Traditional Political Institutions and Democracy: Reassessing Their Compatibility and Accountability

Abstract

This article revisits prominent frameworks for understanding traditional political institutions which make pessimistic assessments about their compatibility with democracy. Traditional political institutions are often assumed to be unaccountable because they are led by undemocratic leaders who are not subject to electoral sanctioning. However, drawing on new information from the TradGov Group dataset, an expert survey on the contemporary practices of more than 1,400 ethnic groups that currently have traditional political institutions, we show that these institutions contain their own distinct mechanisms of accountability. In a majority of cases, decision-making is consensual and leaders must account for their actions in various ways. We challenge the electoral accountability framework for understanding the quality of traditional leaders’ performance, instead arguing that traditional political institutions can be compatible with democracy and even accountable to their citizens insofar as they adopt inclusive decision-making processes and their leaders have strong nonelectoral connections to the communities they represent.

Roads to Rule, Roads to Rebel: Relational State Capacity and Conflict in Africa

“…With varying strategies of rule, colonial governments often invented or co-opted local notables as intermediaries in ethnically delimited constituencies ( Mamdani 1996 ; Crowder 1964 ; Herbst 2000 ). Many “traditional,” (pre)colonial governance institutions survived well into the postcolonial period: Baldwin and Holzinger (2019) indicate that about 83 percent of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa belongs to ethnic groups with some form of traditional institutions, as compared to a global average of 36 percent.…”

State Presence and Democratic Culture: A Spatial Investigation

“…Gervasoni, 2018, for instance, develops an economic model of subnational regime type in Argentina based on the logic of unearned fiscal rents as a sort of "resource curse" for the provinces. Others identify the values of individual leaders or groups who represent authoritarian holdovers as explaining variation below the national level in the consolidation and quality of democratic governance (Baldwin and Holzinger, 2019;Berman and Nugent, 2019).…”

Explaining the Constitutional Integration and Resurgence of Traditional Political Institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa

“…The Afrobarometer surveys reveal that constituents continue to consider TPI important and express a desire for a greater political role of traditional leaders (Logan 2013). Authors also find that TPI become increasingly codified in constitutions, implying recognition by the state (Holzinger et al 2019). Yet, evidence for the constitutional resurgence of TPI is mostly based on case analysis.…”

“…This type of coexistence is not limited to Sub-Saharan Africa but can be found across the globe (Holzinger et al, 2016: 470), with an estimated 57% of the world population living in countries where customary and other forms of law exist in parallel (JuriGlobe World Legal Systems Research Group, 2019). Moreover, TPI are also an important factor shaping various political issues and outcomes, ranging from the provision of public goods (Baldwin, 2015, 2019; Goist and Kern, 2018), economic development (Acemoglu et al, 2014), democracy and elections (Baldwin, 2013, 2014, 2019; Baldwin and Holzinger, 2019; Baldwin and Mvukiyehe, 2015; de Kadt and Larreguy, 2018; Koter, 2013) or peace and conflict (Mustasilta, 2019; Wig and Kromrey, 2018). The interaction of TPI and the state plays a crucial part in these outcomes, especially where their agendas collide.…”