Democracy, Colonization, and Human Capital in Sub-Saharan Africa

This article examines an empirical anomaly. In most developing regions, poor democratic nations enroll more primary school students than their authoritarian counterparts. Regime type, however, cannot account for the wide variance in enrollment in Africa. This study demonstrates that colonial heritage is a good predictor of primary school enrollment for low-income countries in Africa. Additional analysis shows that colonization's impact on education has not diminished since independence. Rather, the initial differences in enrollment between the former French and British colonies have grown over time. The results hold important implications for the study of political institutions and their impact on economic development. Even after they no longer exist, political institutions can have substantial lingering effects on important developmental outcomes. David S. Brown is an assistant professor of political science at Rice University. His work has appeared recently inThe American Political Science Review, Political Research Quarterly, and inComparative Political Studies. His work focuses on the political economy of development and is based on cross-regional work with specialization in Latin America. Specific areas of interest are human capital, democracy, and the international determinants of domestic politics.     

Understanding Education's Influence on Support for Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Is education consequential for popular endorsement of democracy in developing societies and, if so, what are the mechanisms that account for this influence? We investigate the micro-foundations of the education–democracy nexus using a survey of 18 sub-Saharan African countries. We demonstrate that educational level is the strongest influence on support for democracy and rejection of non-democratic alternatives via its impact on comprehension of, and attention to, politics. This is consistent with a cognitive interpretation of the effects of education on democratic values rather than one which treats education as a marker of economic resource inequalities.     

Historical Origins of Uneven Service Supply in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Role of Non-State Providers

Abstract

Variations in non-state service provision are a relatively understudied dimension of wellbeing inequality in sub-Saharan Africa. This study from Madagascar documents long-term associations between nineteenth-century missionary education and the availability of private schools today. The article exploits an original data set with unusually detailed information on missionary education and contemporary local private school supply. The results indicate high levels of persistence in non-state schooling at the geographic level. The long tradition of faith-based education appears to contribute to religious differences that overlap only imperfectly with more widely studied ethnic divides.     

To Elect or Not to Elect: Leaders,Alternation in Power and Social Welfare in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper investigates whether and how multiparty elections, introduced in many African countries since the early 1990s, affect a government’s commitment to welfare policies. We hypothesise that contested multiparty elections and turnovers between different leaders and political forces in government – even when democratic standards are not met – positively impact the promotion of social welfare. We test these hypotheses through a cross-sectional and time-series research design, making use of our new, comprehensive ‘Africa Leadership Change’ (ALC) dataset. Empirical results confirm that leaders elected through multiparty elections and countries that experience political alternations in government are associated with higher levels of social welfare.     

The Potential of Islamist Terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa

This paper is about the potential of terrorism in African Islamic movements. In order to lessen ambiguities related to the plethora of definitions given to the Islamist phenomenon, the various definitions related to the phenomenon of Islamism are examined as introductory information indispensable to the understanding of the topic. While it describes the encounter of sub-Saharan Africa with Islam, it also covers a number of movements in different countries in the African continent: Nigeria, Tanzania, Senegal, Kenya, South Africa, Somalia, Ethiopia, Niger, Mali, Chad, and Sudan. In all of these countries, the emergence of Islamic movements, their socio-political status, their present position in relation to the ongoing debate on their perceived radicalization or their supposed threat of violence or terrorism are comparatively analyzed.     

Economic Fluctuations and Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Importance of Import Instability

The traditional thesis that export instability (XI) is deleterious to economic growth in developing economies has received mixed empirical results. For African countries, recent research suggests that the effect of XI is weak, but that capital (investment) instability (KI) adversely influences economic growth. The current study argues that in many of these nations, imports are likely to be critical to the growth process, while exports represent only one of the various sources of investment resources. Hence, import instability (MI) may pose a more serious problem than XI in hindering economic growth. Employing 1968-1986 World Bank data for 33 sub-Saharan African countries, XI, KI and MI variables are calculated for each country as the standard errors around the respective 'best-fitted' trends over the sample period. These instability measures and additional World Bank data are then used to estimate an augmented production function that controls for the effects of labour, capital, and exports. The study finds that although KI is still a relevant argument of the production function, MI appears to be even more important, while XI is extraneous.     

Democracy and Dictatorship in Continental Latin America During the Interwar Period

This article emphasizes the key role of labor in shaping trends and patterns of pica change. The first section of the article argues that during the interwar period, continental Latin America experienced common trends in several areas, including a general upsurge in labor unrest, deepening conflicts among elites, the implementation of new modes of state regulation, and a disruption of prevailing trade arrangements within the world economy, all of which were accompanied by a brief but significant wave of democratization in the 1920s. Noting that these general trends were unevenly distributed through the region (particularly after the 1930s), the second section of the article proceeds to abstract four patterns of political arrangements (repressive dictatorships, party competition, corporatist nationalism, and unstable labor politics). The article uses two principal variables (the relative weight of the middle and working classes and the degree of cohesion/fragmentation among elites) to explain these patterns of political change. Overall, the article suggests that the relative strength of labor and subordinate groups was key to shifts away from repressive dictatorship, while the degree of convergence among elites was significant in shaping political outcomes, but not in promoting democratic outcomes. I would like to thank Professor Irving Louis Horowitz for useful comments on an earlier version of this article. Previous versions of this research were presented at a seminar of the Latin American Studies Center at Princeton University, and at an annual meeting of the Southern Labor Studies Conference, where I benefited from comments by panel participants.     

Institutional and management building in Sub-Saharan Africa: a symposium

In the latter half of the 20th century many factors have contributed to the decline of Africa and especially of Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Severe drought and the resultant famine, the international environment of deteriorating export markets, economic and bureaucratic mismanagement, environmental damage and rural decline, political instability and civil wars are some factors often highlighted as representative causes of the decline.     

Overurbanization and underdevelopment in Sub-Saharan Africa: A cross-national study

"This paper discusses both the urban bias and world-system theories of overurbanization and presents a cross-national analysis of 32 African nations to test these perspectives. The analysis is divided into three parts. First, the effects of urban bias (i.e., the disparity in welfare between rural and urban areas) and economic dependence on overurbanization are examined. Next, the association between overurbanization and (1) the structure of the labor force and (2) economic growth is tested. Finally, the relationship between the structure of the labor force and economic growth is evaluated." The results indicate that "the rural-urban disparity and foreign investment facilitate overurbanization, and that an increase in level of overurbanization has a deleterious impact on both the structure of the labor force and economic growth. Furthermore, there is strong evidence indicating that an increase in service-sector employment has a negative effect on economic growth."     

Regimes on Pillars: Alternative Welfare State Logics and Dynamics

Social welfare arrangements represent the conjunction of the twin logics of regimes and pillars. Regimes describe who receives the benefits and on what conditions; pillars describe who pays for and who provides the benefits. There are historical associations and '"natural" affinities' between certain regimes and certain pillars. But there is also scope for novel combinations and recombinations. Many contemporary welfare state reforms are best conceptualized in terms of shifting the mix of pillars and blurring regimes.     

Democracy Promotion and Authoritarian Diffusion: The Foreign Origins of Post-Soviet Election Laws

Flawed electoral legislation in post-Soviet states has facilitated the conduct of undemocratic elections. This article argues that the low quality of electoral legislation in the region results in large part from a process of ‘authoritarian diffusion’, whereby the election laws of the post-Soviet states extensively borrow and adapt from Soviet laws and post-communist Russian laws. The authorities of most post-Soviet states have routinely disregarded recommendations by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and the Venice Commission to improve electoral legislation. Besides presenting evidence of ‘authoritarian diffusion’ across the post-Soviet area, the article highlights the enduring impact of the Soviet legacy and of Russia's relatively hegemonic position in the region.     

Political Instability and Export Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

The political landscape of post-independent sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been one of rampant coups d'etat. Existing evidence suggests such elite political instability (PI) has been growth-inhibiting even when exports are accounted for. In the light of the increasing interest in the role of export-promotion strategies in fostering economic growth, however, the present paper examines the impact of PI on export performance in these economies. The paper explores the hypothesis that the lack of a stable political environment adversely influences export performance via competitiveness, and that PI may actually play a more crucial role in export than in overall GDP growth. Based on detailed data on the incidence of coups in 30 SSA countries, real export growth over 1967-1986 is regressed on a principal-component of the various forms of coup events - "successful" coups, abortive coups, and coup plots - as well as on export structure, terms of trade, production capacity, and exchange rate misalignment. The results support the above hypothesis of an adverse impact of PI on export growth, and further suggest that PI has been even more deleterious to exports than to overall GDP.     

The Politics of Institutional Choice Across Sub-Saharan Africa: Presidential Term Limits

During the transitions to multipartyism that began in the late 1980s, presidential term limits were adopted into the constitutions of a majority of sub-Saharan African states. Yet, a sizable minority of African governments resisted implementing such restrictions on executive power. How can this variation be explained? This article proposes an expanded strategic choice approach that posits that the degree of electoral uncertainty affects institutional choice in cases of controlled, unilateral constitutional revisions (which were common across Africa) just as much as it shapes institutional choice in situations of cooperative constitution-making through bargaining and pact-making. Based on this logic, I argue that term limits were adopted as an electoral insurance mechanism in all cases where constitutional drafters perceive the degree of future electoral uncertainty to be high, regardless of whether the constitutional review process is cooperative or controlled. Alternatively, term limits are eschewed in cases where one unified party fully controls the constitutional review process and also perceives that they will win elections into the foreseeable future. The argument is tested through a statistical analysis of the determinants of term limit choice across all relevant sub-Saharan cases.     

Tax Innovations and Public Revenues in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

We study the effect of two tax innovations – value added taxes (VAT) and autonomous revenue authorities (ARA) – on tax revenues in sub-Saharan Africa. The dataset consists of 47 countries over 1980–2010. We find that VATs have no effect on total tax revenues, neither in the short- nor in the long-run. ARAs lead to higher tax revenues in the short- and medium-run, but the effect dissipates over time. The main conclusion is that tax innovations are not a panacea to overcome the revenue shortages in African countries, but they are helpful in the short- and medium-run.     

The Impact of the AIDS Epidemic on Teachers in Sub-Saharan Africa

This is the first of two articles that consider the impact of the AIDS epidemic on the education sector in sub-Saharan Africa. Teachers are regularly singled out as being particularly vulnerable to HIV infection and as such they are considered to be a ' high-risk group'. However, this study presents recent evidence from high HIV prevalence countries in eastern, central and southern Africa that suggests that this is not the case. Teacher mortality rates are considerably lower than those for the adult population as a whole. Furthermore, while demographic projections show AIDS-related mortality for teachers increasing very sharply during the next 5-10 years, teacher mortality rates are in fact declining in a number of high prevalence countries mainly as a result of behaviour change and the increasing availability of anti-retroviral drugs. The second article critically reviews the available evidence on the impact of the epidemic on the education of orphans and other directly affected children.     

Rural Livelihood Diversification in Sub-Saharan Africa: A Literature Review

This article provides a comprehensive review of the literature on the nature and evolution of rural livelihood diversification in sub-Saharan Africa, and the situation regarding smallholders. It reveals mixed findings about the causes and consequences of livelihood diversification on rural smallholders adopting this strategy. A lot of evidence from the literature suggests that it is relatively better-off smallholders with sufficient assets who achieve successful livelihood diversification, mainly by exploiting opportunities and synergies between farm and nonfarm activities. Because of asset constraints, increase in incomes and wealth based on livelihood diversification has not yet benefitted the large majority of smallholders.