Democracy in the Afrobarometer

Date of Award

6-2025

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Political Science

First Advisor

Emily Hauptmann Ph.D.

Second Advisor

Frederic Schaffer, Ph.D.

Third Advisor

Jim Butterfield, Ph.D.

Keywords

Afrobarometer, critical theory, public opinion

Abstract

The Afrobarometer is the preeminent source of data on public perceptions of democracy in Africa. This organization has conducted 9 rounds of survey research in over 30 countries since its creation in 1999. Hundreds of research papers, policy briefs, and books have been written using the data collected. Despite its importance, there has been a dearth of critical scholarship regarding the Afrobarometer itself. This dissertation begins to fill this gap, focusing specifically on how the organization conceptualizes democracy; it examines how the Afrobarometer’s origins, funders and ideological ties impact the way the organization has come to understand, operationalize, and measure democracy, and what political and economic changes it seeks to enact.

In concert with the work of Begum Adalet, John Law and Frederic Schaffer, I argue that public opinion surveys are not neutral; their construction, execution, and interpretation “enact” a version of reality influenced by their origins and ideology. This dissertation finds that the Afrobarometer works to enact a procedural conceptualization of democracy in Africa, as well as enact the belief that Africans themselves understand democracy this way. These realities regarding democracy are enacted in the way survey questions are worded, how results are analyzed and reported, and by the removal of data that supported an alternative conceptualization of democracy in 2013.

As argued by Diego Giannone and William Robinson, I maintain that definitions of democracy are not politically neutral; the promotion of the procedural conceptualization of democracy has been well-documented as advancing the expansion of U.S. hegemony internationally. Thus, this dissertation suggests that the Afrobarometer choice to utilize a procedural definition of democracy is a political one; it is influenced by the ideology of Afrobarometer researchers, the political origins of the organization and its long history of funding by the U.S. State Department, World Bank and other neoliberal institutions. These findings have important implications for the neutrality with which the Afrobarometer is regarded by social scientists and policymakers today. While the Afrobarometer presents itself as neutral and objective, this dissertation finds that the organization has explicitly political origins and works to advance a conceptualization of democracy that aligns with U.S. policy interests.

Access Setting

Dissertation-Abstract Only

Restricted to Campus until

6-1-2027

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