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imo, the article sacrifices important context and nuance for the sake of providing a ‘simple’ story of Ivorian politics over the past 30 years. In doing so, it ends up providing a rather poor summary (at times factually incorrect) and does little to teach readers anything new ... https://twitter.com/GiuliaPiccolino/status/1334232896836612101
It doesn’t describe key mechanisms as to why “democratic consolidation” is difficult in CIV. By providing a simple summary the only message the audience gets is “democracy is hard” because 3 men are fighting; and there’s a pattern of democratic deconsolid. across West Africa...
To be fair, the author does briefly refer to (1) patronage systems, (2) corruption, (3) ethnic divisions and (4) religious tensions (which I think are overblown). But, too often these are broad go-to points/theories whenever discussing democracy in “African politics”...
It would be much more interesting for readers to know the incentive structure that hinders democracy as well as the mechanisms/levers these leaders use to continue to undermine it. There’s a few questions and avenues that are more worthy of exploration: ...
1.What’s the incentive-structure that makes it difficult to consolidate democracy?
Incentives: A winner-takes all electoral system (in light of patronage); (citizen-level) - strategic use of government resources for electoral purposes (e.g. setting of cocoa-prices @ election)...
Incentives: A winner-takes all electoral system (in light of patronage); (citizen-level) - strategic use of government resources for electoral purposes (e.g. setting of cocoa-prices @ election)...
2. What are the mechanisms by which each subsequent leader has been able to undermine Ivorian democracy?
a. Institutional factors: (a) An absolutely dominant executive branch; (b) little opportunities/use of government oversight by Parliament; ...
a. Institutional factors: (a) An absolutely dominant executive branch; (b) little opportunities/use of government oversight by Parliament; ...
(c) lack of judicial independence from executive; (d) Const. Court terms and appointments dependent on the Presidency; (e) Partisan fighting over composition of the Electoral Commission; lack of trust in the commission; (f) intra-party structures that hinder young politicians...
3.The politicization-of long-standing grievances: e.g. land-disputes over cocoa.
4. How and why does democratic backsliding take place, in spite of, strong support for democratic norms among the general Ivorian population?
e.g. - a weakened civil society; violations of key norms;
e.g. - a weakened civil society; violations of key norms;
These are all points worth exploring when trying to contextualize the 2020 elections in CIV. An in-depth piece on any of these topics is probably more useful than a broad narrative.
