OpenUCT :: Browsing by Author "Mattes, Robert"

Browsing by Author "Mattes, Robert"

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Open Access
Africa's growth dividend? Lived poverty drops across much of the continent
(2016-01) Mattes, Robert; Dulani, Boniface; Gyimah-Boadi, E
Though Africa has recorded high levels of economic growth over the past decade, previous Afrobarometer surveys of citizens found little evidence that this growth had reduced levels of poverty in any consistent way (Dulani, Mattes, & Logan, 2013). However, new data from Afrobarometer Round 6, collected across 35 African countries, suggest a very different picture. While “lived poverty” remains pervasive across much of the continent, especially in Central and West Africa, we now see evidence that the decade of economic growth seems to have finally delivered broad-based reductions in poverty. “Lived poverty” (an index that measures the frequency with which people experience shortages of basic necessities) retreated across a broad range of countries. In the roughly three-year period between Round 5 (2011/2013) and Round 6 (2014/2015) surveys, our data suggest that “lived poverty” fell in 22 of 33 countries surveyed in both rounds. However, these changes show no systematic relation to recent rates of economic growth. While growing economies are undoubtedly important, what appears to be more important in improving the lives of ordinary people is the extent to which national governments and their donor partners put in place the type of development infrastructure that enables people to build better lives.
Open Access
Africa's recent oil boom : are the same mistakes being made again? Investigating the effect of the recent surge in oil prices upon the prospects of long term development in Sub-Saharan Africa
(2009) Rhodes, Anton; Mattes, Robert
There has been as yet no empirical study that has undertaken to identify how Sub-Saharan African (SSA) states have allocated the wealth generated from the 21st century oil boom. The answer to this question may well determine whether Africa has any prospect of sustainable resource led development in the near future. This work is an empirical study into how oil states have allocated their wealth in the modern era, and whether there has been a divergence from the past. The main goal is to revise the common view (based as it is on the experiences of the 1970's and early 1980's) that increased levels of oil wealth serve only to undermine the prospect of long term economic growth within developing countries. I argue that improvements in the political environment have increased the possibility that the 21st century price rise has been used more productively than was the case thirty years ago. Thus the focus of this paper is to identify how oil states have improved their use of oil wealth in the recent era, and the factors that have brought this about. To achieve this end, I have created a set of variables that identifies the amount of oil wealth that has accrued to African governments (during the 21st century price rise) and the areas in which these funds have been allocated. I have also measured levels of political and social freedom to determine whether the political environment is one that has improved from the previous price hike period. My empirical findings display two clear results. Firstly, the political environment has improved significantly from the previous era, and secondly, the pattern of resource allocation has changed dramatically, to one that holds out a much greater prospect of positive long term economic growth. Based upon these results, it appears that SSA oil states have broken away from the negative effects associated with the resource curse and the previous oil bonanza.
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Africa's triple transition: popular perspectives
(Taylor & Francis, 2001) Mattes, Robert; Bratton, Michael
Sub-Saharan Africa has witnessed the end of foreign colonial rule, the rise and fall of autocratic political regimes, and the disappearance of statist command economies. The challenges were to turn populations into coherent nations owing allegiance to the state; to democratise the state structures that govern these populations; and to liberalise the rules that regulate economic transactions. An important source to assess these prospects are the views and attitudes of ordinary Africans. This essay reflects on the original data derived from a crossnational research project. Nine African states were surveyed between 1999 and 2000. An attempt is made to gather some propositions from the analysis of the data. Many present serious challenges to common wisdom about African politics. It appears that the process of nationbuilding has created coherent political communities with high levels of national identity; that democratising the state in Africa builds on existing indigenous demands from ordinary Africans; and that economic liberalisation proceeds in the face of a mixed set of values about market and state.
Open Access
African legislatures and HIV/AIDS : an exploratory analysis
(2011) Searle, Alexandra; Mattes, Robert; Strand Per
Since 1981 AIDS has killed more than 25 million people world-wide, the majority of whom lived within developing countries. The worst affected region, Sub Saharan Africa, currently has 3.5% of the world’s population yet 37% of the world’s people living with HIV. In light of the magnitude of the pandemic in the region it has been increasingly acknowledged that not only are HIV and AIDS health issues but also pervasive development issues due to the impact they have on national socioeconomic development. Unsurprisingly a disease of ‘sex and drugs’4 is a highly controversial and politicized issue. An effective response represents a serious challenge for national governance institutions, particularly within the unique and complex socio political environments of the region. The need for ‘democratic governance’ and a ‘multi-sectoral’ approach within the HIV & AIDS response highlights the critical role of national legislatures. Due to the severity and scope of the pandemic there is an assumption that elected representatives would be in the forefront of the response. Effective legislatures are the sine qua non of a representative democracy, and arguably an important vehicle through which to drive the HIV national response. Legislatures represent a cross section of society and play a central role in the coordination and implementation of national responses. Further understanding and explanation of legislative responses around HIV & AIDS speak to issues of democratic governance and the need to improve overall accountability and transparency within these institutions.
Open Access
The African Legislatures Project: First Findings
(2010) Barkan, Joel D; Mattes, Robert; Mozaffar, Shaheen; Smiddy, Kimberly
This report presents the "first findings" from the African Legislatures Project or ALP. The report is based on the preliminary coding and analysis of data obtained from research in six countries-Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia and South Africa (MP survey findings from South Africa are not presented as that element of the project is still in progress). Because the purpose of ALP is to achieve a comparative understanding of legislative institutions across Africa, and is funded from multiple sources, we have adopted the practice of including data from as many countries as possible when we present findings from the project. Field research for ALP began in late February 2008 and is expected to continue through the end of 2010 as the work proceeds seriatim in 18 African countries.
Open Access
Africans' surprising universalism
(Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001) Bratton, Michael; Mattes, Robert
Africa is a latecomer to democratization. In terms of timing, Africa has followed rather than led other continents in giving birth to the reform movements that have installed elected governments, multiparty systems, and more open societies around the world. Since many African countries are dependent on foreign aid, they have also experienced weighty external pressures to liberalize. One should not automatically conclude, however, that the impetus for reform comes from outside the continent rather than from within. If political liberalization were a Northern idea being foisted on an unwilling South, then certain empirical facts should follow. One would expect Africans to 1) be unaware of the concept of democracy; 2) have distinct cultural understandings of its content; 3) be unsupportive of regimes based on competitive principles; 4) prefer alternative political regimes; and 5) be unsatisfied with the performance of democratic regimes in practice.
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After a Decade of Growth in Africa, Little Change in Poverty at the Grassroots
(2013-10) Dulani, Boniface; Mattes, Robert; Logan, Carolyn
New data from Round 5 of the Afrobarometer, collected across an unprecedented 34 African countries between October 2011 and June 2013,1 demonstrates that “lived poverty” remains pervasive across the continent. This data, based on the views and experiences of ordinary citizens, counters projections of declining poverty rates that have been derived from official GDP growth rates. For the 16 countries where these questions have been asked over the past decade, we find little evidence for systematic reduction of lived poverty despite average GDP growth rates of 4.8% per year2 over the same period. While we do see reductions in five countries (Cape Verde, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe), we also find increases in lived poverty in five others (Botswana, Mali, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania). Overall, then, despite high reported growth rates, lived poverty at the grassroots remains little changed. This suggests either that growth is occurring, but that its effects are not trickling down to the poorest citizens (in fact, income inequality may be worsening), or alternatively, that actual growth rates may not match up to those being reported. The evidence also suggests, however, that investments in infrastructure and social services are strongly linked with lower levels of lived poverty.
Open Access
An application of Lindbergs thesis in assessing democratic growth in Zambia
(2011) Chileshe, Chileshe; Mattes, Robert
More specifically, the study examines whether a within country, over time analysis of Zambia, reveal that Zambia is in fact becoming more democratic. The study assesses democratic quality in Zambia using sub-concepts of participation, competition, judicial autonomy, legislative autonomy, executive power, openness, and popular legitimacy of democracy.
Open Access
Are there economic returns from democracy? : the experience of Sub-Saharan Africa from 1988-2007
(2011) Andersen, Ryan; Mattes, Robert
There is an enduring debate as to whether democracy promotes or hinders economic growth. This study examines the relationship between democracy and economic growth in 47 sub-Saharan African countries from 1988 to 2007. From the late 1980s until the mid-1990s, a period of democratization swept the continent. This period of democratization was followed by a period of strong economic growth from the mid- 1990s through 2007. It is argued here that these events are not coincidental and that democracy is advantageous to economic growth, particularly in the sub-Saharan Africa region. Using statistical analyses such as bivariate correlation and multiple regression, the relationship between democracy and economic growth is examined using a number of control variables to test the strength of the relationship between democracy and growth. To date, the empirical research on democracy and economic growth provides conflicting results, ranging from positive to negative to neutral effects. The results of this study show that there is a correlation between higher levels of democracy and higher levels of economic growth during certain periods. However, this relationship weakens to levels that are not significant once certain combinations of control variables are included. While the results of the study do not provide a definitive answer to the debate, they do refute certain arguments that have been made about the main drivers of economic growth in the region. The results also show that democracy does not have a negative effect on growth, which highly suggests that there might be a sequence effect involved in the path towards democratization and economic growth.
Open Access
The born frees: The prospects for generational change in post-apartheid South Africa
(2011) Mattes, Robert
Political culture theory explains political instability and change as the result of incongruity between mass attitudes and values on one hand, and political institutions on the other (Almond and Verba 1963). Thus, the “third wave of democracy” that swept across the globe from 1975 to 2005 is seen, variously, as the result of the failure of authoritarian and totalitarian regimes to supply sufficient economic and political goods to satisfy their citizens, or more broadly the mismatch between the operating norms of the regime and its constituent institutions and those of the mass public. The key question that occupies public opinion researchers working in new democracies, however, is whether the value structures that questioned and de-legitimated the former authoritarian and totalitarian regimes are sufficient to legitimate and consolidate new liberal or even electoral democracies. Perhaps nowhere is this issue better illustrated than in southern Africa where the presence of colonial and settler regimes well into the latter half of the 20th century diverged sharply with even the most minimal human aspirations for dignity, freedom and self-determination. The most extreme manifestation of this was, of course, apartheid South Africa. Whereas most repressive regimes at least made claims that they were delivering some goods valued by their populations (rightist regimes claimed to deliver national self-determination, order, or development; leftist regime claimed to deliver equality and a form of democracy that was more advanced than their liberal, bourgeois competitors), South Africa?s ruling National Party could claim, at best, that it was protecting traditional indigenous cultures from the polluting impact of modernity and preparing Africans for self-government in their own countries. But Verwoerdian appeals to cultural relativism and paternalist tutelage were constantly exposed by the harshness of everyday life, whether in the urban townships, the farms of “white” South Africa, or in the Bantustan homelands, and by the near totalitarian reach of the apartheid regime and its intrusion into the most intimate aspects the lives of coloured, Indian and black South Africans.
Open Access
Children's political rights: participation in legislative processes in the South African Parliament
(2012) Jamieson, Lucy; Mattes, Robert
The aim of my study was to measure the extent of children's participation in legislative processes that affect them and examine the factors that facilitate or inhibit such participation.
Open Access
Commitment to democracy in Mozambique : performance evaluations and cognition : evidence from round 2 of the Afrobarometer survey data
(2007) Shenga, Carlos; Mattes, Robert
Word processed copy. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 99-103).
Metadata only
Controlling power - Africans' views on governance, citizenship and accountability
(IDASA, 2010) Mattes, Robert
Social Accountability in Africa: Practitioners' Experiences and Lessons is a collection of case studies from Africa on social accountability. This collection attempts to build aconsolidated body of knowledge on social accountability efforts across the continent. The case studies are diverse and present unique approaches to how social accountability strategies and interventions are implemented within different countries. The book is written by practitioners, for practitioners, providing first hand experience of designing and implementing social accountability initiatives and the challenges, methods and successes each one presents. While most research focuses on the role of citizens and civil society organisations inpromoting accountability, this book places a greater emphasis on joint state-civil societyinitiatives. While social accountability initiatives are known mostly only in their own countries, and few African campaigns are documented, this book fills this gap by covering different approaches within a wide array of African countries. To overcome language and cultural barriers that have prevented practitioners in the African sub-regions from learning from each other, this book will be translated into French and disseminated widely in Francophone Africa.
Metadata only
Data and research: assessing corruption in Southern Africa through the eyes of Southern Africans
(Transparency Internationa, 2001) Mattes, Robert; Bratton, Michael
Open Access
Democracy as a Lesser Evil: Testing the Churchill Notion of Democracy in South Africa and South Korea
(2004) Shin, Doh; Mattes, Robert
Winston Churchill asserted in 1947 that “democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” To date, this lesser-evil notion of democracy has been tested only in the post-communist societies of Eastern and Central Europe. As a result, little is known about how useful, or valid, this notion of democracy as a lesser evil is for analysing the popular perceptions of democracy among the mass publics of new democracies in other regions. To fill this gap in existing literature, this study analyses public opinion data from South Africa and South Korea. Our analysis of these data reveals that the Churchillian notion of democracy as a lesser evil is of limited use as an alternative paradigm for the study of democratisation, especially from the perspective of ordinary citizens in the midst of that political experience.
Open Access
The democratic impact of cultural values in Africa and Asia: The cases of South Korea and South Africa
(2005) Mattes, Robert; Shin, Doh Chull
Traditional cultural values have long been seen by scholars as a significant obstacle to political and economic development in the post colonial world, especially in Africa and Asia. Publics which prioritise things like the collective good of the family and community over procedure and individual rights, grant uncritical respect to authority and social hierarchy, and identify themselves primarily as members of sub-national kinship groups rather than modern nationstates, are said to be particularly inhospitable places for representative democracies and market economies to take root.
Open Access
Democratizing the measurement of democratic quality: public attitude data and the evaluation of African political regimes
(2010) Logan, Carolyn; Mattes, Robert
The emerging literature on the "quality of democracy" promises to advance our knowledge of democratization in several ways. First of all, it takes us beyond the narrow assessment of stability and endurance of democratic political regimes to ask about the quality of democracy those regimes supply. We move from asking "how stable?" to "how well?" Second, the concept of quality promises to provide us with greater nuance and precision, and thus greater ability to distinguish amongst widely disparate countries -- such as Cape Verde and Ghana on one hand, and Canada and Greece on the other -- that are usually lumped together as free, or as liberal democracies by the relatively blunt measures provided by Freedom House or Polity. Finally, and related to this, it enables us to move beyond "whole system" (Diamond 2002) measures and brings into focus differing dimensions of democracy, allowing us to appreciate that some countries can do better on some dimensions but worse on others. This also opens up the possibility that we may be able to measure democratic qualities in countries that do not qualify as electoral or liberal democracies (Elkins 2000).
Open Access
Do southern Africa’s dominant-party systems affect popular attitudes?
(2015) Cole, Eric Jacobson; Mattes, Robert
Among the most distinctive features of Southern African politics is the region’s preponderance of one-party dominant systems. Considerable effort has been made to explain the unusual phenomenon with some analysts emphasizing the potential of such imbalances of power to undermine the effectiveness of a democracy’s institutions. However, political science has only just begun to study the repercussions the status quo may have for political culture in the region. Using survey data collected across the continent, this paper shifts the focus to this unexplored link between dominance and culture, aiming to shed some light on the relationship by studying the effect dominant party systems have on three specific political attitudes in Africa: demand for democracy, evaluation of the supply of democracy, and pluralism. The academic literature on Southern Africa’s dominant party systems has produced a theoretical distinction between two types of dominance. On the one hand is simple dominance, characterized only by long-term electoral success by a single party. On the other hand is dominance by parties who emerged from national liberation movements. Some analysts have argued that the ideological orientation of liberation parties and their unique claim to the right to rule renders them incompatible with essential features of democracy. This paper investigates the possibility that these distinct varieties of dominance have distinct effects on political attitudes. The results of the analyses conducted here offer strong evidence that dominant party systems do have implications for mass attitudes. Further, this research finds strong support for the argument that the nature of a party’s dominance matters, as means comparisons and regression analyses showed that the effects of dominance on popular attitudes were considerably stronger in systems where the dominant party was descended from a national liberation movement.
Open Access
Does ethnicity determine electoral behaviour: the structural and attitudinal basis of partisan identification in 12 African nations
(2003) Norris, Pippa; Mattes, Robert
Structural theories predict that the cues of social identity, particularly ethnicity, should exert a strong influence upon voting choices and party support in traditional agrarian societies, characterized by low levels of education and minimal access to the news media. To explore these issues, this study seeks to analyze the influence of ethno-linguistic and ethno-racial characteristics on identification with the governing party in a dozen African states, compared with other structural and attitudinal factors commonly used to explain patterns of partisanship in many countries. The study draws upon the first wave of the Afrobarometer, a cross-national representative survey of political and social values conducted in 1999-2001 in twelve nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Botswana to Zimbabwe. We establish three main findings. Even with social and attitudinal controls, ethnicity is a significant predictor of party support in most, although not all, African societies under comparison. Yet the strength of this association varies cross-nationally, with the linkages strongest in societies divided by many languages, such as Namibia and South Africa, while playing an insignificant role in African countries where ethno-linguistic cleavages are more homogeneous, including Lesotho and Botswana. Moreover structural explanations are limited: evaluations of the policy performance of the party in government also influenced patterns of party support, even with prior social controls. The conclusion summarises the results and considers their broader implications for understanding the role of ethnic cleavages in elections within plural societies.
Open Access
Does ethnicity determine electoral behaviour: the structural and attitudinal basis of partisan identification in 12 African nations
(2003) Norris, Pippa; Mattes, Robert
Structural theories predict that the cues of social identity, particularly ethnicity, should exert a strong influence upon voting choices and party support in traditional agrarian societies, characterized by low levels of education and minimal access to the news media. To explore these issues, this study seeks to analyze the influence of ethno-linguistic and ethno-racial characteristics on identification with the governing party in a dozen African states, compared with other structural and attitudinal factors commonly used to explain patterns of partisanship in many countries. The study draws upon the first wave of the Afrobarometer, a cross-national representative survey of political and social values conducted in 1999-2001 in twelve nations in Sub-Saharan Africa, ranging from Botswana to Zimbabwe. We establish three main findings. Even with social and attitudinal controls, ethnicity is a significant predictor of party support in most, although not all, African societies under comparison. Yet the strength of this association varies cross-nationally, with the linkages strongest in societies divided by many languages, such as Namibia and South Africa, while playing an insignificant role in African countries where ethno-linguistic cleavages are more homogeneous, including Lesotho and Botswana. Moreover structural explanations are limited: evaluations of the policy performance of the party in government also influenced patterns of party support, even with prior social controls. The conclusion summarises the results and considers their broader implications for understanding the role of ethnic cleavages in elections within plural societies.