The Calculus of Democratization and Development

TL;DR

This study analyzes 33 Sub-Saharan African countries to understand how democratic elections influence development, revealing three archetypes of outcomes and their impact on progress or regression.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of the relationship between democratic elections and development in Sub-Saharan Africa, identifying key archetypes of electoral impact.

Findings

Countries with positive democratic changes show development improvements

Plateau results correlate with stable development outcomes

Continued descent into authoritarianism leads to negative development effects

Abstract

In accordance with "Democracy's Effect on Development: More Questions than Answers", we seek to carry out a study in following the description in the 'Questions for Further Study.' To that end, we studied 33 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa region, who all went through an election which should signal a "step-up" for their democracy, one in which previously homogenous regimes transfer power to an opposition party that fairly won the election. After doing so, liberal-democracy indicators and democracy indicators were evaluated in the five years prior to and after the election took place, and over that ten-year period, we examine the data for trends. If we see positive or negative trends over this time horizon, we are able to conclude that it was the recent increase in the quality of their democracy which led to it. Having investigated examples of this in depth, there seem to be three main archetypes which drive the results. Countries with positive results to their democracy from the election have generally positive effects on their development, countries with more "plateau" like results also did well, but countries for whom the descent to authoritarianism was continued by this election found more negative results.