Political Institutions in New Democracies: (Not so) Hidden ...

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Acta Politica, 2004, 39, (279–296) r 2004 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 0001-6810/04 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/ap

Political Institutions in New Democracies: (Not so) Hidden Majoritarianism in Post-apartheid South Africa Oda van Cranenburgh and Petr Kopecky´ Department of Political Science, University of Leiden, Wassenaarseweg 52, 2333AK Leiden, The Netherlands. E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]

This article examines the applicability of an analytic framework widely used in comparative studies of new and old democracies. In particular, it investigates if and how political institutions in newly established democracies in Africa may be classified along the lines put forward by Arend Lijphart (1999), who distinguishes between majoritarian and consensus democracy. We show that a distinction is evident in the formal institutional sense and that African new democracies differ (somewhat) if classified institutionally as either majoritarian or consensual. However, looking more closely to South Africa as an example of a consensus type of democracy, we also argue that the distribution of power, embedded in both the wider informal practices and the nature of the party system, significantly affects the way this formally consensual democracy works in practice. On this basis, we argue that (a) the consensual appearance of democracy on the basis of formal institutional criteria may be misleading; and (b) that because the party system affects the meaning of the other institutional criteria, the criteria used to distinguish between a majoritarian and consensus democracy should be assigned a relative weight. Acta Politica (2004) 39, 279–296. doi:10.1057/palgrave.ap.5500063 Keywords: majoritarian and consensus democracy; South Africa; informal practices; dominant party

Introduction When the ‘Third Wave’ of democratization reached the countries of SubSahara Africa, the most visible result was the introduction of multi-party competition in elections. Consequently, many studies examined the new multiparty competition and the ‘first generation’ elections. The common denominator of many studies has been a focus on the origins and effects of multi-party competition in these newly emerging political regimes. This rather narrow focus on elections later made place for a broader concern with the quality of the newly established democratic regimes and the question of the consolidation of democracy.

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The study of regimes and political institutions has been an enduring concern in political science. However, in studies of democratization, the emphasis on institutional choices and on the composition and behavior of political elites has been a relative novelty. During the 1950s and 1960s, students of politics in developing countries were pre-occupied with social and economic preconditions of democracy, largely inspired by modernization theory. Huntington (1991) exemplified the return of the analysis of actors and choices in what he labeled the ‘Third Wave’ of democratization. While studies on Latin America addressed modes of regime transition and the issue of parliamentary vs presidential forms of government, in studying the wave of reform engulfing the African continent scholars tended to focus mainly on multi-party competition, leaving the questions of the broader institutional framework largely untouched. A notable exception, to which we will return later on, is Reynolds (1999). This article also focuses on political institutions and examines the applicability of an analytic framework used in the comparative study of new and old democracies.1 We investigate if and how political institutions in newly established African competitive systems may be classified along the lines put forward by Arend Lijphart (1999b) in his most recent book, in which he distinguishes between majoritarian and consensus democracy. We do not attempt here to assess the performance of consensus vs majoritarian democracies, as Lijphart does. We will demonstrate that the distinction in the formal institutional sense is visible in Africa, and that 12 new electoral democracies in Africa differ (somewhat) if classified as either majoritarian or consensual. However, we also argue that the distribution of power, embedded in wider informal practices and the nature of the party system, significantly affects the way formally consensual democracy works in practice. This factor, moreover, influences many of the other formal institutional variables that are used in the distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy. Our analysis then also serves to bring in the perspective of actors and behavior in assessing the meaning of formal institutions. In order to demonstrate our arguments, we use the example of a formally consensual type of democracy in Africa — post-apartheid South Africa.

Majoritarian and Consensus Democracy Lijphart’s comparative studies for the most part analyzed institutions in established, ‘long term’ democracies. In his earlier book (i.e. 1977), he developed consociational theory, formulated to explain the maintenance of stable democratic systems in deeply divided smaller European countries — the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Switzerland. For Lijphart, they represented Acta Politica 2004 39

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a deviant case from the commonly held wisdom, which associated homogeneous political culture and its autonomous political parties and interests groups with political stability, while Continental European countries, with a fragmented culture and mutual dependence of parties and interests groups, were linked with political instability. Based on the empirical observations from these four countries, which were characterized on the one hand by sub-cultural segmentation, and, on the other hand, by a political, social and economic stability, Lijphart suggested that stable democracy is possible in such deeply divided societies if their type of democracy is based on power-sharing, defined in terms of four characteristics: (1) government by a grand coalition of political leaders of all significant political segments; (2) (mutual) minority veto; (3) proportionality as the principal standard of political representation, civil service appointment, and allocation of public funds; and (4) a high degree of autonomy for each segment to run its own internal affairs. In his more recent work (i.e. 1999b), Lijphart dropped the issue of segmented (group) societies, to simply assume plural interests in any society. He intended to show that what he now called ‘consensus democracy’ performs better than ‘majoritarian democracy’. Lijphart’s starting point is a normative assumption that, given the presence of multiple and divergent interests in society, government ‘by and for the people’ must mean not simply government by the majority of the people, but by as many people as possible. Thus, instead of single party governments with bare majorities, government should involve broad political participation and maximize the size of governing majorities. While majoritarian democracy concentrates power, ‘ythe consensus model seeks to share, disperse and limit power in a variety of ways.’ (Lijphart, 1999b: 2). According to Lijphart (1999b), democracies can be placed on the continuum between a pure consensual democracy and a pure majoritarian democracy, with differences revolving around two dimensions — the executive–parties dimension and the unitary–federal dimension — with each dimension based on five institutional criteria. Under the executive-parties dimension, Lijphart differentiated five criteria: (1) the concentration of executive power in singleparty majority cabinets vs executive power-sharing in broad multi-party coalitions; (2) executive–legislative relationships in which the executive is dominant vs executive–legislative balance of power; (3) two-party vs multiparty systems; (4) majoritarian and disproportional election systems vs proportional representation; and (5) pluralist interest group systems with free for all competition among groups vs coordinated and ‘corporatist’, interest group systems aimed at compromise and concertation. (Lijphart, 1999b: 3). Under the federal–unitary dimension, Lijphart distinguished: (1) unitary and centralized government vs federal and decentralized government; (2) concentration of legislative power in a unicameral legislature vs division of legislative Acta Politica 2004 39

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power between two equally strong but differently constituted houses; (3) flexible constitutions that can be amended by simple majorities vs rigid constitutions that can be changed only by extra-ordinary majorities; (4) systems in which the legislatures have the final word on the constitutionality of their own legislation vs systems in which laws are subject to judicial review of their constitutionality by supreme or constitutional courts; (5) central banks that are dependent on the executive vs independent executive central banks (Lijphart, 1999b: 3–4). Compared to his earlier work on consociational democracy, Lijphart’s 1999b study in one sense broadened the scope of his analysis, due to the assumed applicability of the model of consensus democracy to any kind of society (segmented or not), and the development of 10 criteria, presumably universally applicable in the classification of even Third World countries. In another sense, however, this new approach narrows the scope of analysis, as his criteria are strictly formal or institutional, while his earlier notion of consociational democracy revolved around four broad principles, which could be evident in institutions, behavior or culture. Consociational theory has been criticized among others for the ambiguities inherent in such broad principles and questions of cause and effect, as well as the applicability of the favorable factors for consociational democracy (e.g. Daalder, 1966; Bogaards, 1998). The distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy has been questioned also in the context of longestablished (European) democracies, particularly with respect to the latter’s allegedly superior performance over majoritarian democracies (e.g. Andeweg, 2001). In addition, Schmidt noted that the difference between established/ secure democracies and partial/insecure democracies matters more for performance than the distinction between majoritarian and consensual democracy proposed by Lijphart (Schmidt, 2002: 158). One of our own concerns with Lijphart’s classification bears resemblance with Schmidt’s point: it is the extent to which the distinction between consensus and majoritarian systems overstates the importance of formal institutions, especially if applied to the countries in the Third World.

Majoritarian and Consensus Democracy in the Third World Lijphart, aware of the complications with applying his classifications beyond established western democracies, nevertheless applied his theories to several countries in the Third World. For example, he recommended the consociational model of democracy with its power-sharing to the then apartheid regime in South Africa (Lijphart, 1985). In another study, Lijphart argued that democracy in India has been possible because of the tradition of power sharing Acta Politica 2004 39

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within the dominant Indian Congress Party, in what was otherwise a fairly majoritarian set of institutions in a country with largely unfavorable socioeconomic preconditions for the existence of stable democratic system (Lijphart, 1996). In his 1999b study — our major concern here — he again included several of the Third World countries in his sample of 36 democracies; in the African context, for example, Botswana. Although he clearly specifies that these democracies must have been in existence for at least 20 years, so as to assure that such democracies are not merely ephemeral, unconsolidated entities, he also suggests, in more general terms, that his consensus democracy is the attractive option for newly democratized countries, both with or without deep cultural and ethnic cleavages. Our point here is to argue that in distinguishing consensual and majoritarian types of democracy using the formal criteria put forth by Lijphart, we may run the risk of overstating the importance of institutional criteria and neglecting the impact of informal politics upon these institutions. Indeed, many studies on Third World politics emphasized the weakness of political institutions (a classic study is Huntington, 1968), an argument re-appearing in studies of the 1980s and 1990s in the guise of the ‘soft’ or weak state and the phenomenon of personal rule (e.g. Jackson and Rosberg, 1982; Hyden, 1983; Migdal, 1988; Sandbrook and Barker, 1985). A widely used text on Third World politics devotes a chapter on the weak state (Cammack et al., 1993). Whether in Africa, Asia or Latin America, the argument goes, politics remains significantly affected by personal and clientelistic relations of power. Personalistic politics not only shapes the functioning of bureaucracies and parliaments, but also political parties suffer from lack of institutionalization and internal factionalism. Thus, instead of formal rules and constitutional frameworks, informal rules, as well as personal motives and idiosyncrasies, structure behavior to a significant extent. Moreover, the legacy of authoritarian rule left a strong imprint on culture and behavior, both at the elite and the mass level. An earlier study applied seven of Lijphart’s formal institutional variables to 12 African new democracies (excluding the older cases of Mauritius and Botswana, which were already treated by Lijphart)(Table 1). The countries selected had sustained sufficient levels of freedom according to data of the Freedom House to be classified as electoral or liberal democracies in the period between 1990 and 1998 (van Cranenburgh, 2003). Looking at the relationship between the executive and the legislature (in particular the presence or absence of executive dominance), the occurrence of coalitions in (presidential) cabinets, the presence of a unicameral or bicameral legislature, the presence of judicial review and a rigid constitution, the electoral system, and the party system, these 12 countries received scores for the presence of consensus institutions. The result showed that few countries could be placed at either pole of the continuum. Four countries received scores Acta Politica 2004 39

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284 Table 1 Presence of consensus or majoritarian institutions in 12 African new democracies (1990– 1998) Consensus

Majoritarian

Benin Madagascar Namibia South Africa

Cape Verde Central African Republic Ghana Guinea Bissau Malawi Mali Mozambique Sao Tome & Principe

Note: Compiled on the basis of van Cranenburgh (2003: 204) (Table 7.8), where countries received a + or score for seven institutional criteria. Counties with a score of 5 or higher are classified here as consensus.

sufficiently high to classify them as consensus oriented: Benin, Madagascar, Namibia and South Africa. Much in line with scholarship on African politics, the study, nevertheless, also argued that both informal politics and the party political context in Africa frequently produce a high degree of power concentration, clearly visible, for example, in the strength of African Presidents. Among the presidential countries examined (Benin, Central African Republic, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Malawi, Mali and Namibia), formal powers of the legislature must be reassessed in light of the fact that the President’s party in almost all cases controlled the majority in parliament (exceptions involved one presidential term in Malawi and a short period in Benin). Governmental majorities in parliament were, naturally, also the case in the parliamentary countries in this study. Moreover, in most African countries, the power of patronage, including at the top level the power of Presidents to nominate a near unlimited number of MPs to the Cabinet, implies that it pays to stay on board with the ruling party and follow the government’s line. When such majorities even count over twothirds of seats in the legislature, as in five of the seven countries in the study which had dominant parties in the period studied, even the constitution may be changed by the governing party, rendering constitutional provisions for ‘rigidity’ rather ineffective (see Table 2). In our view, these forms of power concentration produce majoritarian tendencies in all the cases, even in those countries that scored on a significant number of formal institutional criteria for consensus democracy. It is for this reason that we think the four cases that may be classified as consensus-oriented merit closer examination. We will use the case of South Africa to elaborate these points because a substantial literature on the postapartheid period is available that allows us to examine the way formal Acta Politica 2004 39

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285 Table 2 Dominant parties in 12 African new democracies (% of seats held by largest party in parliament)

Ghana Mali Namibia Cape Verde South Africa Sao Tome & Principe Mozambique Guinea Bissau Malawi Central African Republic Madagascar Benin

Seats (year)

%

Seats

%

Average%

188/200 76/116 50/72 56/79 252/384 33/55 129/250 62/100 85/177 38/96 45/134 21/63

94 65 69 71 65 60 51 62 48 39 33 33

133/200 (96) 137/147 (97) 55/72 (99) 50/72 (96) 266/400 (99) NA 133/250 (99) 38/102 (99) 95/193 (99) 47/109 (98) 63/150 (98) 27/83 (99)

66 93 76 69 66 NA 53 37 49 43 42 32

80 79 72.5 70 65.5 60 52 49.5 48 41 37.5 32.5

(92) (92) (94) (91) (94) (91) (94) (94) (94) (93) (93) (94)

Source: van Cranenburgh 2003: 201 (Table 7.5).

constitutional mechanisms function in practice. How do informal processes and the party political context, in particular the presence of a dominant party influence the apparent consensual features of the South African political system? We stress that we do not aim to prove or disprove that consensus democracies perform better or worse than majoritarian democracies (in the region) — something that was Lijphart’s chief concern in his 1999b study. Our concern is much more simply with the applicability and meaning of the institutional distinction between majoritarian and consensus democracy.

From Apartheid to Democracy in South Africa The South African transition from apartheid to democracy has been studied extensively and exemplified what Huntington called a ‘transplacement’ (Huntington, 1991). The limited reforms introduced by P.W. Botha during the 1980s (such as the introduction of a tricameral parliament for the representation of Whites, Coloreds and Indians) served to intensify opposition to the system which they attempted to preserve in an adapted form. Thereafter, the leadership of F.W. De Klerk, who took over from P.W. Botha in 1989 was a decisive factor. De Klerk saw the necessity of change, if not for moral, than for practical reasons. Facing domestic violence, international condemnation and economic sanctions, the government decided for a negotiation strategy. After having freed Nelson Mandela from prison, De Klerk announced on 2 February, 1990, that negotiations with the opposition African National Congress (ANC) would be started. After 2 years, multi-party negotiations began in the forum of Convention for a Democratic South Africa. The negotiations were by no means Acta Politica 2004 39

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easy, nor did violence and protest end. However, at the end of 1993, a power sharing arrangement was concluded. An interim constitution was formulated and elections were scheduled for 27 April 1994. The Interim Constitution provided for a Government of National Unity (GNU), in which all parties with more than 5% of the vote would be represented and parties with 20% of the vote would gain a deputy Presidency and six cabinet portfolios. It was envisaged that the GNU would rule for 5 years, and that the elections would be held on the basis of proportional representation. Taken altogether, the South African new democracy resembled at that stage of development not only a consensus model of democracy, but it was also very close to a clear case of a consociational democracy (see Maphai, 1996, Bogaards, 2004b). Preparations for the elections and campaigning were marked by violent clashes between the followers of Inkhata Fredom Party (IFP) and ANC in the province of Natal. Despite such threats, voter turn out for the parliamentary elections was 86.9%. International observers declared the elections to be free and fair. The ANC won 252 of the 400 seats in parliament (representing 65% of the seats); the National Party (NP) won 82 seats, IFP 43 seats, the Freedom Front nine, the Democratic Party (DP) seven, Pan African Congress five, the African Christian Democrat Party two. Based on this outcome, the NP and the IFP were represented in the cabinet and the NP was entitled to the deputy presidency. However, the consociational power sharing formula did not work for long. With the adoption of the permanent constitution in May 1996, the requirement of power-sharing was dropped. This was one of the sources of discontent of the NP, which decided to leave the government later that year (for an overview of recent political developments, see Lodge, 2003).

South Africa’s Consensus Democracy The decline in consociationalism of South Africa’s interim democratic arrangements nevertheless did not mean a shift to a majoritarian democracy. Indeed, using Lijphart’s institutional criteria to distinguish between a consensus and a majoritarian democracy, we will illustrate in the following analysis that South Africa’s political system under the Permanent Constitution may be classified, in formal sense at least, as consensus-oriented. In doing so, we will also discuss the indicators Lijphart (1999b), and Reynolds (1999) in his footsteps, employed to operationalize the institutional criteria that distinguish between majoritarian and consensus democracy. Our findings are summarized in Table 3. The executive/parties dimension On the executive/parties dimension, we start, like Lijphart, with multi-party coalitions in the executive. After a short period of a broad and inclusive power Acta Politica 2004 39

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287 Table 3 Consensus and majoritarian institutions in South Africa Criterion

Cabinets Ex-Leg Relations Party System Electoral System Interest Groups Modal Value Dim 1 Decentralization Bicameralism Constitution Judicial Review Central Bank Modal Value Dim 2

Strongly majoritarian

Moderately majoritarian

Moderately consensus

Strongly consensus

X X X X X X X X X X X X

sharing in the GNU, since 1996 the ANC-dominated cabinet only included the IFP. In 2002, two members of the New National Party (NNP; continuation of the NP) were added to the cabinet as Deputy Ministers, but as argued persuasively by Bogaards (2004b) this does not amount to anything close to the previous grand coalition. Since 1996 cabinets, although still multi-party, clearly are less inclusive than the arrangement under the Interim Constitution. We therefore assign a value of moderately consensual for this criterion. In order to assess the relationship between the executive and the legislature, it is important to identify the nature of South Africa’s ‘Presidentialism’. Although South Africa’s chief executive is called a President, he is like a Premier in a parliamentary system: he can be dismissed by a motion of noconfidence of the legislature. Parliamentary systems are by definition characterized by a fusion of the executive and legislative powers, a fusion ‘normally’ — that is, in the ideal type of the British two party system — strengthening the power of the executive. Based on this fundamental feature, South Africa would have to be considered majoritarian. We agree that parliamentary systems display this bias toward fusion of powers, but point out that the relative position of parliament vis-a`-vis the government varies from case to case, and that parliamentary parties may have some standing vis-a`-vis the government. Thus, depending on the precise powers of parliament vis-a`-vis the executive, a small degree of power balance may be present. We consider the indicator of cabinet durability used by Lijphart in his study of 1999 too onesided. It is exclusively centered on the actual use of parliamentary power to dismiss the government, ignoring the effects of the mere threat of dismissal on government decision-making. Acta Politica 2004 39

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Moreover, other instruments of parliament may significantly affect the degree to which executives may dominate the legislature. The power instruments of parliament we consider significant are the manner in which government Ministers may be dismissed. For example, the executive will be more dominant when a qualified majority is needed to dismiss the government, when parliament cannot dismiss an individual Minister but only the entire government, or when a constructive vote of no-confidence is required. The South African parliament does not face any such obstacles to dismiss the government (a regular majority is sufficient; there is no requirement of a constructive vote of no-confidence; and parliament may also send individual ministers away). Considering these formal powers of the South African parliament, we consider the country only moderately majoritarian on this particular criterion, a score that despite our different indicators, was also assigned by Reynolds (1999). As for the party system, Lijphart used the indicator of ‘effective number of parties’ in his 1999 study to assess the majoritarian or consensual nature of democracy. Starting with 252 out of 400 seats in Parliament in 1994, the ANC consolidated its dominant position in 1999 by capturing 266 out of 400 seats in parliament. According to Bogaards (2000: 165) the effective number of parties in South Africa counted 2.15 after the election of 1999, rendering the party system seemingly close to the majoritarian two party system. The ANC exceeds the threshold of dominance according to most definitions of party dominance: with more than 60% of the vote in two consecutive elections, the ANC is dominant according to the definition of van de Walle and Butler (1999), Ware, and Sartori (for an overview of these definitions see Bogaards, 2004a). On this criterion, we consider South Africa highly majoritarian; it exceeds even the ideal model of majoritarianism of Great Britain. On this point, we disagree with Reynolds (1999: 71, 81) who, borrowing Blondel’s classification of party systems (Blondel 1968), classified South Africa as a multi-party system, defined as more than three parties represented in parliament with a dominant party. The outcome of this approach leads in our view to the erroneous classification of South Africa as moderately consensual on this criterion. So far, the consensus features of South Africa do not appear to be particularly strong. With regard to the electoral system, however, South Africa should clearly be considered a consensual model: the electoral system is pure proportional representation with closed party lists. The Rose index of proportionality counts 98.8% (Rose, 2000). We therefore assign a value of highly consensual for this criterion. Finally, on the executive–legislative dimension, Giliomee (1998) illustrated corporatist features of interest representation in post-apartheid South Africa within the forum of the National Economic Development and Labor Advisory Council (NEDLAC). After the first phase of transition was completed, Acta Politica 2004 39

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however, observers point to the increasing erosion of consensual features in South Africa policy-making and the corresponding decline in trade union power and influence (e.g. Friedman and Shaw, 2000). The questions of power and influence aside, the unions nevertheless remain, at least formally, within the tripartite institutional framework with the government and business interests. We therefore assign interest representation a moderately consensual value. All values for the executive–legislative dimension, with the modal value of moderately consensual, are presented in Table 3. The federal/unitary dimension On the federal/unitary dimension, we include all five of Lijphart’s criteria. First, though the country has a unitary system, the constitution provides for a substantial degree of decentralization to the Provinces, which have their own parliaments and executives. Reynolds pointed to the strong position of South Africa’s regional governments, who share concurrent power with the central government on important issues (Reynolds, 1999: 78). We concur with him in assigning a value of moderately consensual on this criterion. Second, South Africa has a bicameral legislature: besides the Assembly, the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) possesses substantial powers when it concerns legislation affecting the provinces. If, in the case of disagreement between the two Houses, a mediation committee cannot resolve the issue, a two-thirds majority in the Assembly is required to overrule the NCOP veto. South Africa’s bicameralism is nevertheless not symmetrical: a study of the NCOP considered it ‘moderately asymmetrical’ (Calland and Nijzink, 2001). We therefore assign a value of moderately consensual on this criterion, similarly to Reynolds. Third, South Africa’s written constitution is a rigid constitution. Constitutional changes require a two-thirds majority in both Houses to be passed. South Africa scores highly consensus in this regard. Fourth and similarly, there is a constitutional court with full powers of judicial review, also pointing to consensus. Fifth and finally, we employ the widely used measure of central bank independence developed by Fry et al. (2000), which is based on survey data. Accordingly, South Africa’s weighted score of central bank independence is a high 0.75. This measure is derived from five different variables related to the central banks’ policy-making, appointments of governors and policy goals, not entirely dissimilar to Cukierman–Webb–Neypati index used by Lijphart in his 1999b study. However, the index we rely on is based on more recent data. Consequently, we assign a value of moderately consensual on this criterion. Taken altogether, South Africa scores on all of Lijphart’s criteria on the federal/unitary dimension as consensual (see Table 3), though on three criteria only as moderately consensual. Overall, taking into account both Acta Politica 2004 39

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dimensions of the majoritarian–consensus model, we can classify posttransition South Africa as a moderate consensus democracy. Indeed, moderate consensus is a modal value on both of Lijphart’s dimensions that constitute majoritarian–consensus contrast. This overall result conforms to Reynolds (1999: 80–81) who, although frequently using slightly different indicators than either we do or Lijphart does, also classifies South Africa under the Permanent Constitution as moderately consensual type of democracy.

(Not so) Hidden Majoritarianism in Post-Apartheid South Africa As we have seen above, an application of Lijphart’s institutional criteria would lead to the classification of South Africa as a moderate consensus democracy. However, we will now argue that this finding must be interpreted in light of the dominance of the ANC (party system criterion), because this dominance negatively affects the meaning of at least five of the formally consensual features of South African democracy. Five inter-related points, all deriving from the dominance of ANC in the political system will merit our attention: (1) the dominance of one party is not mitigated but affirmed by PR as an electoral system; moreover, its feature of closed party lists serves to concentrate power in the hands of the central party leadership; (2) the dominance of the ANC amplifies its formally moderate dominance over the legislature, including the NCOP; (3) the dominance of ANC renders a coalition with IFP more a symbolic than a power-sharing factor; (4) ANC dominance allows it to unilaterally change the constitution, rendering constitutional ‘rigidity’ ineffective; (5) Moderate administrative decentralization may be rendered meaningless by a simultaneous trend of centralization within the ANC as a party, with the power of patronage amplifying the leadership’s central control. These points illuminate our major argument that Lijphart’s formal institutional criteria cannot be considered of equal weight and significance, because one criterion (party dominance) influences the significance and practical implications of at least five of the other institutional criteria. Moreover, party dominance renders the issue of the behavior of the political elite all the more salient. How do party dominance and the behavior of the party leadership impact on the practical functioning of South Africa’s new democracy? Given the near-perfect fit between the votes and seats induced by the South African PR electoral system, the ANC captured 62.6% of votes and 63% of seats in the 1994 elections, and 66.3% of votes and 66.5% of seats (one seat short of the two-thirds majority to change the constitution) in the 1999 elections. With reference to Sartori’s (1976: 199) classification of party systems, Acta Politica 2004 39

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South Africa is well on its way to become a dominant party system, which requires an absolute majority in three consecutive elections (observers have no doubt about that the ANC will maintain its dominant position in the elections scheduled for 2004).2 The structure of party competition works in a way that is unlikely to challenge the dominant position of ANC which, with the exception of the KwaZulu-Natal area controlled by the IFP (8.5% of votes in 1999 elections), by now succeeded to virtually monopolize the black vote in the country. Both the DP and the NNP, which gained 9.5 and 7% of votes in the 1999 elections respectively, are the opposition parties which merely compete for the right to represent (white) minority interests (see Friedman 1999). Most importantly, none of these parties now possess coalition or blackmail potential to challenge the ANC’s position. The participation of IFP in the current government is at best symbolic and at worse a purely strategic move. The calculus of ANC leadership aimed at increasing the foothold of the party in the stronghold of IPF by offering a high governmental position to the Inkatha leader Buthelezi in exchange for the ANC premiership in KwaZulu-Natal province. In the context of dominant party systems, the question of how opposition is treated within the system becomes rather important in terms of the positioning of democracy on majoritarian–consensus divide. There are several indications that the ANC’s electoral, parliamentary and governmental dominance has been increasingly accompanied by rather majoritarian practices in the day-today political conduct. As Friedman (1999) among others notes, the voting discipline in the parliament (both houses) has largely relegated opposition to a protest role, with formal rules playing almost no role in constraining the power of the majority party. For example, ministers frequently fail to appear in parliament and some hundreds of questions remain unanswered (Southall, 1998: 454–455). Indeed, in 1996, out of frustration with its diminishing position, the NP withdrew from the GNU, arguing it would better serve democracy in the opposition. Another aspect denting the consensual appearance of South African democracy has been the instances in which ANC thwarted several (multiparty) parliamentary inquiries into corruption of state officials. For example, in 1996 ANC leaders ordered that MPs sitting on the Health Committee refrain from any questioning of the health minister’s unauthorized expenditures; similarly, in 1999, ANC members effectively blocked high profile investigation of the government’s decision over an expensive arms deal, in which the more expensive of the available options were selected while the established procurement practices were neglected (see Mattes, 2002 for more details). In both cases, parliamentary opposition had to succumb to the will and power of the ANC majority; correspondingly, the spirit of consensual power-sharing and governmental accountability diminished. Acta Politica 2004 39

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ANC dominance also affects the actual functioning of the bicameral system and decentralization. According to Southall (1998: 449), the new permanent constitution, which replaced the notion of federalism by the concept of ‘cooperative government’ has produced a ‘definite shift of power to the centre’. The ANC, through its control of six out of nine provinces, controls the NCOP. While the NCOP is theoretically designed to strongly represent the interests of the Provinces, it is hampered not only by lack of capacity, but also by the fact that the most intense intergovernmental conflicts are resolved at other places. The informal intergovernmental institution of the ‘MinMEC’ — sectoral meetings of the National Minister with the members of the Provincial Executive Councils — is the place where intergovernmental conflicts are resolved. Members of the NCOP do not often attempt to re-open the debates conducted in that forum (Levy and Tapscott, 2001: 15). Obviously, this informal executive forum is controlled by the ANC. Calland and Nijzink (2001: 123) conclude that in light of the hegemony of the ‘ANC as a backstop where the most intense intergovernmental conflicts are resolved’, the ambitious design of the NCOP will remain ‘little more than a symbol of yet unfulfilled promise’. The ANC’s majoritarian practices thus apparent in executive–legislative relations have been possible only because of the highly disciplined internal party organization. Indeed, the issue of internal party democracy is also rather important in the situation of a dominant party system. Many incidents reported indicate that the picture is not too different from that of the treatment of the opposition. Ironically, part of the story is related directly to the formal constitutional set up of South Africa. Firstly, the PR electoral system operates with closed party lists. As it turned out in practice, this has given the ANC (and other parties) leadership extraordinary powers to manipulate the parliamentary representation and thus limit internal party pluralism. Secondly, even if dissent was to occur, it is made very difficult by the constitutional rule that provides for ejection from parliament of any MP who leaves or is expelled from the parliamentary party. Indeed, in 1997, a prominent ANC figure — Bantu Holomisa — was expelled from parliament precisely on the basis of this constitutional provision. Informal rules reinforce the effects on internal party democracy. For every 10 members of parliament, the ANC has a party whip (Kurian, 1998: 263). The former restriction on the number of Ministers and Deputy Ministers in cabinet has been dropped, allowing the President to create a large following of front-benchers in Parliament by increasing the size of the cabinet. Moreover, Southall (1998: 451) describes the mechanism of ‘deployment and redeployment’ used by the party leadership, which treats the highest levels of the state and party machinery and different levels of government as ‘but one employment matrix’. The result is the movement of personnel by the ANC from one sphere to another according to the dictates of the moment and the blurring of the distinction between politics and administration. Acta Politica 2004 39

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Thirdly, ANC’s internal party rules and practices have increasingly, particularly since Mbeki’s assumption of power, been changed in the way that resembles ‘democratic centralism’ of traditional communist parties, rather than a democratically run political party, for example by extending control of the central party committee over provincial and local levels. Of course, the ANC’s origin as a mass movement against apartheid uniting a vast array of societal interests has endowed the party organization with a significant degree of internal pluralism. In addition, both the South African Communist Party (SACP) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions COSATU), who are aligned with the ANC and sit in the parliament as its representatives, offer potential for intraparty pluralism. Indeed, especially COSATU has already organized several demonstrations defying the position of the central party leadership. However, it is also instructive that both the SACP and COSATU were unable to prevent the adoption of the neo-liberal ‘Growth, Employment and Reconstruction’ program despite publicly airing strong objections to it (e.g. Adler and Webster, 2000). On the whole, the ANC leadership succeeds in rallying support within the party using calls for affirmative action and, increasingly, for ‘black empowerment’. Therefore, Southall (1998: 466–468) predicts that any re-alignment of forces by a fracture within the ANC is unlikely.

Conclusion If one looks at the South African formal constitutional set up, it is difficult to escape the conclusion that it is one of the clearest and definitely most popular African examples of a consensual model of democracy as defined by Arend Lijphart. Formally, South Africa represents a parliamentary system of government, with a limited executive–legislative balance of power, and a strong version of PR electoral system. The rigid and written constitution also provides for a degree of state decentralization and bicameral parliament, all features pointing to a consensus model of democracy. In addition, in the early transition period, the rule that gave any party with a minimum of 5 per cent of the seats in parliament the right to participate in the government could be seen as not only a feature of consensus democracy, but also as a strong consociational device. Only two institutional features of South African democracy appear majoritarian: the party system and, and somewhat less strongly, the relation between the executive and the legislature. In the available literature on the functioning of South Africa’s political system, however, a far from consensual picture emerges. The ANC is able to dominate the legislature through its control of two-thirds of the seats, strong internal party discipline, its de facto power to expel dissenting MPs from parliament and the power to expand the size of the cabinet. Its control of the NCOP limits the autonomy of the provincial level of government, Acta Politica 2004 39

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which is moreover weakened by lack of capacity and financial dependence on the central government. Through the power of patronage, the party leadership is able to secure compliance in the high echelons of the state and party machinery. It is the party system that undermines the consensual functioning of many of the other institutions, which may at first sight appear consensual. This understood, the South African case carries two important implications for the manner in which we may distinguish majoritarian and consensual democracy. Firstly, informal rules, often developed as an extension of formal, constitutionally sanctioned rules, but sometimes existent despite formal rules, are important for our understanding of how political systems function in practice. The strongly institutional and formal approach in Lijphart’s 1999b study inherently underestimates these informal practices. This is of course not uncommon for classification schemes, which often employ relatively easily quantifiable indicators based on formal (constitutional) rules, in order to facilitate comparative analysis. But it also means that whether a democracy is majoritarian or consensual in Lijphart’s terms should merely constitute a starting point for further analysis of how such a political system actually works. Interestingly, Lijphart recognizes the importance of informal rules and agreements. For example, he has forcefully argued that informal rules are crucial because this is precisely where power-sharing can be enshrined in certain countries (see Lijphart, 2001). Our study indicates that the reverse must necessarily be true as well: informal rules can undermine consensual appearance of democracy in the same way as they can be an embodiment of it. This is precisely what South African political practices, in particular the treatment of opposition in the parliament and the elimination of dissent within the ruling ANC, seem to suggest. Secondly, we argue that the criteria Lijphart proposed for the classification of political systems as majoritarian or consensus should be assigned a relative weight. Our analysis of South Africa suggests that the working of many of the formal political institutions part of the classification scheme must be analyzed in the context of party politics. This is perhaps not at all surprising in the context of the South African party system where consensual functioning of democracy is entirely contingent upon the behavior of the ANC as a dominant party. However, the party political context, just one out of 10 criteria in Lijphart’s classification of democracies, is likely to bear heavily upon the actual dominance of the executive and the balance of power in any democracy. In that sense, it cannot be considered equal to, for example, the rigid constitution, the bicameral legislature or the presence or absence of judicial review. Given that dividing and/ or balancing power constitutes the underlying fundamental principle of Lijphart’s concept of consensus democracy, party dominance should receive a greater weight than the other institutional criteria. We hope that this Acta Politica 2004 39

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Notes 1 An earlier version of this article was presented at the NOB/NIG Congress in Rotterdam, 30–31 October 2002. In addition to the participants of this conference, we would like to thank Cas Mudde, Joop van Holsteyn and two anonymous referees of this journal for their helpful comments. 2 This expectation proved correct. By the time this article was finished, the ANC had received 69.68% of vote in the 2004 elections. This means the party controls 279 seats (out of 400) in the National Assembly (lower house), well over the majority required to change the Constitution.

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