The Transformation Research Unit (TRU), a unit focused on research projects dealing with transformations from autocracy to democracy and the reverse, conditions for the persistence of democracy, and the quality of the democratic process, will soon be expanding its research on democracy in Africa by utilising new data sets at its disposal to do so.
TRU was officially established at Stellenbosch University at the end of 2014 and is based at the Centre for International and Comparative Politics in the Political Science Department. The Unit focuses on examining democracy comparatively across cultures from an economic, political and social perspective. Within the regional context South Africa is being examined comparatively with Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. The wider global viewpoint is provided by the comparative study of the culturally vastly diverse cases of South Korea, Chile, Poland, Turkey, Germany and Sweden.
"We have decided that the project we are currently working on and which is centred on South Africa within the global political and economic environment should be used as a stepping stone to a study we want to implement in the future" said Prof Ursula van Beek, the Head of TRU, following a recent four-day workshop where researchers from Africa and the rest of the world shared some of their preliminary findings on democracy in the sub-Saharan region.
"Our future research will be centred more on the Southern African region and will draw on new data sets. So far we have relied primarily on the World Values Survey and on our self-generated data on elites and economic factors. We intend to expand the individual data sources by the inclusion of the Afrobarometr data while the proposed utilisation of the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) datasets will allow us to examine the connection between individuals and their political institutions."
According to Van Beek, the V-Dem dataset comprises data on political institutions going back to 1900.
"That is over a hundred years of data! This data can for instance show us how countries move into democracy, how some might regress into autocracy and then move back into democracy again. Essentially, the V-Dem data allows us to see how democracies are born and how they die. V-Dem data is considered globally to have taken the comparative assessment of democratic institutions to a new level because of its theoretical openness, its conceptual clarity, and its thorough measurement. The V-Dem project has been developed jointly by the Kellogg Institute at the Notre Dame University, USA, and the Department of Political Science at University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The V-Dem Director at the latter institution, Prof Staffan Lindberg, is keen to see the establishment of an institutional home for V-Dem data utilisation in Africa, and more specifically, at Stellenbosch University.
In combination with the Afrobarometer that has surveyed 37 countries in Africa since the 1990s, the two additional datasets will assure that in its research TRU will draw on arguably the most comprehensive data collection on democracy in South Africa, if not on the African continent.
The project TRU is currently focusing on is called Global democracy: Political institutions and cultural contexts. It investigates the key factors likely to obstruct a successful long-term democratic consolidation in countries like South Africa, Poland, Chile, South Korea and Turkey. This project, says Van Beek, is important because it highlights how South Africa is faring on its road to a democratic consolidated society in comparison with other younger democracies in the region and in the world.
"In South Africa we are facing various problems, especially the problem of government failing to deliver services to the people and citizens that are unhappy with the status quo. A good way to understand the shortcomings of South African democracy is to study the political culture of the elite and the citizens of this country. Such analyses tell us how both the South African leaders and the people perceive democracy. Their respective attitudes, values and beliefs with regards to democracy can reveal whether they do or do not support the system, and therefore, whether it will or will not succeed," says van Beek.
Photo: Researchers and academics from Africa and the rest of the world recently met during a four-day workshop to share some of their preliminary findings on democracy in the sub-Saharan region. In the back row from the left are Dr Krige Siebrits (SU), Prof David Sebudubudu (University of Botswana), Mr Jerry Mathega (HSRC), Mr George Ott (SU), Prof Vello Pettai (University of Tortu, Estonia), Prof Yilmaz Esmer (University of Bahcesehir, Turkey), Prof Christer Jönsson (Lund University, Sweden), Prof Dirk Berg-Schlosser (Marburg University, Germany), Prof Henning Melber (Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden), Prof Pierre du Toit (SU), Prof Hennie Kotze (SU). In the front row from the left are Prof Hans-Dieter Klingemann (WZB, Berlin), Ms Annemie Parkin (SU), Dr Nicola de Jager (SU), Prof Ursula van Beek (SU), Ms Nsisima Ncube (SU), Prof Ursula Hoffmann-Lange (Bamberg University, Germany), Dr Catherine Musuva (AU), Ms Heike Morkel (SU), Ms Helen Kroes (SU), Prof Lloyd Sachikonye (University of Zimbabwe), Ms Reinet Loubser (SU), Dr Marisa von Fintel (SU). (Anton Jordaan, SSFD)
