Authoritarianism in Africa: Moynihan Institute’s Challenges to Citizenship Webinar

This webinar is a part of the Moynihan Institute of Global Affair’s Citizenship Challenge Series and is hosted by the Maxwell African Scholars Union. Join our panel of three experts in an international webinar to explore these aspects of authoritarianism in Africa.

Authoritarianism is often associated with a high degree of repression, centralization of power and limited individual choices—the polar opposite of a democratic system. Yet, cases from Africa reveal the dynamic and fluid nature of authoritarianism. Such dynamism and fluidity are apparent in the relationship between arbitrary power and its institutional and legal constraints regarding issues such as justice and security within a state. This can be seen in cases where recent decades of democratic gain have receded when some African political incumbents have exploited the weaknesses of their countries’ institutional oversight. For some scholars, such recession is a symptom of Africa’s inheritance of political systems that are compromised by historical antecedents of weak nation building and unsustainable constitutional implementation efforts.

Panelists:

Dominika Koter, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Political Science 
Colgate University

Democratic Backsliding from Within: Incumbents’ Strategies of Democratic Erosion

In recent years, many scholars and analysts have raised concerns about the slide toward authoritarianism, or democratic backsliding, in Africa. Yet, other scholars find the talk of democratic decline too alarmist. I will first review the latest evidence for (or against) increasing authoritarianism and discuss theories about factors contributing to it. There is general consensus that where democratic backswing has happened, it happened largely from within, namely as a result of institutional reforms undertaken by incumbent presidents to weaken political competition, oversight, and to entrench their power. I will review these incumbent strategies, using recent prominent examples, such as Benin, a country that saw one of the most dramatic degrees of democratic erosion in recent years. I will argue that in the case of Benin, as in many other cases, the slide towards authoritarianism was engineered using legal and formal means, exploiting the weakness of the country’s institutional oversight.

Eric Otenyo, Ph.D.

Professor and NAU Diversity Fellow
Northern Arizona University

Authoritarianism and the Residual Imperial Presidencies in Sub Saharan Africa

This talk is about the structural roots of authoritarianism in Africa. The discussion centers around the idea that at independence, African nations found it difficult to design constitutions to undergird frameworks of governance that would guarantee sufficient rail guards against authoritarianism. In other words, pervasive and lingering forms of authoritarianism are a manifestation of unfinished business of nation and state building. So, to understand pervasive authoritarianism, we must look at its historical antecedents in the initial weak nation building and constitutional implementation efforts. We reflect on the question, why does authoritarianism persist despite growth in African constitutional imaginations?

Rebecca Tapscott, Ph.D.

Ambizione Fellow, Geneva Graduate Institute 
Visiting Fellow, University of Edinburgh
Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Politics 

Arbitrary Power and Its Constraints: Reflecting on Authoritarianism in Africa

What explains the strength of authoritarianism in Africa? Rebecca Tapscott proposes that central to understanding this question is a dynamic and fluid relationship between arbitrary power—the unrestrained and unaccountable power of the executive—and its institutional and legal restraints. Empirically, the study focuses on local violent actors in Uganda as an instance of the state simultaneously mobilizing local authorities for everyday governance, while denying those authorities the ability to meaningfully consolidate autonomous authority. This view illustrates how these regimes outsource responsibility for key services associated with state sovereignty (justice and security), without relinquishing authority. The findings speak to the question at hand by illuminating how spaces for claim-making and political activity can both exist and be unable to meaningfully contend with authoritarian power. Tapscott situates these insights within contemporary research on everyday authoritarianism to show how they nuance and advance existing explanations for the tenacity of authoritarianism in Africa.