Content area
Full Text
National elections were held in Mozambique for the fifth time in October 2014. As a state, Mozambique - like many 'fourth-wave' transition countries - fulfils the formal criteria of democracy. But to what extent are the mechanisms of accountability implemented? In Africa, two issues have been identified as key impediments for successful democratic transition: failure to improve the welfare of the poor and the 'pre-modern' character of civil society. In Mozambique, robust economic growth has been accompanied by growing inequality, while traditional civil society organisations (CSOs) have become increasingly visible on local level since the political transition in 1994. Based on the analysis of Afrobarometer data in comparative context, the study examines whether the poor are less supportive of liberal democracy than other citizens, as well as the role of traditional vs. modern CSOs in strengthening vertical accountability. The results show that the main threat to democracy does not come from the poor, who feel healthy scepticism towards the way the regime implements democracy while being supportive of democratic values. Neither are traditional CSOs incompatible with democratic values. The problems are caused by the way key provisions in the democratic constitution are translated to practice - or undermined - by the political elite.
Keywords: Africa; Mozambique; democracy; civil society; poverty
Introduction
A 'third wave of democratization' (Huntington 1996, 3), which begun in the mid-1970s from Southern Europe and moved on to Latin America and Asia, had penetrated the socialist 'Second World' by the late 1980s, reaching its high point in the disintegration of the USSR in the early 1990s. In sub-Saharan Africa, the process started relatively late, but by the early 1990s most of the 48 states had adopted a political regime that fulfilled at least the formal criteria of electoral democracy - 'a civilian, constitutional system in which the legislative and chief executive offices are filled through regular, competitive, multiparty elections' (Diamond 1997, 1). Transition from electoral democracy to consolidated and institutionalized democracy has, however, turned out to be difficult, particularly when the reform has been limited to importing an institutional blueprint from the West (Crawford and Lynch 2012; O'Donnell 1999).
According to the Western (liberal) conception of democracy, the installation of a democratically elected government through regular, free and fair electoral competition...