In the previous lecture, we examined what political culture is, different theories about political culture.

And its scope, an endurance, its nature, its impact. and we began to look at some recent evidence from regional barometers of attitudes and values towards democracy. With particular reference to East Asia. Today I want to examine in much greater detail some recent evidence from two other regions of the world. Sub-Saharan Africa and the Arab world, North African and Middle East. So let's begin by examining the evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, which comes from a survey. that's been done in now more than two dozen African countries called the Afrobarometer. Fortunately, must of the data from the Afrobarometer, at least at an aggregated level, is available on their website. and, can be analyzed by going to this, particular Web page, afrobarometer-online-analysis.com. So, we'll be drawing on their reported evidence and some of the data that can be downloaded. And analysed from that website to try and determine what Africans think these days about politics. How they view the role that people like themselves should play in the political process. how they view their institutions. What they think of as the right or moral or best form of government. In other words what are their views about the legitamacy or desirability of different types of political systems. The Afrobarometer has been a conducted in five waves beginning in 1999. when it was conducted in 11 countries. And we're first going to examine evidence from the first four waves which took place between 1999 and 2008. In each wave the barometer would be done with in a year or two in terms of time. in a large number of different African countries, and there's different research teams in each of these African countries. Local research teams that conduct the public opinion. Survey research, and of course draw and analyze, national representative, random samples. So we return to the question. that is, widely used around the world as

one very useful indicator of support for democracy or belief in the legitimacy of democracy. The three part question that asks people, which statement is closest to their own opinion. That democracy is always preferable. That in some countries a non-democratic form of government can be preferable, or that it's all the same. So we can examine for the 19 African countries that were surveyed by the Afrobarometer in 2008. What the level of support for democracy was in that year as measured by this question.? Do you think democracy is always the best form of government. And for those who think that support for democracy is not likely to be high. in African countries, because of their low levels of income, the data must indeed be very surprising. We see that for these 19 countries, on average, 70% of the public supports democracy, prefers democracy to any other form of government. And this support ranges from a high of 85 in Botswana. Which is the only Sub-Saharan African country on the continent of Africa that has been continuously democratic since independence. To 83% in, Zambia, higher than average in most of these countries here, including, Benin, Uganda, Kenya, Ghana, Malawi, and Mali. And then somewhat lower, below 70% in South Africa, Zimbabe where the data for 2005, the Namibia and so on. Now if we go a to this a next slide where we aggregate the data two kinds of data for four waves of the Afrobarometer. and those are 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2008. so we're looking at the trend lines for 11 countries, for which we have continuous data going back to 1999. And we're looking at two types of measures of democratic legitimacy. One is direct support for democracy. People who say yes, I'd I, I prefer democracy rather than that sometimes an authoritarian government can be preferable. And then the percentage of the public who, when they're asked about authoritarian options. instead of the current system, whether it might be better to get rid of parliament and have a strong leader make all

decisions. Or get rid of opposition parties and have only one party allowed to contest. Or invite the military to come in. this survey and others that have been done ask the question of whether people would prefer each of those authoritarian options. And then we can aggregate those and ask what percentage of the public, rejects all authoritarian options that are put to them. And finally we can combine these two measures. And, ask, to what extent do people have a very robust, manifestation of or embrace of the legitimacy of democracy. So first in terms of support for democracy by that one measure. We see that for these African countries, it was high in 1999. 68% on average, in these 11 African countries, said democracy is always best. The percentage fell down to 61% in 2005, but rose again to the highest level ever, 72% in 2008. A number, that again, must be very surprising to pure theorist of modernization theory who argue that there is a strong relationship. Between a political culture that embraces democracy, and the level of economic development. If we look at the rejection of authoritarian options, again the same trend, declining from 56% to 51% and then rising to 58%. If we combine these and say, how many Africans in these 11 countries meet the demanding test of expressing direct support for democracy? And a rejection of all authoritarian options? The percent in 1999 was 44%, it then fell and rose to 47% in 2008. It could be said well this isn't a very impressive expression of support for democracy. But keep in mind this is a pretty rigorous test of, an individual's commitment to democracy. asking them whether they support democracy and whether they positively reject all, three authoritarian options. And, usually we don't see numbers over 50%, except in long and well-established, democracies. And we see a lot of equivocation in other democracies around the world. So 47% is a very I would suggest strong.

And in some ways surprising base of very firm commitment to democracy among African publics. on average, at least as surveyed in these 11 countries. Now we can look not only at the demand for democracy in terms of support for democracy. But what Africans perceive, and how they evaluate the supply of democracy. So how satisfied are they with the way democracy is workign in the country. We take a satisfactiion, those who say they're very satisfied or somewhat satisfied. And leave out the other two response categories, not very satisfied, not at all satisfied. Then we can ask what percent perceive that there's a nearly full democracy, or a full democracy in the country. So the question asks again. Would you say that the democracy, the political system we have in place in the country today, is a full democracy? A democracy with minor problems, a democracy with major problems, or not a democracy at all? And, this measure here takes the first two response categories. Full democracy, or democracy of minor problems, as the perception of a relatively good supply of democracy. We see now, in this slide that satisfaction with the way democracy is working, on average among the public. In these eleven African countries declined rather sharply between 1999 and 2005 from 61% to 48%. But it rebounded to 56% in 2008. And the perception of a relatively full democracy again declined a little bit, less dramatically from 58 to 51%, and had risen to 63% by 2008. If we combine them, the level of perception of a good supply of democracy, was 46% in 1999, and fell, but rose to the same level in 2008. Now we can combine these two perceptions and preferences. the demand for democracy as indicated by support for democracy. The perception of a relatively full democracy, which is the red bar in the slides here. And then a satisfaction with the way democracy is working, the black bar. We have, here, evidence, in individual African countries in the year 2008. Of the extent to which, demand and supply

of democracy is in a relatively healthy balance. And it is into of the most liberal democracies of Sub-Saharan Africa, Botswana the oldest standing democracy on the continent. And Ghana which has emerged since the year 2000 as the or certainly one of the most liberal democracies in Africa. By contrast, in two countries that are riddled with electoral fraud and really quite severely widespread corruption. Kenya and Nigeria. we see something very striking. There's much higher level of support for democracy on average. Around 70% or slightly more. Then there is perception of a supply of democracy, which is hovering around 40% or less in each of these two very important. strategically influential African countries. Let's look at four more countries that were surveyed in 2008, South Africa, Senegal, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. And again in South Africa, where given the level of economic development. And the strength of polical leadershiop and the struggle for democracy, the demand for democracy as I said is a little bit weaker. Than in many other African countries. It's below that 70% average for 2008. But then, the perceived supply of democracy is even weaker still, under 50%. And in Senegal again, we see a very substantial gap between the demand for democracy. Which is around the average for the sub-sarahran African countries. And the percieved supply of democracy with satisfaction with the way democracy is working hovering around or less than 30%. I might say here that this is at a time in 2008. When the, re-elected and aging president of Senegal, Abdoulaye Wade, was increasingly concentrating and abusing political power. And, many of these slides suggest to us that, Africans, even relatively poor and perhaps completely uneducated, possibily even illiterate, African citizens. maybe fairly savy and perceptive in seeing what's going on in their country and passing judgement on them. We certainly see that again in Zimbabwe.

Where there is strong support for democracy, even if it's slightly below the average in 2008. But citizens perceive, correctly, very little supply of democracy in a highly authoritarian regime. So, much less than a fifth of the population, is satisfied with the way democracy is working. Or perceives that there is anything close to a full democracy in the country. Now, we can ask the question. How do Africans' perceptions of the extent of democracy coincide with the expert ratings. That are done by independent organization like Freedom House. Which rate the level of political rights and civil liberties of every country in the world every year. And this the Afrobarometer is done by calculating simple person correlation coefficients. Between the aggregate percentages seeing that their country is a full democracy or a democracy with minor problems. That is, the percentages perceiving supply and the combined Freedom House ratings inverting their scores so political rights and civil liberties. the higher the score, the higher the level of freedom. and if we look at the correlation between that, measure as, determined by Africans of the extent of democracy. They think they have in their country and the measure determined by, external experts. We see that in the year 2000, after the first round of the Afrobarometer, the correlation was about 0.65, pretty strong. Expert ratings and the Africans' own ratings of their individual countries were very much in alignment. Here in, these three, time periods. The beige bar gives us the correlation for all the countries surveyed then. And the red bar for the original 12 countries that were surveyed in the first round of the Afrobarometer. And continued, continued to be surveyed each time since. The correlation dropped quite dramatically, particularly for a lot of the new countries added to the afrobarometer in 2003, and even for the original 12. But, by 2005 we see quite striking correlations between the subjective

perceptions of ordinary Africans. And the expert ratings are, if we look at the figures for all the countries surveyed in the Afro barometer in 2005, it's 0.80. Very, very high and that suggests to us that it is possible both for external experts and for ordinary again. Maybe even very poorly educated citizens to make meaningful summary judgements. that are relatively robust about the level of support for democracy in their country.