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This article was originally published by The Conversation.

The questions that I get asked most often by students, policymakers and political leaders are: Can democracy work in Africa? and Is Africa becoming more democratic?

As we celebrate Africa Day and reflect on how far the continent has come since the Organization of African Unity was founded in 1963, it seems like a good time to share my response.

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Some people who ask these questions assume that the answer will be No,because they are thinking of the rise of authoritarian abuses in places like Burundi and Zambia. Others assume that the answer is yes because they remember recent transfers of power in Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria.

Overall trends on the continent can be read in a way that supports both conclusions. On the one hand, the average quality of civil liberties has declined every year for the last decade. On the other, the number of African states in which the government has been defeated at the ballot box has increased from a handful in the mid 1990s to 19.

To explain this discrepancy, I suggest that we need to approach the issue a little differently. Instead of focusing on the last two or three elections, or Africa-wide averages, we need to look at whether democratic institutions such as term limits and elections are starting to work as intended. This tells us much more about whether democratic procedures are starting to become entrenched, and hence how contemporary struggles for power are likely to play out.

When we approach the issue in this way it becomes clear that democracy can work in Africabut this does not mean that it always will.

Men hang a banner for the inauguration ceremony of Gambian President Adama Barrow prior to his return on January 26 in Banjul, Gambia. The election of Barrow, who defeated longtime ruler Yahya Jammeh, was widely seen as a victory for democracy in Africa. Andrew Renneisen/Getty

Democracies are governed by many different sets of regulations, but two of the most important are presidential term limits and the need to hold free and fair elections. Because these rules have the capacity to remove presidents and governments from power, they represent a litmus test of the strength of democratic institutions and the commitment of political leaders to democratic principles.

So how are these institutions faring? Let us start with elections. Back in the late 1980s only Botswana, Gambia and Mauritius held relatively open multiparty elections. Today, almost every state bar Eritrea holds elections of some form. However, while this represents a remarkable turn of events, the average quality of these elections is low. According to the National Elections Across Democracy and Autocracy dataset, on a 1-10 scale in which 10 is the best score possible, African elections average just over five.

As a result, opposition parties have to compete for power with one hand tied behind their backs. This helps to explain why African presidents win 88 percentof the elections that they contest. On this basis, it doesnt look like democracy is working very well at all.

If we move away from averages, though, it becomes clear that this finding masks two very different trends. In some countries, such as Rwanda and Sudan, elections are being held to legitimize the government but offer little real choice to voters.

Things look very different if we instead look at Benin and Ghana, which have experienced a number of transfers of power. In countries like these, governments allow voters to have their say andby and largerespect their decision.

This suggests that when it comes to elections there are at least two Africas: one that has not become much more democratic since the early 1990s, and another in which elections have become entrenched and the quality of the process has improvedthough not always consistentlyover time.

When it comes to upholding the presidential term limits that most African states feature in their constitutions, the picture is also mixed. In many countries, leaders who were never committed to respecting a two-term (or in some cases three-term) limit have been able to change or reinterpret the law in a way that allows them to remain in office indefinitely. As a result, term limits have been overturned in Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Republic of Congo (also known as Congo-Brazzaville), Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Namibia, Rwanda, Sudan, Togo and Uganda.

But, as we saw with elections, the picture is not as bleak as it may at first appear. To date, African presidents have come up against term limits 38 times. In only 18 cases have presidents sought to ignore and amend the constitution, and in only 12 cases were they successful. Put another way, of the 42 countries that feature term limits, so far they have only been overturned in 13.

This is remarkable. On a continent known for Big Man rule and which has often been described as being institutionless, one of the most important democratic institutions of them all is starting to take root in a surprising number of states. So far presidents have acceptedor been forced to acceptthe ultimate check on their authority in Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Tanzania and Zambia.

Thus, while it is important not to overlook the ability of leaders to subvert the rules of the game in the continents more authoritarian states, it is also important to recognize that the constraints on presidential power are greater than at any time in the last 50 years. In contemporary Africa, term limits are more likely to be respected than broken.

This evidence demonstrates that democracy can work in Africa. In those countries in which high quality elections go hand in hand with entrenched term limits, we are witnessing processes of democratic consolidation. Some of these processes are just starting, and all are vulnerable to reversal, but there is no longer any reason to doubt that democracy can function in a number of African countries.

So what separates the success stories from the rest? What we know is that there are a number of factors that serve to insulate governments from domestic and international pressure to reform, and so undermine the prospects for democratization.

One is the presence of strong security forces that can be used to put down opposition and civil society protests. Another is the presence of significant oil reserves. With the exception of Ghana and possibly Nigeria, Africas petro-states are all authoritarian.

A third is support from foreign governments, which is often given to regimes that are geostrategically important and willing to support the foreign policy goals of other states, whether they are democratic or not.

These factors do indeed make it harder to break free of old authoritarian logics. But its also important to keep in mind that they dont make it impossible. Nigeria, for example, ticks most of these boxes and yet witnessed a peaceful transfer of power in 2015.

Given this, and the many other positive stories that have come out of the continent, it is seems apt to end by repeating the final line of my 2015 book. Despite all of the negative stories that dominate the headlines

It is far too early to give up on democracy in Africa.

This is of great importance because there is already evidence that on average more democratic states spend more on education and achieve higher levels of economic growth.

We therefore have good reasons to believe that in the long run living under a democracy will improve the lives of African citizens.

Nic Cheesemanis Professor of Democracy at theUniversity of Birmingham, U.K.

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Why Democracy is Not Dead in Africa - Newsweek

In response to Trumps election integrity commission, the DNC is going on offense on voting rights.

Early voters use electronic ballot-casting machines at the Franklin County Board of Elections, Monday, on November 7, 2016, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo / John Minchillo)

To counteract the Trump administrations election integrity commission, the Democratic National Committee is launching a new Commission on Protecting American Democracy from the Trump Administration. While the Trump commission plans to focus on so-called fraudulent voting, the DNC says its commission will debunk the myth that voter fraud is widespread, document the impact of voter suppression efforts in the 2016 election, and propose solutions to expand voting rights.

Trumps commission is part of the continuing dissemination of alternative facts, DNC Chair Tom Perez says. The commission itself is fraudulent, in the sense that voter fraud is a virtually non-existent phenomenon in this country. Perez calls it nothing but a sham to justify the GOPs voter suppression efforts across the country. Our commission will be ready to counter every move that the Trump administration makes to silence eligible voters. We simply cannot trust Trump, Jeff Sessions, or anyone in this administration to protect the integrity of our democracy.

Former Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander, president of Let America Vote, will chair the DNC commission, and Alabama Representative Terri Sewell, who represents Selma and Birmingham, will be the vice chair. The other members will be New Jersey Senator Cory Booker, Texas Representative Joaquin Castro, Colorado House Speaker Crisanta Duran, Maricopa County Recorder Adrian Fontes, Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, New York Representative Grace Meng, Wisconsin Representative Gwen Moore, California Secretary of State Alex Padilla, DNC Vice Chair Karen Carter Peterson, and District of Columbia Attorney General Karl Racine.

When Donald Trump made the false and baseless claim that three to 5 million illegal votes were cast in the 2016 election, he told one of the biggest lies in presidential history, says Kander. While Trumps misleading claims about voter fraud were probably made to mend his bruised ego after losing the popular vote, he created an opening for Republican politicians to nationalize their efforts to complicate voting and suppress eligible voters. Im excited to join with the DNC and defend the rights of eligible voters from the Trump administrations attacks on democracy.

Our commission will document and report on todays wave of voter-suppression tactics and provide recommendations for strengthening access to the polls for all Americans, adds Sewell.

THE STAKES ARE HIGHER NOW THAN EVER. GET THE NATION IN YOUR INBOX.

The commission is part of the DNCs new Voter Protection and Empowerment Unit, which represents the partys most ambitious effort to safeguard voting rights. With the relentless attacks on voting rights that have become a staple in the playbook of the Republican Party, its absolutely imperative to develop a robust and permanent infrastructure within the Democratic Party for voter protection and empowerment, Perez says.

In the past, the DNC had one full-time staffer focused on voter protection. The new unit will have four staffersintegrated with state parties and the broader voting-rights communityin addition to a new Voter Empowerment Caucus within the DNC and revived Lawyers Council. (The staff and members have yet to be announced.)

We have to develop a much better capacity to play both offense and defense on voting rights, Perez says. That means challenging restrictive voting laws in the courts and through on the ground organizing in states like North Carolina, Texas, and Wisconsin while also pushing for policies that would expand access to the ballot, like automatic voter registration. (As assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Obama Justice Department, Perez filed suit against strict voter-ID laws in Texas and South Carolina.) Perez also mentioned more far-reaching solutions, like abolishing the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

We have a bully pulpit as a party, but I dont think weve used it sufficiently, Perez said. Given the threats to voting rights at the local, state, and national level, this effort is long overdue.

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Democrats Are Launching a Commission to Protect American ... - The Nation.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) The United States went nearly two centuries with only one impeachment of a president Andrew Johnson in 1868 and that failed to remove him from office.

In the last half century, the pace has noticeably increased. In 1974, Richard Nixon resigned rather than face imminent impeachment. Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998 on allegations of perjury and obstruction of justice, and now there is a hue and cry to impeach Donald Trump for collusion with the Russians during the campaign or for obstruction of justice as president.

No evidence of collusion has been made public and as for obstruction of justice, it is based so far on one remark noted by the participant in a conversation with only two people present, and the other person denies it.

Even if one were inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to former FBI Director James Comey and take his word against that of the president, an admonishment to let this go might prompt a comment from Comey himself that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.

The problem is Congress is full of people who arent reasonable. Despite the rejection of the political class by millions of voters who supported Bernie Sanders in the primaries and elected Trump to the presidency, these incumbents, abetted by the mainstream media, continue to play a game of politics instead of addressing the nations problems health care, jobs, standard of living, education, crumbling infrastructure and so on.

Whatever Clintons moral missteps, the use of the impeachment mechanism against him was clearly motivated by partisan passions and a perversion of what the framers intended as a last resort to remove a criminal from office.

If Trump is as unfit for office as his critics believe (and as he seems intent on demonstrating), then the appropriate way to deal with it, short of proven criminal activity, is to have Congress take control of legislation and for voters to turn Trump out of office after a drubbing for his supporters in midterm elections.

The Montana House special election this week pitting Democrat Rob Quist against Republican Greg Gianforte and the Georgia runoff vote next month between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel could provide a preview of what to expect in 2018 congressional elections.

In the toxic atmosphere of the Beltway Bubble, meanwhile, there are already frenzied calls for impeachment.

The political and media hysteria surrounding the Trump administration, veteran Democratic operative Ted Van Dyk wrote this week in the Wall Street Journal, lies somewhere on the repulsiveness scale between the Jacobin excesses of the French Revolution and the McCarthy era.

The obsession of East Coast media and congressional Democrats with Russia, to the exclusion of virtually everything else, is out of step with the concerns of voters in the rest of the country. In fact, it is starting to look like a smoke screen to obscure the fact that Democrats have no constructive answers to these real problems.

For all the misfortunes facing their foe in the White House, Democrats have yet to devise a coherent message on the policies that President Trump used to draw working-class voters to his campaign, New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin concluded in a story headlined Outside Washingtons Blazing Inferno, Democrats Seek an Agenda.

Martins story focused on Quists campaign in Montana in the special election to fill the House seat vacated by Ryan Zinke, Trumps interior secretary. Quist spends his time talking about affordable health care, not Russia, because high insurance premiums are a much bigger issue for Montana voters.

Journalist Nate Silver lists five factors from previous impeachment situations that determine how likely a Trump impeachment is. These are the seriousness of the alleged offenses, the partisanship of pivotal votes in Congress, the presidents popularity, the presidents relationship with Congress, party control of Congress, and line of succession.

Silver discusses each factor in detail, but the simple fact is that the three cases of impeachment including Nixon, who resigned under threat of impeachment, as well as Andrew Johnson and Clinton all came when the opposition party controlled Congress. Even a Democratic majority in the wake of the 2018 midterm elections might have trouble getting an impeachment vote through, Silver says.

However, Vice President Mike Pence being next in line might make it easier for Republicans to buck that historical precedent. If the theory is that you shouldnt hire a well-qualified understudy because he makes your job more vulnerable, then Trump made a mistake in picking Pence as his running mate, Silver opines.

All this prognosticating and calculating, however, ignores one salient fact 63 million citizens voted for Trump as president and delivered him a solid Electoral College majority. (The reductionism by some Democrats who insist that only 70,000 votes in three states made Trump president studiously ignores this fact.)

The best way to remove him from office is to vote for someone else when and if he runs for re-election. This is the way voters got rid of an unpopular Jimmy Carter and the senior George Bush (and discouraged Lyndon Johnson from even running again).

Bringing out the bazooka of impeachment at this early stage is second-guessing voters who just seven months ago elected Trump president, despite all his evident personality flaws and questionable business dealings.

At the very least, opponents should wait until criminal and congressional investigations produce hard evidence of real wrongdoing by the president himself, rather than a rush to judgment on the basis of anonymous and uncorroborated allegations.

It would be the ultimate political dysfunction, and perhaps the death knell for our democracy, if lawmakers routinely turned to impeachment in an attempt to subvert the will of the people for patently political motives.

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Opinion: Calls for Trump's impeachment are a perversion of democracy - MarketWatch

By Michael K. Miller By Michael K. Miller May 23 at 5:00 AM

The decline of democracies is not as dramatic as it used to be. Instead of military coups, the greater threat is the steady erosion of democratic norms by elected leaders. If done skillfully, leaders can consolidate power and weaken democracy while most citizens remain unaware.

Largely reacting to President Trump, a wave of news stories and essays have raised the alarm about threats to American democracy and declines in democratic support among young Americans. This is echoed by concerns about the spread of illiberal populism in Turkey, Hungary, Poland, France, the Netherlands and elsewhere.

Yet how real is this threat in the United States? No democracy nearly as wealthy or durable as the United States has ever broken down. Are these warnings a partisan reaction to the 2016 election or an appropriate note of caution before the country follows the path of Hungary and Venezuela?

Our new survey of democracy experts sheds light on these questions, and the results are concerning. These experts see significant warning signs for American democracy, especially involving political rhetoric and the capacity of political institutions to check the executive. On average they estimate an 11 percent chance of democratic breakdown within four years.

A survey of democracy experts

We polled democracy experts to evaluate the current level of threat to American democracy. We invited prominent scholars who study democratic breakdown as well as experts on countries that have faced democratic decline. A total of 68 responded from 233 invitations, for a response rate of 29 percent. Most of these scholars (64) responded between May 15 and 21, but four answered a pilot survey earlier in May, before the firing of FBI Director James B. Comey.

The survey, which we plan to repeat monthly, is part of a larger project called Authoritarian Warning Survey, in collaboration with David Szakonyi at George Washington University, Lee Morgenbesser at Griffith University and others. Our website also features democracy scholars reacting to current events. This survey complements similar projects at BrightLineWatch and the Upshot, but is unique in focusing on democracy experts and asking them to compare the United States to recent cases of democratic erosion.

The results

We asked about six categories that often present warning signs of democratic decline:

We asked about American political leaders behavior on these dimensions, but did not refer to specific leaders such as the president.

Respondents graded each category from 1 to 5, with higher values indicating greater threat: 1 = Behavior of a normal consolidated democracy, 2 = Moderate violations atypical of consolidated democracy, 3 = Significant erosion of democratic quality with potential for future breakdown, 4 = Critical violations that threaten near-term survival, and 5 = Non-democracy. You can think of these as Defcon ratings. The graph below shows the average response on this scale for each of the warning signs.

However, political rhetoric and constraints on executive power are the only dimensions for which more than a third of respondents believed that there had been significant democratic erosion or worse (a 3 or above). Indeed, respondents dont appear to be amplifying the alarm for effect: only 1 response out of 406 cited the highest threat category of 5 (for political rhetoric).

Experts see the greatest threat manifested in anti-democratic rhetoric, especially by the president. One respondent noted Trumps rhetoric around violence, us vs. them, and intimidation of judges and witnesses associated with investigations against him. Others pointed to verbal assaults, attacks that seek to delegitimize crucial democratic actors, and the lack of expressed respect for democratic values. Anti-democratic rhetoric is more than empty words, too: It can erode the norms holding democratic compacts together and often predicts later anti-democratic behavior.

Executive constraints were the second most-threatened from this list. A common pattern in recent cases of democratic decline such as in Venezuela, Turkey and Hungary is the steady concentration of power in executive hands, eventually eliminating independent oversight. One respondent, coding this a 3, cited presidential attacks on all other sources of independent authority in the U.S. government, including investigative (e.g., FBI) and judicial.

When asked to identify the most threatening recent event, many experts cited a lack of effective oversight by Congress. But the most common response was Comeys firing, which was mentioned by nearly half of these experts. Although only a very small number of respondents took the survey before the Comey firing, they perceived less threat on average than did the respondents interviewed after the firing (1.83 vs. 2.11, combining the six categories into a single average).

These experts also expressed concerns about the White Houses aggressive treatment of the media, although several conceded this was mostly rhetorical. Fewer pointed to elections, although some criticized Trumps claims of rampant voter fraud and potential moves to restrict voting rights in response. These experts generally did not see significant threats to civil liberties or uses of civil violence.

We directly asked respondents the likelihood of democratic breakdown (by their definition) within the next four years. Note that breakdown does not imply full dictatorship, only a sufficient erosion of democratic quality.

The responses averaged 11 percent, with a median of 7 percent. Responses ranged widely, from a low of zero percent to a high of 60 percent, although only eight answered higher than 20 percent. Unsurprisingly, the more these experts believed specific aspects of democracy were threatened, the more likely they believed a democratic breakdown was.

Conclusion

According to democracy experts, U.S. politics has shifted outside of typical behavior for healthy stable democracies but has not yet eroded to the point where democratic survival is immediately threatened. Nevertheless, they believe that there is a non-trivial chance of future breakdown and point to worrisome threats regarding anti-democratic rhetoric and institutional checks of the executive. American democracy has proven remarkably durable, but warning signs are flashing.

Michael K. Miller is an assistant professor of political science at George Washington University.

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A new expert survey finds warning signs for the state of American democracy - Washington Post

The Jerusalem Post

Shaked tells Eilat confab that unelected bureaucrats endanger our democracy The Jerusalem Post While Mandelblit took a somewhat understated tone in responding and tried to argue that he directs his staff members to do all they can to move in the direction elected officials want, he did say that at some point his job was to be a gatekeeper for ...

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Shaked tells Eilat confab that unelected bureaucrats endanger our democracy - The Jerusalem Post