Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rcrh6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T01:23:46.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Democratization and Economic Output in Sub-Saharan Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 April 2016

Daniel de Kadt  and
Stephen B. Wittels
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does democratization increase economic output? Answers to this question are inconsistent partly due to the challenges of examining the causal forces behind political and economic phenomena that occur at the national level. We employ a new empirical approach, the synthetic control method, to study the economic effects of democratization in Sub-Saharan Africa over the period 1975–2008. This method yields case-specific causal estimates, which show that political reform associated with the “third wave” of democracy had highly heterogeneous, yet often substantively important effects in Africa. In some countries democratization adversely affected economic output while in others it exerted an analogous positive effect.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , January 2019 , pp. 63 - 84
Copyright
© The European Political Science Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Daniel de Kadt, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room E53--470, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA ([email protected]), Stephen B. Wittels, PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science, MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room E53--470, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA ([email protected]). The authors thank Jens Hainmueller, Chad Hazlett, Danny Hidalgo, Tom O’Grady, Daniel Posner, Melissa Sands, and Teppei Yamamoto, as well as seminar participants at MIT and Harvard, discussants and panelists at MPSA, and two anonymous reviewers for comments and advice. Both authors contributed equally and all errors are their own.

References

Abadie, Alberto, Diamond, Alexis, and Hainmueller, Jens. 2010. ‘Synthetic Control Methods for Comparative Case Studies: Estimating the Effect of California’s Tobacco Control Program’. Journal of the American Statistical Association 105(490):493–505.Google Scholar
Abadie, Alberto, Diamond, Alexis, and Hainmueller, Jens. 2011. ‘Synth: An R Package for Synthetic Control Methods in Comparative Case Studies’. Journal of Statistical Software 42(13).Google Scholar
Abadie, Alberto, Diamond, Alexis, and Hainmueller, Jens. 2015. ‘Comparative Politics and the Synthetic Control Method’. American Journal of Political Science 59(2):495–510.Google Scholar
Abadie, Alberto, and Gardeazabal, Javier. 2003. ‘The Economic Costs of Conflict: A Case Study of the Basque Country’. American Economic Review 93(1):113–132.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon, and Robinson, James A.. 2001. ‘The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation’. American Economic Review 91(5):1369–1401.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Johnson, Simon, Robinson, James A., and Yared, Pierre. 2008. ‘Income and Democracy’. The American Economic Review 98(3):808–842.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, Naidu, Suresh, Restrepo, Pascual, and Robinson, James A.. 2014. ‘Democracy Does Cause Growth’. NBER Working Paper No. 20004, Cambridge, MA, March.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2006a. ‘Economic Backwardness in Political Perspective’. American Political Science Review 100(1):115–131.Google Scholar
Acemoglu, Daron, and Robinson, James A.. 2006b. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and Rodrik, Dani. 1994. ‘Distributive Politics and Economic Growth’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 109(2):465–490.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Krueger, Alan B.. 2001. ‘Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments’. Journal of Economic Perspectives 15(4):69–85.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., Imbens, Guido W., and Rubin, Donald B.. 1996. ‘Identification of Causal Effects Using Instrumental Variables’. Journal of the American Statistical Association 91(434):444–455.Google Scholar
Bank, World. 2015. ‘World Development Indicators’. Technical report, World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert 1996. ‘Democracy and Growth’. Journal of Economic Growth 1:1–27.Google Scholar
Barro, Robert J. 1999. ‘Determinants of Democracy’. Journal of Political Economy 107(6):157–183.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H. 2006. ‘Institutions and Development’. Journal of African Economies 15(1):10–61.Google Scholar
Bates, Robert H., Fayad, Ghada, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2012. ‘ The State of Democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa’. International Area Studies Review 4:323--338.Google Scholar
Baum, Matthew A., and Lake, David A.. 2003. ‘The Political Economy of Growth: Democracy and Human Capital’. American Journal of Political Science 47(2):333–347.Google Scholar
Beck, Thorsten, Clarke, George, Groff, Alberto, and Keefer, Philip. 2001. ‘New Tools in Comparative Political Economy: The Database of Political Institutions’. World Bank Economic Review 15(1):165–176.Google Scholar
Bender, Penelope, Diarra, Abou, Edoh, Koffi, and Ziegler, Marc. 2007. ‘Evaluation of the World Bank Assistance to Primary Education in Mali: A Country Case Study’. Technical report, The World Bank, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles. 2003. Democracy and Redistribution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Boix, Carles, and Stokes, Susan C.. 2003. ‘Endogenous Democratization’. World Politics 55(4):517–549.Google Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth A., and Paxton, Pamela. 2000. ‘Subjective Measures of Liberal Democracy’. Comparative Political Studies 33(1):58–86.Google Scholar
Bolt, Jutta, and Bezemer, Dirk. 2009. ‘Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education?’. The Journal of Development Studies 45(1):24–54.Google Scholar
Bolt, Jutta, and Van Zanden, Jan Luiten. 2014. ‘The Maddison Project: Collaborative Research on Historical National Accounts’. The Economic History Review 67(3):627–651.Google Scholar
Bueno de Mesquita, Bruce, Smith, Alastair, Siverson, Ronald M., and Morrow, James D.. 2003. The Logic of Political Survival. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Cervellati, Matteo, Jung, Florian, Sunde, Uwe, and Vischer, Thomas. 2014. ‘Income and Democracy: Comment’. American Economic Review 104(2):707–719.Google Scholar
Clark, Andrew F. 1995. ‘From Military Dictatorship to Democracy: The Democratization Process in Mali’. Journal of Third World Studies 12(1):201–222.Google Scholar
Dahl, Robert A. 1956. A Preface to Democratic Theory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
De Mesquita, Bruce, Cherif, Feryal M., Downs, George W., and Smith, Alastair. 2005. ‘Thinking Inside the Box: A Closer Look at Democracy and Human Rights’. International Studies Quarterly 49(3):439–458.Google Scholar
Devitt, Conor, and Tol, Richard S.J.. 2012. ‘Civil War, Climate Change, and Development: A Scenario Study for Sub-Saharan Africa’. Journal of Peace Research 49(1):129–145.Google Scholar
Doucouliagos, Hristos, and Ulubasoglu, Mehmet A.. 2008. ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: A Meta-Analysis’. American Journal of Political Science 52(1):61–83.Google Scholar
Dreher, Axel, and Gassebner, Martin. 2012. ‘Do IMF and World Bank Programs Induce Government Crises? An Empirical Analysis’. International Organization 66(2):329–358.Google Scholar
Dunning, Thad. 2008. Crude Democracy: Natural Resource Wealth and Political Regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Durlauf, Steven N., Johnson, Paul A., and Temple, Jonathan R.W.. 2005. ‘Growth Econometrics’. In Aghion, P., and Steven N. Durlauf (eds), Part A of Handbook of Economic Growth, Chapter 8, vol. 1, 555–677. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Easterly, William. 2002. The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics. Cambridge: The MIT Press.Google Scholar
Engerman, Stanley L., and Sokoloff, Kenneth L.. 1997. ‘Factor Endowments, Institutions, and Differential Paths of Growth Among New World Economies: A View from Economic Historians of the United States’. In Haber, S. (ed.), How Latin America Fell Behind, Chapter 10, 260–306. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Epstein, David L., Bates, Robert H., Goldstone, Jack A., Kristensen, Ida, and O’Halloran, Sharyn. 2006. ‘Democratic Transitions’. American Journal of Political Science 50(3):551–569.Google Scholar
Evans, Peter B. 1995. Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial Transformation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fayad, Ghada, Bates, Robert H., and Hoeffler, Anke. 2011. ‘Income and Democracy: Lipset’s Law Inverted’. OxCarre Research Paper No. 61, Oxford University, April, OxCarre.Google Scholar
Feng, Yi. 1996. ‘Democracy and Growth: The Sub-Saharan African Case, 1960–1992’. The Review of Black Political Economy 25:95–126.Google Scholar
Feng, Yi. 1997. ‘Democracy, Political Stability and Economic Growth’. British Journal of Political Science 27(3):391–418.Google Scholar
Fidrmuc, Jan. 2003. ‘Economic Reform, Democracy and Growth During Post-Communist Transition’. European Journal of Political Economy 19(3):583–604.Google Scholar
Fosu, Augustin K. 2008. ‘Democracy and Growth in Africa: Implications of Increasing Electoral Competitiveness’. Economics Letters 100(3):442–444.Google Scholar
Fosu, Augustin, Bates, Robert, and Hoeffler, Anke. 2006. ‘Institutions, Governance and Economic Development in Africa: An Overview’. Journal of African Economies 15(1):1–9.Google Scholar
Gerring, John, Bond, Philip, Barndt, William T., and Moreno, Carola. 2005. ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: A Historical Perspective’. World Politics 57(3):323–364.Google Scholar
Gerring, John, Thacker, Strom C., and Moreno, Carola. 2005. ‘Centripetal Democratic Governance: A Theory and Global Inquiry’. American Political Science Review 99(4):567–581.Google Scholar
Giavazzi, Francesco, and Tabellini, Guido. 2004. ‘Economic and Political Liberalizations’. NBER Working Paper No. 10657, Cambridge, MA, August, NBER.Google Scholar
Glaeser, Edward L., La Porta, Rafael, Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio, and Shleifer, Andrei. 2004. ‘Do Institutions Cause Growth?’. Journal of Economic Growth 9:271–303.Google Scholar
Gleditsch, Nils P., Wallensteen, Peter, Eriksson, Mikael, Sollenberg, Margareta, and Strand, Havard. 2002. ‘Armed Conflict 1946-2001: A New Dataset’. Journal of Peace Research 39(5):615–637.Google Scholar
Goldsmith, Arthur A. 1995. ‘Democracy, Property Rights and Economic Growth’. The Journal of Development Studies 32(2):157–174.Google Scholar
Haggard, Stephen, and Webb, Steven B.. 1994. Voting for Reform: Democracy, Political Liberalization, and Economic Adjustment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Halperin, Morton H., Siegle, Joseph T., and Weinstein, Michael M.. 2005. The Democracy Advantage: How Democracies Promote Prosperity and Peace. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Harding, Robin, and Stasavage, David. 2014. ‘What Democracy Does (and Doesn’t Do) for Basic Services: School Fees, School Inputs, and African Elections’. The Journal of Politics 76(1):229–245.Google Scholar
Hariri, Jacob G. 2013. ‘Foreign Aided: Why Democratization Brings Growth When Democracy Does Not’. British Journal of Political Science 45(1):53–71.Google Scholar
Hausmann, Ricardo, Pritchett, Lant, and Rodrik, Dani. 2005. ‘Growth Accelerations’. Journal of Economic Growth 10:303–329.Google Scholar
Heo, Uk, and Tan, Alexander C.. 2001. ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: A Causal Analysis’. Comparative Politics 33(4):463–473.Google Scholar
Heston, Alan, Summers, Robert, and Aten, Bettina. 2011. ‘Penn World Table Version 7.0’. Center for International Comparisons of Production, Income and Prices, The University of Pennsylvania, Philadelpha, PA, USA.Google Scholar
Higley, John, and Gunther, Richard. 1992. Elites and Democratic Consolidation in Latin America and Southern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Huntington, Samuel P. 2006 [1968]. Political Order in Changing Societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Inglehart, Ronald, and Welzel, Christian. 2005. Modernization, Cultural Change, and Democracy: The Human Development Sequence. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jerven, Morten. 2013. Poor Numbers: How We are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to do About it. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Knutsen, Carl H. 2011. ‘The Economic Effects of Democracy and Dictatorship’. PhD Thesis, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Kramon, Eric, and Posner, Daniel N.. 2013. ‘Who Benefits From Distributive Politics? How the Outcome One Studies Affects the Answer One Gets’. Perspectives on Politics 11(2):461–474.Google Scholar
Krieckhaus, Jonathan. 2006. ‘Democracy and Economic Growth: How Regional Context Influences Regime Effects’. British Journal of Political Science 36(2):317–340.Google Scholar
Leblang, David A. 1996. ‘Property Rights, Democracy and Economic Growth’. Political Research Quarterly 49(1):5–26.Google Scholar
Lewis, Peter M. 1996. ‘Economic Reform and Political Transition in Africa’. World Politics 49(1):92–129.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour M. 1959. ‘Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy’. The American Political Science Review 53(1):69–105.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour M. 1994. ‘The Social Requisites of Democracy Revisited: 1993 Presidential Address’. American Sociological Review 1–22.Google Scholar
Maddison, Angus. 2010. ‘Historical Statistics of the World Economy: 1-2008 AD’.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2008. ‘Toward a Unified Theory of Causality’. Comparative Political Studies 41(4–5):412–436.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2010. Colonialism and Postcolonial Development: Spanish America in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Minier, Jenny A. 1998. ‘Democracy and Growth: Alternative Approaches’. Journal of Economic Growth 3:241–266.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C. 2005. Understanding the Process of Economic Change. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., and Weingast, Barry R.. 1989. ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutional Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’. The Journal of Economic History 49(4):803–832.Google Scholar
North, Douglass C., Wallis, John J., and Weingast, Barry R.. 2009. Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O’Donnell, Guillermo A. 1999. Counterpoints: Selected Essays on Authoritarianism and Democratization. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1982. The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation and Social Rigidities. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Olson, Mancur. 1993. ‘Dictatorship, Democracy, and Development’. American Political Science Review 87(3):567–576.Google Scholar
Papaioannou, Elias, and Siourounis, Gregorios. 2008. ‘Democratisation and Growth’. Economic Journal 118(532):1520–1551.Google Scholar
Pearl, Judea. 2000. Causality: Models, Reasoning, and Inference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Persson, Torsten, and Tabellini, Guido. 2006. ‘Democracy and Development: The Devil in the Details’. Working Paper No. 11993, February, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Persson, Torsten, and Tabellini, Guido. 2007. ‘The Growth Effect of Democracy: Is it Heterogenous and How Can it be Estimated?’. Working Paper No. 13150, June, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.Google Scholar
Pringle, Robert. 2006. ‘Mali’s Unlikely Democracy’. The Wilson Quarterly 30(2):31–39.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, and Limongi, Fernando. 1993. ‘Political Regimes and Economic Growth’. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 7(3):51–69.Google Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Alvarez, Michael, Cheibub, Jose A., and Limongi, Fernando. 2000. Democracy and Development: Political Institutions and Well-Being in the World, 1950–1990, vol. 3, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 1999. ‘Where Did All the Growth Go? External Shocks, Social Conflict, and Growth Collapses’. Journal of Economic Growth 4(4):385–412.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 2000. ‘Institutions for High-Quality Growth: What They are and How to Acquire Them’. Studies in Comparative International Development 35(3):3–31.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 2004. ‘Getting Institutions Right’. CESifo DICE Report No. 2, Munich, Germany, CESifo DICE.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani, Subramanian, Arvind, and Trebbi, Francesco. 2004. ‘Institutions Rule: The Primacy of Institutions Over Geography and Integration in Economic Development’. Journal of Economic Growth 9(2):131–165.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani, and Wacziarg, Romain. 2005. ‘Do Democratic Transitions Produce Bad Economic Outcomes?’. American Economic Review 95(2):50–55.Google Scholar
Romer, Paul M. 1990. ‘Endogenous Technological Change’. Journal of Political Economy 95(2):50–55.Google Scholar
Sirowy, Larry, and Inkeles, Alex. 1990. ‘The Effects of Democracy on Economic Growth and Inequality: A Review’. Studies in Comparative International Development 25(1):126–157.Google Scholar
Smith, Zeric K. 2001. ‘Mali’s Decade of Democracy’. Journal of Democracy 12(3):73–79.Google Scholar
Solow, Robert M. 1956. ‘A Contribution to the Theory of Economic Growth’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 70(1):65–94.Google Scholar
Solt, Frederick. 2009. ‘Standardizing the World Income Inequality Database’. Social Science Quarterly 90(2):231–242.Google Scholar
Stasavage, David. 2005. ‘Democracy and Education Spending in Africa’. American Journal of Political Science 49(2):343–358.Google Scholar
Tavares, Jose, and Wacziarg, Romain. 2001. ‘How Democracy Affects Growth’. European Economic Review 45(8):1341–1378.Google Scholar
Themner, Lotta, and Wallensteen, Peter. 2013. ‘Armed Conflict 1946-2012’. Journal of Peace Research 50(4):509–521.Google Scholar
Treier, Shawn, and Jackman, Simon. 2008. ‘Democracy as a Latent Variable’. American Journal of Political Science 52(1):201–217.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George. 2002. Veto Players: How Political Institutions Work. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
UNCTAD. 2015. ‘International Trade Statistics’.Google Scholar
UNDP. 2011. ‘Human Development Report’. Technical report, United Nations, New York, NY.Google Scholar
van de Walle, Nicolas. 2012. ‘Foreign Aid in Dangerous Places: The Donors and Mali’s Democracy’. United Nations University-World Institute for Development Economics Research Working Paper, Helsinki, Finland.Google Scholar
Weber, Max. 2012 [1905]. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Mineola: Dover Publications, Inc.Google Scholar
Wing, Susanna D. 2008. Constructing Democracy in Transitioning Societies in Africa. New York: Palgrave.Google Scholar
World Health Organization. 2015. World Health Statistics. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar