Written evidence from Dr Jonathan Fisher (UKA0004)
Dr Jonathan Fisher, Reader in African Politics, International Development Department, University of Birmingham
Summary:
- The UK Government (HMG) continues to lack any kind of comprehensive, strategic approach to promoting and supporting democratic values, transitions and processes in its engagement with Africa, either within individual Departments of State or across Government. Instead, work in this regard is piecemeal, reactive, stop-start and uncertain;
- Those actions that are taken in this area are rarely aligned with other HMG agendas and portfolios in a particular country or region. Indeed, the effects of the latter generally undermine or, effectively, neutralise those of the former;
- If HMG is serious about supporting and promoting democratic transitions from authoritarian rule in Africa (and it is not at all apparent that it is) then a whole-of-Government approach should be adopted in bilateral relationships to ensure that this agenda is not undermined or counteracted by others.
- Diplomats and civil servants should also be given clearer guidance on where supporting and promoting democratic transitions fits into their wider role. Ultimately, though, firmer and more consistent leadership from ministers in this area is required.
This submission speaks to the following set of questions posed in the inquiry’s Terms of Reference:
In countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, has the UK done enough to support and promote democratic transitions of government? What more could it do to assist? How can we build longer term partnerships?
In countries such as Sudan and Zimbabwe, has the UK done enough to support and promote democratic transitions of government?
1. With a few important exceptions, the UK’s closest partners in sub-Saharan Africa are located largely in East and Southern Africa. East Africa is dominated by authoritarian and semi-authoritarian states while Southern Africa includes a number of states which are either authoritarian (Zimbabwe) or which have become increasingly so in recent years (Malawi; Mozambique; Tanzania; Zambia). Of the 17 sub-Saharan African countries DFID works in directly, 7 were categorised as “Not Free” in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2019 report, 9 as “Partly Free” and only one – Ghana – as “Free”.
2. Despite this, the UK Government (HMG) continues to lack any kind of comprehensive, strategic approach to promoting and supporting democratic values, transitions and processes in its engagement with Africa, either within individual Departments of State or across Government. Instead, work in this regard is piecemeal, reactive, stop-start and uncertain. Engagement around democracy and democratization represents, at best, a third tier priority for most UK diplomats and officials and is invariably crowded-out of considerations when action might compete with countervailing interests around, in particular, security and trade.
3. UK diplomats and civil servants are conscious of an, at best, fleeting interest in the agenda at ministerial level and therefore engage with it ad hoc, mainly during moments of crisis or violence (especially around elections). Theresa May’s “new partnership” speech in Cape Town on 28 August 2018 further underscores this. The then Prime Minister framed a future UK-African relationship around “shared prosperity and shared security”, referring to democratic norms and systems only obliquely and with little strategic commitment beyond a pledge to “do more…to reinforce democracies facing state-based threats”.
4. Consequently, UK approaches to supporting and promoting transitions to democracy in Africa vary in quality, depth and effectiveness. In general, though, actions taken and policies pursued are rarely aligned with other HMG agendas and portfolios in a particular country or region. Indeed, the effects of the latter generally undermine or, effectively, neutralise those of the former.
5. HMG provides extensive security assistance and training, for example, to the governments of Ethiopia, Rwanda and Uganda (all “Not Free” according to Freedom House). The militaries, intelligence and police forces of these states have long played a critical role in the construction and maintenance of closed, authoritarian political systems in each and, indeed, the three governments have actively courted HMG, together with other development partners, in a successful effort to incorporate this support into their own long-term, illiberal state-building agendas (Beswick, 2014; Fisher and Anderson, 2015).
6. DFID’s support for what it perceives to be pro-developmental policies in Rwanda and Ethiopia have also led it, and the wider HMG, to mute criticism of authoritarian consolidation and violent crackdowns on opposition and protestors in both states (respectively). HMG support for the so-called “Developmental State” model promoted by Kigali and Addis Ababa (the latter, at least, until 2018) has led to the de facto acceptance by most HMG officials of an acceptable trade-off between democracy promotion and macro-economic growth in these countries.
7. There is little evidence to suggest that HMG officials regularly assess the potential for democratic opening and transformation in many of the semi-/authoritarian African states which the UK works in. Indeed, there is a tendency to view relationships with particular states according to fairly static, top-line agendas – in particular, counter-terrorism, developmental priorities and economic growth.
8. These agendas often work with, rather than against, the grain of authoritarianism, as the more savvy authoritarian rulers on the continent know well. Consequently, HMG officials are sometimes taken unawares by political shifts which destabilise or transform authoritarian systems. Examples include Zimbabwe 2017, Ethiopia 2018 and Sudan 2019. The echo chamber character of many UK officials’ approach to certain authoritarian African states (Uganda = reliable security ally; Ethiopia/Rwanda = developmental states etc) are reinforced at senior levels and limit critical space for reflecting on how to identify potential democratic openings and how to support them (Brown and Fisher, forthcoming).
What more could it do to assist? How can we build longer term partnerships?
9. Two central questions for HMG emerge from this analysis:
i) whether HMG in fact views supporting and promoting democratic transitions in semi-/authoritarian African states as a strategic or normative priority?
ii) if so, where this set of priorities fits within the wider envelope of UK strategic interests, objectives and priorities?
10. If HMG is serious about supporting and promoting democratic transitions in these contexts then a whole-of-Government approach should be adopted in bilateral relationships to ensure that this agenda is not undermined or counteracted by others. Diplomats and civil servants should also be given clearer guidance on where supporting and promoting democratic transitions fits into their wider role. Ultimately, though, firmer and more consistent leadership from ministers in this area is required.
11. This is not to say that ministers (particularly from the FCO) do not condemn democratic backsliding or work behind the scenes at bilateral and multilateral levels in a range of contexts. There is little consistency to these actions, however, with authoritarian practices in one partner country being openly criticised and those in another attracting no public comment. Military crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters in Sudan in June 2019, for example, were condemned by the UK Minister of State for Africa as “absolutely sickening” and prompted the FCO to summon the Sudanese ambassador. During extensive and bloody crackdowns by Ethiopian security forces between 2016-2018, however, neither of her predecessors appear to have made any public comment or taken any substantive action.
12. Together with the sustained and substantive support provided by HMG to the security forces of a range of authoritarian African states, this undermines the influence and impact of the UK in the arena of supporting democratic transitions. It also damages actual and potential partnerships with civil society organisations and activists across the continent, some of whom increasingly view HMG as a bad faith actor in this area.
References:
Beswick, D. (2014). “The Risks of African Military Capacity-Building: Lessons from Rwanda”, African Affairs 113 (451): 212-231.
Brown, S. and Fisher, J. (Forthcoming). “Aid Donors, Democracy and the Developmental State in Ethiopia”, Democratization.
Fisher, J. and Anderson, D. M. (2015). “Authoritarianism and the Securitization of Development in Africa”, International Affairs 91 (1): 131-151