ECAS 2013

This paper mainly seeks to discuss, in an African framework, the link between democracy and poverty reduction. Does democracy lead to popular welfare in Africa? The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - followed by both the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War - brought a lot of changes in global politics and economics. It goes without saying that these changes had an impact in Africa as well. During the 1990s, the Sub-Saharan region witnessed a second wave of democratization, the so called "Second revolution" (Omozuanvbo Ihonvbere, 2006). Today, many Sub-Saharan countries have completed the first phase of the democratization process and have laid the foundations of a democratic form of government (El-Khawas and Ndumbe, 2005). Peter Lewis (2012) notes that many of new democracies in Africa have improved their growth rates significantly. Unfortunately, Lewis (2012) asserts that the economic growth in the new African democracies has not yet brought a broad-based prosperity. This is confirmed by Fukuyama (2012) who argues that around the world, many democratic transitions have been stalled or threatened by the existence of large inequalities between rich and poor.

Hence, this discussion will investigate the reasons why the democratization and the economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa have failed to reduce poverty. It will also explore the conditions of a positive link between good governance and popular welfare in Africa.

By concentrating on electoral participation and poverty levels across provinces, this paper tries to provide an explanation to the fluctuating people attachment to party politics in post-1991 Zambia. Voter turnout will be analysed at the provincial level and a direct correlation between poverty and participation will be explored in order to detect its existence. In particular, since poverty levels were different between rural and urban provinces and governments have displayed different sensibilities towards urban and rural constituencies we would like to discover whether such differences do count for political participation. One of the major questions, indeed, which aroused recently in literature, is what drives African people to vote. While ethnic vote theory (Posner 2005) still dominates the debate a new trend in alternative explanations is gaining momentum. In the 00s, after the formation of the Patriotic Front (PF), a growing interest has been placed on inequalities and on the fight against poverty in electoral programmes of both governing party and the oppositions and through the policies enacted by governments with however ambiguous results in terms of voter turnout. In 2011, turnout rose moderately against 2008 elections, while rural constituencies did not show any significant difference in voter turnout against urban constituencies notwithstanding differences in poverty levels. So a combination of other factors seems to have been at work as well: an erosion of MMD approval after twenty years of uninterrupted hegemony and the ability of some emerging leaders to drive, as usual, the ethnic vote.

The paper intends to analyse the politics of development in Malawi after the introduction of the multi-party system in 1994. The case of Malawi is presented within the framework of the contemporary debate and practices concerning both economic development and the initiatives of poverty reduction, having in mind both the relevance of the role of the fight against poverty in the international discourse of poverty reduction and of the process of democratic emancipation of the population.

The paper discusses the main government policies based on patterns and priorities of economic and social development which could deal with the unsolved question of poverty in one of the poorest countries of the world. The policies of poverty alleviation are closely linked to initiatives of land reform and rural development together with a policy of decentralisation. These issues are analysed considering both their specificities and their relationship with the broader topics of development and of poverty reduction.

After the election of President Ali Hassan Mwinyi in 1995, Tanzania abandoned ujamaa, the socialist model of nation-building it had pursued during the previous twenty years, and started implementing a package of neoliberal economic reforms. In addition, in 1992 the country abandoned the one-party state and reintroduced multiparty politics. The paper analyses the economic and social effects of shift from socialism to neoliberalism in Tanzania, and shows that the negative effects of the neoliberal economic reforms gradually eroded the political legitimacy of the Chama cha Mapinduzi, and fuelled the emergence of ethnic and religious tensions in the country. Within the context of the current debate on democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa, the paper raises important questions on the relationship between poverty and democracy in Tanzania and the future of democracy in the country.

The process of socio-economic transition from socialist single-party to liberal-democratic system in Mozambique started with economic reforms in the 1980s, followed by a move to multi-party democracy in 1994. The results have, however been contradictory. Although economic growth figures have been impressive following the peace accord of 1992, growth has been unequal and limited to a few foreign-dominated technology-intensive sectors while agricultural development has been neglected. After an initial phase of successful poverty reduction, inequality and poverty have again started to rise. At the same time the initial gains in democratization achieved in the first two national elections have largely been reversed in the following rounds, which reflect widespread disillusionment among citizens. The ruling party shows signs of increasingly authoritarian behaviour and open contempt for democratic institutions, while the opposition has become fragmented and weak. Civil society, which is supposed to have an important role in a liberal-democratic regime, has largely been co-opted or suppressed by the ruling party. The subsequent spread of discontent from the historically marginalised rural areas in the North and Center to previously privileged urban areas in the South has been reflected in a series of protest movements and violent demonstrations during the last few years.

The paper provides a review of the development of civil society in Mozambique, followed by an analysis of the links between poverty, inequality, political protest and trust in state vs. civil society institutions among different groups and regions based on quantitative (Afrobarometer) and qualitative data.