement and sound is fundamental. The themes interpreted in a ngodo deal with events or community features that often have critical meaning related to the authorities that govern them (Lichuge, 2016). Therefore, the moment of the performance of a ngodo in the presence of community leaders configures a participatory, inclusive logic, essential for questions of development and social justice, and contributes to freedom of expression, social criticism, popular participation in decision-making, and in the construction of solid democratic institutions. Starting from an ethnomusicology perspective, I reflect on the nature of democratic processes in Africa, based on the analysis of Copi musical practices. Based on the ideas of the Malawian scholar Thandika Mkandawire (2001), I seek to discuss the idea of an African democracy based on formal electoral processes, without guaranteeing real and inclusive participation. To what extent has the “organization” of African societies according to European logic weakened African democratic systems? Isn't the effort to coexist between these two democratic systems a challenge to the stability of democracy in Africa? How do the challenges faced by African democracy hinder the existence of effective institutions?

Udoi Rateng, PhD Student in Political Science and Public Policy, University of Michigan

Why Liberia Stands Out in the West African Democracy Struggle

Africa’s 2024 electoral calendar will be busy, aligning with the emerging discourse on electoral continuity in African politics scholarship. As African nations institutionalize multiparty elections, it becomes essential to examine the conduct and distinctiveness of these elections, considering the varied historical contexts of each country before and after the restoration of multiparty politics in the 1990s. In this article, I analyze the recent Liberia elections, a country that has continued to demonstrate its commitment to institutionalizing multiparty politics and consolidating democracy since 2005, following two devastating civil wars between 1989 and 2003. Consistent with the existing literature, the political elite that has dominated national politics since 2005 remains influential, reflecting a pattern of elite circulation. Presidential and legislative elections are fiercely competitive, and campaign rhetoric is inflammatory in a polarized media landscape. Although not widespread, social media is a platform for political rallies and discussions by politicians, voters, and the media. Interestingly, politicians and parties have not effectively instrumentalized domestic legal structures and adapted international systems to stay in office. I offer possible explanations for Liberia’s oddity, arguing that Liberia’s sociopolitical and economic vulnerability and dependence on global systems create an opposite effect, contrary to observations in other African countries.

José Jaime Macuane, Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, University Eduardo Mondlane

Why has Mozambique’s democratic transition been stalled?

Mozambique started its political liberalization in the later 1980s as part of its democratization process, driven by internal and external causes. Since then, the country featured elements of a hybrid regime and has lately experienced a clear democratic recession, in line with the trends worldwide. However, the country has specificities that can explain the dynamic of the democratization process, such as the history of conflict, the political history and culture of the country and particularly the history of the main political actors as well as their relation. The paper takes a political economy perspective, looking at the history of the process, continuities and discontinuities of the political overture started in the late 1980s, institutions and actors involved and underlying incentives of the latter to contribute to the democratization process in Mozambique.

Idalina Baptista, Associate Professor of Urban Anthropology, University of Oxford

Ambivalent energopolitics: Electricity and authoritarianism in Mozambique

This paper examines the relationship between electricity infrastructures and the exercise of, and struggles for, power in contemporary Mozambique. Drawing on a qualitative analysis of archival and secondary sources, the paper traces how Frelimo elites have had a complex and difficult relationship with energy in general, and electricity in particular. The paper examines this relationship in three moments. First, while a liberation movement, Frelimo had an ambivalent view of the role energy could play in a future independent Mozambique. Indeed, one of its rallying points had been a strong, yet ambiguous, hostility towards the construction of the Cahora Bassa dam by the Portuguese in the dying hours of its colonial regime. Second, over the first three decades of independence (1975-2005), Frelimo was slow to articulate a relationship between electricity and statecraft. The international oil crisis, the civil war, and the hubris of Frelimo’s own political imagination of Mozambique – a heterogeneous brand of socialism, nationalism, and high modernism – all concurred to a parochial understanding of the role of electricity in developing the newly independent nation. It is during the presidency of Armando Guebuza, from 2005 onwards, that Frelimo elites put energy at the center of their political and economic rule. In this third moment, Frelimo elites began to see electricity and other energy-related infrastructures (e.g., offshore gas) as a new extractive frontier for themselves. This predatory energopolitics, whereby Frelimo exercises power over and through energy at the expense of the larger population, unfolds as the promise of democracy unravels into both overt and subtler forms of autocracy. Popular protests over raising costs of electricity, travel and essential goods are swiftly and violently quashed, while the state invokes rural electrification and control over electricity infrastructures (e.g. “Cahora Bassa is ours!) as benefactions of longstanding Frelimo rule. The paper concludes with a reflection on what the Mozambican case tells us about ambivalence in the politics of electricity (and other energy) infrastructures and a speculation about what it means for a democratic, just, and sustainable energy transition across Africa.

Elena Gadjanova, Senior Lecturer in Comparative Politics, Department of Social and Political Sciences,Philosophy, and Anthropology, University of Exeter

Social Media and Democracy in Africa: Promises and Pitfalls

What are the consequences of the increased use of social media for democracy in Africa? Does it empower new voices, level the electoral playing field, and increase accountability pressures on dictators? Or does it provide a medium for increased censorship, widen existing divides, deepen inequalities, and facilitate the spread of misinformation? I will draw on recent work to discuss the role social media has played in politics in a number of African countries. I will examine the ways, in which political parties have employed social media to both organise internally and reach out to voters in Ghana, Kenya, and Nigeria, discuss how the opposition effectively used social media to overcome incumbency advantages in Zambia’s 2021 election, and talk about patterns in the spread of electoral misinformation between online and offline spaces, and the extent to which levels of digital literacy influence citizens’ vulnerability to circulating misinformation. Drawing these different research strands together, I will offer some preliminary conclusions, which I hope will foster a fruitful conversation about the promises and pitfalls of social media for democracy on the Continent.

Georges Macaire Eyenga, Research Fellow at WiSER, Wits University

Rethinking the possibility of democracy through technological infrastructures: The case of biometric voting registers in Cameroon

In recent years, African studies have sparked intense debates on the democratization of the continent, despite its persistent reputation as a breeding ground for authoritarian regimes. The discussions initially focused on democratic transition in the 1990s, followed by reflections on the role of the internet and social media during the Arab Spring revolutions. Recent debates have been marked by the emergence of pan-African movements challenging political elites and former colonial powers, along with a series of coups jeopardizing democratic efforts of recent decades. However, beyond political and ideological aspects, it seems crucial to consider democracy from a sociotechnical perspective, particularly by examining citizens' registration on voting registers. In many African countries, prior registration conditions electoral participation, leading to the exclusion of thousands for various reasons, including a lack of identification documents or voting cards. With the digital revolution, voting registers are undergoing digitization through biometrics, touted as a reliable and secure solution. This presentation aims to share a concrete experience in producing biometric voting registers in Cameroon, examining its rationale, constraints, and democratic implications. This research is part of the focus on "art of democracy" and is based on empirical studies within the context of an international program on population registers, ethics, and human rights.

Keith Breckenridge, Professor of History and Acting-Director of WiSER, Wits University

Citizenship is the Problem: How defending the integrity of the population register became a driver of mass exclusion.

In January, 2024, the Pretoria High Court issued a judgment overturning the Department of Home Affairs' decade-long effort to cleanse the population register of citizenships and identifications that officials have found suspect. The judgement requires the DHA to restore the identity numbers (and citizenship) of well over two million people whose identity numbers have been disabled over the last decade.  Blocking identity numbers in this way pushed the victims into a netherworld of citizenship: they may not vote, access any government credentials or welfare, travel or access any banking (or the many other linked financial resources). The two million cancellations make up 5% of the adult population of South Africa but the affected group may, in fact, be much larger as the children of the barred adults often cannot access birth certificates.  Identity barring on this scale is globally unprecedented -- orders of magnitude more severe than the Dominican Republic, India and Kenya, where heated public controversies over identity exclusion are well established.  In this paper I explore the motivations and practices behind the state's effort to strip its own people of citizenship en masse. 

Hlonipha Mokoena, Associate Professor and Researcher at WiSER, Wits University

The Revisionists — Democracy and Its Discontents, 1994-2024

This paper will examine the emergence of “Revisionism” as a particular intellectual and cultural movement in South Africa. The arguments of the paper are based on the idea that rather than causing a “hundred flowers to bloom, and a hundred schools of thought [to] contend”, the end of apartheid and the inauguration of the democratic era has prompted many South Africans to adopt what could be described as a “Revisionist” philosophy. This is a philosophical and cultural stance that refuses to acknowledge that South Africa is a democracy and instead calls for a permanent “democratisation” and interminable constitutional flux. This “Revisionism” ranges from conspiracy theories regarding major events such as the assassination of Chris Hani to minor events such as Nelson Mandela’s decision to divorce his then wife Winnie Mandela. The paper will attempt to draw broad strokes regarding the challenge posed to democracy by this constant assertion of “Revisionist” ideas. 

Adam Ashforth, Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

Power to the People? On Perceptions of the Purpose and Power of Government in Post-anti-Apartheid Soweto

This paper revisits themes raised in an earlier paper entitled “State Power, Violence, Everyday Life: Soweto” (Center for Studies of Social Change Working Paper #210, 1995) based on ethnographic research in Soweto in the early 1990s. Central among these themes was the prevailing image of the apartheid state – “the System” - as an all-powerful behemoth with almost mystical powers capable of inflicting unimaginable injuries on an innocent people. This at the same time as everyday encounters with agents of the state were marked by rampant corruption, neglect, and incompetence. This new paper, drawing on ethnographic fieldwork to be conducted in Soweto in May 2024 in the lead-up to national elections seeks to examine perceptions of the power and purpose of government in the context of thirty years of democratic rule.

Shireen Hassim, Canada150 Research Chair, Carleton University, and Visiting Professor, WiSER, Wits University

Deathly ‘care’: The limits of representation in South African democracy

Thirty years ago, the South African transition from apartheid to democracy offered renewed hope for projects of gender equality. With a Constitution that committed government to a progressive realisation of socio-economic rights, seemingly powerful political movements and gender equality enshrined as a core value, it was anticipated that significant shifts would be made towards substantive equality. In many respects, for scholars of institutional pathways to change, South Africa appeared to have all the necessary conditions. Indeed, several comparative feminism scholars used South Africa as the poster example of how increased representation of women using quotas might substantially alter policy outcomes. The progress has been uneven, however. Although the country has built one of the largest welfare systems in the global south, gender inequality persists. This paper argues that South Africa challenges many aspects of feminist institutional theory. I explore one core and influential feminist proposition in this paper: that at best gender quotas have utilitarian value for positive policy outcomes and at worst have no adverse impact on the political system. Although some feminist comparative theory does show a mismatch between representation and socio-economic outcomes, it is still a complicated argument to advance, and is rarely addressed using examples from the global south because these countries are seen to be ‘different’ in terms of democratic conditions. The core empirical material for the paper is the scandal of the Life Esidimeni policy in the social welfare sector, in which 144 mental health care patients died. Drawing on an archive of public hearings, testimonies by government officials, NGOs and the affected patients in this female dominated care sector, I tease out the connections between austerity policies, conservative ideologies and biopolitics as more fundamental to shaping outcomes than representation.

Michaela Collord, University of Nottingham

Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions

This presentation offers an overview of my new book, Wealth, Power, and Authoritarian Institutions: Comparing dominant parties and parliaments in Tanzania and Uganda. The book offers a novel explanation of why authoritarian parties and legislatures vary in strength, and why this variation matters. It elaborates a view of authoritarian political institutions as both reflecting and magnifying elite power dynamics. While there are many sources of elite power, the book centres on material power. It outlines how diverse trajectories of state-led capitalist development engender differing patterns of wealth accumulation and elite contestation across regimes. These differences, in turn, influence institutional landscapes. Where accumulation is more closely controlled by state and party leaders, as was true in Tanzania until economic liberalization in the 1980s, rival factions remain subdued. Ruling parties can then consolidate relatively strong institutional structures, and parliament remains marginal. Conversely, where a class of private wealth accumulators expands, as occurred in Tanzania after the 1980s and in Uganda after the National Resistance Movement took power in 1986, rival factions can more easily form, simultaneously eroding party institutions and encouraging greater legislative strength. The book uses this analysis to reassess the significance of a stronger legislature. It considers parliament’s influence on distributive politics, both regressive and progressive. It also considers its relation to democratization, particularly in a context of broader liberalizing reforms. The book ultimately encourages a closer examination of how would-be democratic institutions interact with an underlying power distribution, shaping in whose interests they operate.

Anne Pitcher, Joel Samoff Collegiate Professor of Political Science and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan

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Celso Monjane, Lecturer in the Department of International Relations, Wits University

Officers, Politicians, and Businesspeople: The effects of military political and economic power for democracy and human rights in Mozambique

Recent coups and coup attempts across Africa in the last few years has brought renewed attention to the active role played by the military and military officers in politics and political economy in countries as diverse as Niger, Mali, Zimbabwe and Mozambique. This paper examines the movement of high ranking officers from powerful political positions into equally powerful economic roles in important sectors of the Mozambican economy including finance, mining, and public works. It asks whether the approach and effect of doing business by high ranking officers is distinct from those of other politicians. Do high ranking military officers with business interests or military companies dominate particular economic sectors? Do they co-invest with other military personnel, form alliances with civilians with whom they might have served in government, or build alliances with transnational capital? Besides relying on a dataset we have built of military officers who have moved into business, we rely on select case studies to explore the implications of military involvement in the economy on human rights, political stability, and democracy.

John Heathershaw, Professor of International Relations, University of Exeter

What is Kleptocracy and Why Does It Matter?

In recent years, kleptocracy – literally “rule by thieves” – has entered the international policy agenda and even appeared in popular culture. It is often used with respect to Russia and former Soviet states but is also increasingly applied to African countries like Angola, DRC, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.  But what does it mean? Is it a system of rule or a form of international relations? The paper presents a new definition of transnational kleptocracy and the role of professional enablers within it.  It identifies nine types of enabling – called indulgences – in nine different service sectors. Focusing on London as one of the world’s premier centres of financial and legal services, the paper gives several examples relating to political elites from former Soviet states to demonstrate the form and significance of an enabler effect. However, the argument of the paper is theoretical. 

Transnational kleptocracy is an increasingly important aspect of global politics which connects political elites in kleptocratic regimes to private sector providers in liberal democracies and financial centres. By recognising transnational kleptocracy we can assess how professional service provision in London and other centres shapes both domestic and international politics in Africa and much of the global South.