Now let's look at evidence from the most recent wave of the Afrobarometer survey in 2010 and 2011.

We can begin by looking at support for democracy in a different way. We have been concerned in the regional barometers, which are gathered together in coordination, trying to standardize the use of some of these questions in a collaboration called the global barometer. We've been concerned that perhaps one reason why a lot of people may say democracy is always the best form of government, is because there is a certain global value put on the word democracy. And maybe what people are responding to is the general global desirablity of that word, rather than the underlying values and institutions that democacy Encompasses. We can get around that social desireability pitfall by describing different types of institutions. And seeing to what extent people agree or disagree that they're desirable. So the Afrobarometer has done this in some very imaginative ways. The first question they ask is and they ask in each of these items. They asked people to choose between two different statements, and the first statement is we should choose our leaders through regular, open and honest elections. In other words, democracy. And the second is since elections sometimes produce bad results, we should adopt some other methods for choosing our leaders. In other words some kind of authoritarian regime. So let us look now in each of these countries, this is a sample of the larger number of African countries that were surveyed in 2010 and 2011. So it's not all the countries but it's some of the ones where, they have in place either a democracy or a semi-democracy, as in Uganda. And then of course a very authoritarian regime despite the veneer of electoral competition in Zimbabwe. What we see in each of these countries, when the desire for democracy is put this way, really almost astonishing levels of support for democracy. Even higher than what we found in the previous widely used survey item.

In Benin, if we combine those who say they strongly agree that choosing our leaders through regular open and honest elections is the best methods, and those who merely agree. In Benin the level is 91%, adding the two bars of agree and strongly agree. In Botswana it's 84%. And you can see in Ghana it's 92% and it's quite high really over in 80% in virtually every country, but South Africa where it is, 76%. So very strong commitment to honest, open and free elections for choosing leaders. Now let's look at other, institutions and how Africans react to these. The afrobarometer asked whether people believe the president, the elected president, should be limited to a maximum term of two two terms in office. Or there should be no term limit on how often a president can serve. Would they say the use of violence is never justified in our politics, obviously a response that, affirms, an important democratic value. Or that sometimes it's necessary in support of a just cause to use violence. do they manifest a paternalistic attitude? That government is like a parent. it should it should decide what's good for us. Or do they say no, we are self confident citizens, the government is like our employee. We are the bosses. And then the fourth item asks them to choose between these two questions. It's more important for citizens to be able to hold government accountable, or it's more important to get things done. Okay, let's see how people on average in ten African countries surveyed in 2010 and 2011 react to these four normative choices that are put to them. And here I am measuring the percent who agree or strongly agree with the democratic response. That is, that they favor term limits. A maximum of two terms. They oppose ever using violence to achieve political objectives. They think the government is their employee and not their boss or parent. And they favor having an accountable government, even at some price in terms of efficiency. Now, the average level of support for these democratic norms, instincts, and

attitudes about the relationship between the citizen and his or her government. It's not consistent across these contries, and it's not consistent across these four measures. but again it's suprisingly robust. So, if you add the percent of people who strongly agree with these democratic norms, is really quite impressive. It's over 50%, in on two of these items on average in the ten African countries, and about a third in the other two items. And overall, majorities on each of these items well over 50%. So even On the weaker measures about government being boss or employee, 57% think that government should be the servant of the people and not the master. 55% on average in these ten African countries in 2010 and 11 say we need accountable government even if it's going to slow things down. And we see here that, slightly over, 80%, oppose violence under any circumstance and 76% endorsed term limits. Let me add that we did not have term limits in the American Constitution limiting the president to two terms until well into the 20th century. And many americans at the start of the american revolution were quite inclined to think we needed a monarchy or at least a strong leader who would serve indefinately. and were quite prepared to make George Washington king. So we are seeing here in some respects, levels of support for democratic norms. That we would not have, seen, even in, among the, you know, more mobilized and educated citizenry of the recently founded American Republic. Now let's look at the recent data on the perception of the supply of democracy. And I want to coorelate it with a frequently assumed cause of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with democracy. And that is how the, how's the economy doing? The presumption is, people are going to be satisfied with the way their political system is working. If the economy by their own perception is doing well, and dissatisfied if it's not. So here in this slide, again for the ten countries in Africa for which we have data from the fifth round of the Afrobarometer. Here in this slide, the blue bar indicates the percentage who are

satisfied with the way democracy's working in their country. The red bar here, gives the percentage who are not satisfied. And then we see in these green bars a very small percentage who either don't answer the question, or give an even more radically disenchanted response. We don't have a democracy in our country at all. But let's focus on satisfaction and dissatisfaction for the moment. among those who say the economy is doing well, it's very good. Satisfaction is at 70% and fairly good almost the same level, 68%. But as the perception of economic performance declines, so does the percentage of the public who say they're satisfied. It goes from 70% who see the economy as very good, to 46% who see it as very bad. And so, with each step down the ladder of perceived economic conditions, satisfaction with the way democracy is functioning in the country declines. Now what about the perception of political conditions? Does that affect, the way people perceive how democracy is doing. Indeed it does, and in fact this is also a very striking slide. Quite possibly even a more striking one. We now are going to look at three bars in a different sense. Again, the blue bar Is satisfaction with the way democracy is working. The red bar is dissatisfaction, and the green bar is that small percentage overall who give that radically disenchanted response, we don't live in a democracy at all. Now lets look at this as it's correlated with the perception that people in the country are free to say what they think. Among those who see that people in the country are completely free to say what they think, satisfaction with democracy is very high, 63%. When among those who say that people are somewhat free to say what they want, satisfaction is 55%. And after that, it declines dramatically. If people perceive that they are not very free to say what they think then among those people only 38% are satisfied with democracy. And if people perceive there's no freedom of speech at all, only a quarter are satisfied.

Moreover among those people, who say that people are not at all free. Well, under that circumstance, they correctly perceive that the country is not a democracy at all. At least it wouldn't be if there's no freedom of speech. So, again we see evidence that educated, uneducated. maybe there's obviously a small middle class in the sub-saharan African countries, but very small. Most of these people are living in poverty, or, you know, not much above the poverty line. But that doesn't obstruct them from having strong, robust, resilient, and even relatively sophisticated orientations toward democracy. Let's look now at the relationship between education of African citizens, how much education they've had, and two measures of democratic orientation. First of all, whether they say again, that democracy is always preferable. And second of all, whether they reject the authoritarian option of having a strong man come in and rule. Modernization theory would lead us to predict that there would be a striking relationship between the level of education and support for democracy. Or in addition by extension, rejection of authoritarian options. We would expect to see a clear step pattern, whereum, those who had no schooling at all were they were least inclined to support democracy, and therefore, the most inclined to accept authoritarian options. And then there'd be an increase in democratic orientation, with every step up the ladder in terms of level of education. Now, looking at the slide, we see two rather striking things. First of all, there is a step pattern. It's modest but it's, it's there. As we go from level of education of no schooling at all to some primary schooling. Those who finished primary, those who've had secondary education, those who've graduated from a university, and those who have obtained postgraduate education. With every step up the ladder, the percentage who say that they prefer democracy increases. And the percentage who reject, strong-man rule also increases.

So, this is quite striking, and it's a very clear monotonic relationship. Increase the level of education, you increase the support for democracy. But what's also striking is that the levels begin very high. and the increases are there, but they're relatively modest. So, yes, if we look at university graduates. or those who have even higher education slightly over 84% combining these two levels. say that they prefer democracy always and slightly over 95% reject strong man rule. Quite striking, extraordinary levels of support for democracy. But even among people with no schooling at all, in these ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa, in 2010 and 2011, 72% say that democracy is always preferable. And 81% reject one man rule. This is a very striking, I would not say, disproof, or contradiction of modernization theory, but a powerful qualification of it. Yes, modernization has an impact. Yes, schooling can and exposure probably to other institutes of modernization can deepen commitment to democracy. But what is so interesting is that from somewhere else. And one presumes that a lot of it must come from their own experience of having lived through authoritarian regimes. Africans have come to understand what they don't want, and they don't want the arbitrariness, the injustice. The physical and political insecurity of authoritarian rule, in which there's no political accountability, no rule of law, no constraint on the power of the rulers, no ability of citizens to hold their rulers accountable. so this is a very striking,uh, set of, pieces of evidence to suggest that a democratic political culture is taking hold, certainly in an impressive and significant number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa.