I N S T I T U T E
Neopatrimonialism and Democracy:
An Empirical Investigation of Africa's 
Political Regimes
Rachel Sigman 
Staan I. Lindberg
Working Paper 
SERIES 2017:56
THE VARIETIES OF DEMOCRACY INSTITUTE 
November 2017
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Neopatrimonialism and Democracy:
An Empirical Investigation of Africa’s Political Regimes∗
Rachel Sigman
Naval Postgraduate School and V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
Staffan I. Lindberg
V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg
November 6, 2017
∗This research project was supported by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Grant M13-0559:1, PI: Staffan I.
Lindberg, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; by Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to
Wallenberg Academy Fellow Staffan I. Lindberg, Grant 2013.0166, V-Dem Institute, University of Gothen-
burg, Sweden; as well as by internal grants from the Vice-Chancellor’s office, the Dean of the College of Social
Sciences, and the Department of Political Science at University of Gothenburg. We performed simulations
and other computational tasks using resources provided by the Notre Dame Center for Research Comput-
ing (CRC) through the High Performance Computing section and the Swedish National Infrastructure for
Computing (SNIC) at the National Supercomputer Centre in Sweden, SNIC 2016/1-382 and 2017/1-68. We
specifically acknowledge the assistance of In-Saeng Suh at CRC and Johan Raber at SNIC in facilitating
our use of their respective systems. The indices of neopatrimonialism used in this paper will be available for
public use in V-Dem’s v8 dataset, set to be released in April 2018 at www.v-dem.net.
Abstract
One of the most common adjectives used to describe democracy in sub-Saharan Africa is
“neopatrimonial.” Characterized by strong executives, pervasive clientelism and use of state
resources for political legitimation (Bratton and van de Walle 1997), neopatrimonial democ-
racy has been (controversially) associated with a range of (mostly undesirable) social, politi-
cal and economic outcomes. This paper offers an empirical assessment of neopatrimonialism
in Africa’s political regimes. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, African regimes
vary both quantitatively and qualitatively in their embodiment of neopatrimonial rule. More-
over, we find no clear evidence indicating that neopatrimonialism necessarily impedes the
advancement or survival of democracy.
1 Introduction
Amidst the ‘Third Wave’ of democratization, Collier and Levitsky famously warned of the
“growing scholarly confusion” resulting from the proliferation of concepts related to democ-
racy, or what they call “democracy with adjectives” (Collier and Levitsky, 1997). While the
literature on democracy in sub-Saharan Africa1 has certainly contributed its share of new
adjectives, one adjective in particular has dominated theoretical discussions surrounding
regime trajectories on the continent: neopatrimonial.
Neopatrimonial rule, in Africa or elsewhere, combines strong presidents, clientelistic link-
ages between citizens and politicians, and the use of state resources for political legitimation
(Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997). These features may be present across different regime
types, from highly competitive democracies to highly closed authoritarian regimes. They
may be embedded in formal political rules, such as the Ghanaian president’s constitutional
right to appoint every mayor in the country, or they may reflect less formal practices such
as political favoritism in the distribution of state resources.
While the notion of strong presidents engaging in patronage-based distribution of re-
sources and eschewing institutional constraints to their power seems highly inimical to the
idea of democratic rule, Africa, perhaps more than any other region, provides strong evi-
dence that neopatrimonialism does not necessarily hinder the adoption or survival of demo-
cratic institutions. In fact, there is now considerable evidence that democratization, even in
neopatrimonial contexts, can bring about expansions in civil rights and political freedoms
(Lindberg, 2006; Edgell et al., 2017), the institutionalization of constitutional rule (Posner
and Young, 2007), improvements in governance (Alence, 2004) and wider distributions of
public goods and services (Stasavage, 2005; Burgess et al., 2015). Moreover, some have ar-
gued that patrimonialism may actually promote both democracy (Pitcher et al., 2009) and
developmental governance (Crook, 1989; Booth and Golooba-Mutebi, 2012; Kelsall, 2013).
The main goal of this paper is to delineate to what extent, and in what specific ways,
African regimes live up to their neopatrimonial reputation. To do so, we develop a multi-
dimensional measure of neopatrimonialism that enables us to explore the varying ways that
neopatrimonialism manifests itself in political regimes across Africa, and the extent to which
‘neopatrimonial rule’ acts as an actual impediment to democracy.
Our investigation reveals several important problems with common assumptions about
neopatrimonialism in African political regimes. First, we find that, on average, regimes in
Africa are not considerably more neopatrimonial than those of other regions of the developing
world. Second, there is a large amount of variation in neopatrimonialism across African
1Hereafter, we use “Africa” to mean “sub-Saharan Africa”
1
political regimes both in terms of the level of neopatrimonialism across countries and the
specific configurations of the three main dimensions of neopatrimonial rule. Finally, we show
that neopatrimonialism does not act as a particularly strong or consistent impediment to
the advancement or survival of democracy. Together, these observations suggest the need to
further question widespread assumptions about the exceptional, undemocratic qualities of
neopatrimonial rule in Africa.
2 Democracy with One Adjective
Both states and politics in Africa are commonly described as neopatrimonial. At its broadest
level, this term reflects the idea that patrimonial forms of authority permeate modern insti-
tutional structures. In patrimonial contexts, the right to rule is vested in the person; and
the legitimacy of this person’s authority is derived from popular acceptance of the norms,
customs or beliefs commonly associated with traditional familial or household structures
(Weber, 1946). Unlike rational-legal authority, which is based on impersonal, formally pro-
scribed or natural laws, patrimonial authority vests the power to rule in a specific individual.
Patrimonialism is also distinct from Weber’s notion of charismatic authority, which is based
not on law, custom or tradition, but on the perception that a leader has some extraordinary
ability to rule. A patrimonial system is “held together by the oath of loyalty, or by kinship
ties (often symbolic and fictitious) rather than by a hierarchy of administrative grades and
functions” (Clapham, 1985, 48).
Neopatrimonialism differs from patrimonialism in at least two important ways. First, the
most basic distinction is the presence of institutions with the ‘trappings’ of modern, legal-
rational institutions (Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997), even if authority remains highly
personalized (Clapham, 1985; Eisenstadt, 1973; Zolberg, 1966). As Clapham explains, “of-
ficials hold positions in bureaucratic organizations with powers which are formally defined,
but exercise those powers, so far as they can, as a form not of public service but of private
property” (1985, 48).
Second, the traditional basis of patrimonial authority may be less pronounced in neoapat-
rimonial settings than in more purely patrimonial ones (Roth, 1968). Rather than practicing
loyalty, tribute or reciprocity, all of which tend to be rooted in shared customs or beliefs, prac-
tices in neopatrimonial settings may take on a more transactional character. As Erdmann
and Engel (2007) note, this transactional nature of power effectively divorces patrimonialism
from the economic or political contexts (i.e. feudalism) in which specific sets of customs and
traditional beliefs were theorized to drive such relationships. To this end, Scott’s (1972)
account of the decline of more traditional, longstanding patron-client relationships in the
2
face of modernization and democratization in Southeast Asia resonates with the way that
many contemporary scholars tend to view neopatrimonialism.
Although the concept of neopatrimonialism is used widely throughout scholarship on the
politics and development of Africa (and elsewhere), it has not gone uncriticized. As a number
of pieces have persuasively argued, the concept is deployed so broadly that it tends to cloud
the large variation in economic and political outcomes across the continent (Pitcher et al.,
2009; Bach, 2011; Mkandawire, 2015; Crook, 1989; Theobald, 1982). Contrary to the dom-
inant perspectives, these works show how neopatrimonialism can be a force for democracy,
social cohesion, redistribution, administrative effectiveness and development. Likewise, in-
creasing attention to ‘developmental’ forms of patrimonialism in places like Rwanda (Kelsall,
2013; Booth and Golooba-Mutebi, 2012) and Angola (Croese, 2017) are helping to challenge
the more conventionally negative views of the concept.
Neopatrimonial Democracy?
When, in the 1990s, the Third Wave of democratization reached sub-Saharan Africa, the
concept of neopatrimonialism was rather quickly adopted to explain why both transitions
and the resulting regimes appeared, in a number of ways, different from those of other regions
of the world (Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997). In many cases, the adoption of the neopatri-
monial adjective to describe African democracy was accompanied by pessimism about both
its depth and durability. Many concluded that changes in formal political institutions were
unlikely to fundamentally transform the deep-seated structures feeding the ‘politics of the
belly’(Bayart, 1993) and entrenched forms of ‘personal rule’ (Jackson and Rosberg, 1982)
in most, if not all, African countries. “The advent of elections,” as (Bratton and Van de
Walle, 1997, 9) wrote, “marked a scramble for political positions and an intensification of
tendencies to quickly make the most of the benefits of office-holding.” In short, in focusing
on the neopatrimonial character of newly installed democratic regimes, many predicted a
quick return to the chaotic and often predatory ‘big men’ politics that dominated the 1970s
and 1980s (Schatzberg, 2001), since this is what “works” in Africa (Chabal and Daloz, 1999).
This sense of pessimism about regime change in Africa was based on a set of ideas
suggesting that, in neopatrimonial contexts, personalistic authority is, by nature, at odds
with the workings formal democratic institutions. One path to this conclusion runs through
O’Donnell’s (1993) observations about democracy in Latin America suggesting that “sys-
tems of privatized power” operating in so-called “brown spots” render ineffective the “rights
and guarantees of democratic legality” (O’Donnell, 1993, 1359). Such conditions constitute
fertile ground for anti-system movements and can seriously reduce the prestige and author-
3
ity of democratic leaders (1993, 1365). Many concluded that such dynamics lead to weak
democratic regimes that are easily toppled by various types of challengers. Such was the
case, for example, in Joseph’s account of ‘prebendal’ democracy in Nigeria (Joseph, 1987).
Another perspective emphasizes the ways that patrimonial authority enables leaders,
especially presidents, to undermine the checks and balances typically associated with demo-
cratic rule. By monopolizing access to resources, incumbents co-opt or coerce the opposition,
thereby tilting the political playing field to their advantage (Van de Walle, 2003). To the
extent that leaders do so in a way that seriously undermines free and fair competition, we
are likely to see a reversion to, or persistence of, electoral authoritarian regimes.2 While a
number of studies have shown that leaders can be quite successful in pursuing such strate-
gies (Joseph, 2008; Van Cranenburgh, 2008), there is considerable variation in the extent
to which presidents in African countries have both tried to pursue this strategy; and been
successful in doing so. In some cases, legislative or judicial institutions have exerted serious
constraints on such efforts (Opalo, 2012; VonDoepp, 2005); while in other cases popular
uprising, fueled by the ‘movement legacy’ of African politics, has played an important role
(Cheeseman, 2015).
Although there is no shortage of anecodotes to substantiate these theorized links between
neopatrimonialism and some of the more tenuous patterns of democracy observed in Africa,
it is surprising that the widely predicted negative effects of neopatrimonial rule on the
durability of democracy are not observed more widely. What earlier observers of democracy
in Africa may have missed is that both the global and domestic contexts in which new
democratic regimes were operating had changed in important ways. The end of the Cold
War was particularly consequential. Western aid flowed more freely to African countries
and donors were now able to make credible threats of democratic conditionality (Dunning,
2004), even if they did not actually follow-through in practice. At the same time, greater
‘linkage’ to the West (Levitsky and Way, 2005) in the form of trade, communication and
transnational NGO networks reinforced democratic norms and ideals among both citizens
and elites. Thus, even if democratic legal authority was weaker than in Western contexts,
international support for such authority had become stronger.
At the domestic level, structural conditions became more favorable to democracy as well.
Economies began growing again in the 1990s and the proportion of populations living in
cities in sub-Saharan Africa grew from about 18% in the 1970s to over 30% in the late 1990s
(World Bank, 2017). With help from international donors, advances in average years of
schooling (Barro and Lee, 2013) and key health indicators also rose.3 While researchers are
2On trends in electoral authoritarianism in Africa, see Morse (2012) and (Lynch and Crawford, 2011,
281) for overviews.
3While we can not, of course, rule out the possibility that democratic institutions have helped to produce
4
still investigating the effects of these changed conditions on democratization and democratic
durability, the underlying point here is that although neopatrimonial forms of rule may
have persisted through regime changes, the environment in which African countries have
been ‘experimenting’ with democratic institutions is considerably more favorable than it
was in the 1970s and 1980s. Based on the experiences of patrimonial democracies outside
of Africa (i.e. Italy or the U.S. in the 19th century), it seems reasonable to assume that
democratic institutions, even if rooted in patrimonial authority, can indeed survive in such
favorable conditions. This assumption becomes even more credible if we take seriously the
perspectives of Pitcher et al. (2009), Mkandawire (2001), Me´dard (2000) and others that
patrimonialism constitutes not only a mechanism of predation, but also a potential force for
meaningful regulation and progress.
Our challenge then, is not solely to understand if neopatrimonial democratic rule reflects
a lesser and more vulnerable form of democracy, though that is certainly important, but to
better understand how configurations of formal democratic institutions interact with patri-
monial authority to produce different regime outcomes. Building on the approach advanced
by Lindberg (2006), the analysis below seeks to better understand the “partial regimes”
that comprise neopatrimonial democracy in Africa, rather than seeking to conceptualize
African democracy based on its neopatrimonial reputation.4 In the sections that follow,
we investigate empirically the extent to which, and the ways in which, patrimonialism per-
vades formal political regimes which, as Young (2012) notes, are becoming increasingly more
varied in Africa. We do so by constructing a multi-dimensional index of neopatrimonial-
ism, comparing this index cross-regionally and cross-nationally, and assessing how, if at all,
neopatrimonialism undermines advances in democracy.
3 Measuring Neopatrimonialism
Following Bratton and Van de Walle (1997) we define a neopatrimonial regime as one that
includes clientelism, presidentialism and the use of public resources for private/political
benefit. Clientelism reflects the targeted contingent exchange of goods and services for
political support (Kitschelt and Wilkinson, 2007; Stokes et al., 2013). Presidentialism means
the “systemic concentration of political power in the hands of one individual who resists
delegating all but the most trivial decision making tasks”(1997, 63). The third dimension
- state resources for political legitimation - captures the extent to which politicians treat
these improved conditions, there is evidence that autocratic countries often performed similarly during this
time (Ross, 2006).
4The term “partial regime” is borrowed from Schmitter (1992).
5
public office as a private resource (Bratton and Van de Walle, 1997, 66).
Following this conceptual outline, we use indicators from the V-Dem dataset to construct
an index of neopatrimonial rule.5 The V-Dem dataset (Coppedge et al., 2017) includes mea-
sures of both de jure and de facto aspects of political regimes. The large selection of de facto
indicators is particularly helpful for our purposes since, by definition, neopatrimonialism
implies de facto practices guided by norms or informal rules that differ from those typically
associated with the formal institutions in place. The V-Dem indicators (approximately 350
in total) are based on assessments by experts who are based both within and outside each
country. The dataset is currently based on data submitted by almost 3,000 country experts
and covers 176 countries, including all sub-Saharan African countries, from 1900 to 2016.6
We include indicators capturing three main dimensions of neopatrimonial rule: clien-
telism, presidentialism and regime corruption (which we equate to the private use of state
resources). In addition to an overall index measuring the latent concept of neopatrimonial
rule predicted by indicators across these three dimensions, we also produce sub-indices for
each of the three dimensions. The sub-indices permit finer-grained analysis to better un-
derstand patterns of variation across the three dimensions and how the different dimensions
relate to one another. A list of indicators used to construct the indices appears in Table 1.
All variables are scaled such that higher scores represent higher “neopatrimonial” values
of the variable.7 In the Clientelism index we include an indicator of the frequency of vote-
buying in the last election, a measure of whether public spending tends to be more targeted
(particularistic) or more encompassing, and an indicator measuring whether party-voter
linkages tend to be more programmatic or more clientelistic. The Presidentialism index
includes a number of indicators measuring the extent to which executive, legislative, judicial
5It’s important to note that we focus on neopatrimonialism in political regimes, rather than in the state
apparatus. While it is impossible to completely separate the two, we follow Mazzuca’s (2010) approach of
distinguishing between the institutions, processes and actions surrounding access to power (regime) and the
exercise of power (the state). Of course, the two are related, especially in terms of state officials’ actions
designed to increase chances of retaining access to power, and we include such actions in our purview of the
regime.
6For details on expert coders, their recruitment and management, see Coppedge et al. (2017b). V-
Dem’s approach to developing indicators of hard-to-measure concepts involves several safeguards that aim
to ensure both validity and reliability. First, V-Dem employs coders with expertise in the particular country
and substantive area (i.e. legislatures, executive, civil liberties) for which they are being asked to code.
Second, for each country and indicator, V-Dem seeks at least five experts with diverse backgrounds, including
those who were born in or currently live in that country. Third, V-Dem has developed a state-of-the-art
measurement model to aggregate coder ratings from the five experts for each data point. The model uses a
Bayesian ordinal item-response model providing a high degree of cross-country and cross-time comparability
and estimates of uncertainty associated with each data point (Pemstein et al., 2017). Details of each indicator
can be found in the V-Dem Version 7.1 Codebook (Coppedge et al., 2017a). See also, V-Dem Methodology
(Coppedge et al., 2017b).
7Since V-Dem indicators are typically scaled such that higher values reflect ‘more democratic’ scores, we
construct the indices with V-Dem indicators then reverse the point and confidence estimates.
6
Table 1: Descriptive Statistics for Constituent Indicators
Indicator Mean SD Min Max N
Clientelism
Vote Buying 0.14 1.33 -2.97 3.65 13,862
Particularistic or Public Goods 0.01 1.39 -3.39 3.13 17,600
Programmatic/Clientelistic Parties -0.02 1.38 -3.03 3.29 17,431
Presidentialism
Executive Respects Constitution 0.18 1.39 -3.29 3.52 17,494
Executive Oversight -0.75 1.79 -2.98 3.23 17,604
Legislature Controls Resources -0.50 1.58 -2.31 2.33 17,604
Legislature Investigates Executive -0.75 1.83 -3.00 3.68 17,604
High Court Independence 0.01 1.35 -3.28 3.56 17,539
Lower Court Independence 0.18 1.40 -3.49 3.61 17,539
Compliance with High Court 0.24 1.40 -3.83 3.11 17,441
Compliance with Judiciary 0.17 1.38 -3.42 3.11 17,441
Electoral Management Body Autonomy -0.20 1.62 -2.84 3.89 17,437
Regime Corruption
Executive Embezzlement 0.25 1.47 -3.02 3.44 17,494
Executive Bribes 0.19 1.47 -3.15 3.73 17,497
Legislative Corruption 0.16 1.34 -3.23 3.42 14,998
Judicial Corruption 0.42 1.35 -3.14 3.28 17,524
and electoral management bodies are, de facto, autonomous from the chief executive, and to
what extent these institutions constrain the power of the executive. The Regime Corruption
index includes indicators measuring the extent of executive embezzlement, executive bribery,
legislative corruption and judicial corruption. We specifically exclude V-Dem’s measures of
public sector corruption since, in many cases, public sector workers may not be directly
linked to those elected or appointed to office.
Each of the four indices are derived using a Bayesian factor analysis (BFA) implemented
using MCMCpack in R (Martin et al., 2017).8 One distinct advantage of this method is that it
produces confidence intervals for each estimate, taking rater accountability and uncertainty of
the MCMC analysis into account. The BFAs estimate the latent concepts from the means of
the posterior distributions of each of the V-Dem indicators included in each dimension. The
overall Neopatrimonial index uses the BFA technique on the pool of 16 indicators employed
in the three sub-indices. The BFA results for the global sample are presented in Table 2.
8The specific techniques used are described in Coppedge et al. (2017b).
7
Table 2: Neopatrimonial Indices Summary Statistics (All Countries, 1900-2016)
Index Mean St. Dev. Min Max N
Clientelism -0.17 0.89 -2.42 2.25 13838
Presidentialism 0.37 0.97 -1.93 2.30 17274
Regime Corruption 0.00 0.97 -2.26 2.18 14953
Neopatrimonialism 0.07 0.98 -2.24 2.31 13724
4 How Neopatrimonial are African Regimes?
With these four measures, we can assess the extent to which African regimes live up to their
neopatrimonial reputations. We do so first by comparing trends in the four indices across
regions of the world, then by examining variation across African countries, and finally across
regime types.
4.1 Regional Trends
Figure 1 shows post-WWII trends in the Neopatrimonial Regime index across regions.9
Several patterns stand out. First, except for Western Europe/North America, most regions
remain just around .5 for much of their post-War history. The non-Western regions begin to
diverge a bit more in the late 1980s and early 1990s, at which point Eastern Europe/Central
Asia, Latin America and East Asia break away from the other regions and become slightly
less neopatrimonial. For much of the 1990s and 2000s, scores for African regimes were
indistinguishable from those of the Middle East/North Africa, Southeast Asia and South
Asia. In recent years South-East Asia’s scores have decreased, though their confidence
intervals (not depicted in the graph) still overlap with those of Africa’s. In short, the
continent seems much less “exceptionally neopatrimonial” than much of the literature on
African politics has usually assumed.
Turning to regional trends for each of the sub-indices, it becomes clear that the differences
between Africa and other regions are, in general, not driven by major differences in levels of
clientelism. In Figure 2 we see that all regions outside of the West again tend to cluster, this
time just above the mean. Eastern Europe/Central Asia becomes more clientelistic (lower
scores on the Clientelism index) since the fall of the Soviet Union, while East Asia is the
only non-Western region to show significant improvement over time. Yet, it is also true that
Africa may be the most clientelistic in the current period, though the confidence intervals
9For figures 1 - figures 4 we show point estimates over time for each region along with confidence intervals
for sub-Saharan Africa. For readability purposes, we do not include confidence intervals for other regions.
8
Figure 1: Global Trends in Neopatrimonialism Index
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
Africa (w/confidence interval) Latin America
E. Europe & Central Asia MENA
South-East Asia East Asia
South Asia W. Europe/N. America
suggest some murkiness in that regard.
With respect to the Presidentialism index (Figure 3), two patterns stand out. First, Africa
is not significantly more or less ‘presidentialistic’ than many other non-Western regions.
Again, this goes against much of the received wisdom in African politics. Developments
follow somewhat predictable trajectories: decreasing levels of presidentialism around the time
of independence in the early 1960s when many countries were holding elections and adopting
democratic forms of rule. Another period of decreasing levels of presidentialism in Africa
comes at the outset of the ‘Third Wave’ in the early 1990s with a trend downwards since
then. Additionally, levels of Presidentialism fluctuate over time to a somewhat greater extent
than the other indices. This fluctuation suggests that factors other than neopatrimonialism
may be at play, something we explore in greater detail below.
Finally, in Figure 4 we see a relatively consistent upward trend in the Regime Corruption
index for Africa, with slight improvements in the last several years. On this dimension, Africa
seems to stand out more in comparison with the rest of the world. With the exception of
Eastern Europe/Central Asia, other regions tend to improve on this index, especially East
Asia and Latin America since the early 1990s. Slight increases since 2010 across the remaining
regions (including Africa) suggest, perhaps, the existence of some global trend that coincides
with the launch of anti-corruption campaigns in many countries.
These graphs indicate several important realities about the global trajectories of neopat-
9
Figure 2: Global Trends in Clientelism Index
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
Africa (w/confidence interval) Latin America
E. Europe & Central Asia MENA
South-East Asia East Asia
South Asia W. Europe/N. America
Figure 3: Global Trends in Presidentialism Index
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
Africa (w/confidence interval) Latin America
E. Europe & Central Asia MENA
South-East Asia East Asia
South Asia W. Europe/N. America
10
Figure 4: Global Trends in Regime Corruption Index
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
1945 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
Africa (w/confidence interval) Latin America
E. Europe & Central Asia MENA
South-East Asia East Asia
South Asia W. Europe/N. America
rimonial rule. First, contrary to widespread assumption, for much of the post-War period
Africa has not varied significantly from other regions of the world on any of the three di-
mensions, or in the overall Neopatrimonial index. Where divergence among non-Western
regions is evident, it appears in most cases to be a relatively recent phenomenon. Second,
African regimes today are not, for the most part, significantly more presidentialistic than
those in most other non-Western regions. Third, neopatrimonialism in Africa has remained
relatively constant, with slight improvements in some areas, since the wave of democratiza-
tion and regime transitions of the 1990s and early 2000s. Taken together, these observations
challenge the more pessimistic views that tend to accompany discussions of neopatrimonial
rule in Africa, or assume that Africa is both unique and extreme in its extent of neopatri-
monialism.
4.2 Variation Across African Countries
We next explore the extent to which neopatrimonialism varies across African countries.
Figure 5 shows estimates and confidence intervals for the Neopatrimonial index for African
countries in 2015. Clear differences are visible not only between those with the highest
scores (Chad and Eritrea) and those with the lowest scores (Cape Verde, South Africa and
Botswana), but also between those hovering around the 75th percentile (i.e. Angola and
11
Figure 5: Neopatrimonialism Index 2015 Scores
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
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Madagascar) and those around the 25th percentile (i.e. Tanzania and Ghana).
We further explore patterns underlying the neopatrimonialism index in African countries
by plotting country scores on the three sub-indices. Figure 6 plots countries according to
their 2015 scores on the Clientelism and Presidentialism indices. While there is a clear
positive correlation, we see quite a few countries falling far from the best-fit line. The
variance is especially high with countries above the best-fit line where we see a number
of countries scoring relatively low on the Clientelism index yet higher or average on the
Presidentialism index. Rwanda and Ethiopia, among others, stand out in this regard. These
regimes combine high levels of presidentialism with low levels of clientelism. Developmental
policies in Rwanda and Ethiopia, for example, whereby governments provide an array of
public goods and services, perhaps in lieu of particularistic ones, suggest that high levels of
presidentialism may not always couple with the types of patronage we tend to associate with
neopatrimonial regimes. On the other end of the spectrum, well below the best-fit line, are
countries like Benin and Ghana whose levels of presidentialism are relatively low but whose
scores on the Clientelism index suggest high levels of vote buying, particularistic goods
distribution and clientelistic party linkages. These two sets of deviant cases may provide
important clues about when and why clientelism and presidentialism are not necessarily
associated with each other in ways in that theories of neopatrimonial rule tend to predict.
The positive relationship between the Clientelism index and the Regime Corruption index
12
Figure 6: Clientelism and Presidentialism 2015
GHA
ZAF
MLI
SEN
SDN
ETH
KEN
NGA
TZA
UGA
BEN
BFA
MOZ
NER
ZMB
ZWE
GIN
CIV
MRT
BWA
BDI
CPV
CAF
LSO
LBR
MWI
SLE
AGO
CMR
TCD
COD
COG
DJI
ERI
GAB
GMB
GNB
MDG
NAM
RWA
SOM
SWZ
TGO
SML
COM
GNQ
MUS
STP
SYC
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
2
P
r
e
s
i
d
e
n
t
i
a
l
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s
m
-1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5
Clientelism
is stronger, as shown in 7, but with some important exceptions. Those countries with higher
levels of clientelism tend to cluster at lower levels on the Regime Corruption scale, signifying
higher overall levels of corruption. Included in this group are Chad, Democratic Republic
of Congo, Burundi and others. There are a number of deviant cases, however, clustered at
middling levels of clientelism and relatively high levels of corruption including, for example,
Burkina Faso, Zambia and Senegal. These countries, while practicing high levels of political
patronage, appear to have prebendal-types of arrangements in greater check than do many
other countries where clientelism and corruption may mutually reinforce each other.
If we look for Burkina Faso, Zambia and Senegal in Figure 8, which plots the Regime
Corruption and Presidentialism indices, we see that all three countries are clustered at the
bottom left, meaning low levels of both regime corruption and presidentialism.10 We thus
have at least a small cluster of countries with higher-than-average levels of clientelism, rela-
tively low levels of presidentialism and relatively low levels on the Regime Corruption index.
Another larger clustering, composed of Ghana, Benin, Tanzania, Nigeria among others,
display lower-than-average levels of presidentialism with middling levels of corruption and
relatively high levels of clientelism. These different clusterings suggest that relationships
between the three dimensions are likely to be conditional on other factors, and that we do
10Note that this is after the fall of President Blaise Compaore’s regime in Burkina Faso, which had rated
considerably higher on the Presidentialism index.
13
Figure 7: Clientelism and Regime Corruption 2015
GHA
ZAF
MLI
SEN
SDN
ETH
KEN
NGA
TZA
UGA
BEN
BFA
MOZ
NER
ZMB
ZWE
GIN
CIV
MRT
BWA
BDI
CPV
CAF
LSO
LBR
MWI
SLE
AGO
CMR
TCD
COD
COG
DJI
ERI
GAB
GMB
GNB
MDG
NAM
RWA
SOM
SWZ
TGO
SML
COM
GNQ
MUS
STP
SYC
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
2
C
o
r
r
u
p
t
i
o
n
-1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5
Clientelism
not see all dimensions of neopatrimonial rule developing in tandem.
We conclude from this section that African regimes demonstrate important variation -
both qualitative and quantitative - in their embodiment of neopatrimonial rule. While there
exists a strong relationship between clientelism and regime corruption, there are nonethe-
less some important instances in which politicians are elected using programmatic forms of
mobilization, yet use their offices for private benefit, or vice versa. Deviant cases, such as
Burkina Faso and Zambia, may help to provide clues as to when and why these two facets
of neopatrimonial rule do not coincide.
The differentiation between presidentialism on the one hand and clientelism or corruption,
on the other hand, is considerably more clear and theoretically important for understanding
the relationship between neopatrimonialism and democracy. While a cluster of countries
combines lower levels of presidentialism with lower levels of clientelism, we find that countries
with relatively low levels of presidentialism may vary considerably in the extent to which their
politics are clientelistic and their elected officials engage in the private use of public office.
That presidentialism does not map easily onto the other dimensions suggests an uneasy
relationship between regime type, executive power and neopatrimonialism. We examine this
relationship more concretely in the next section.
14
Figure 8: Presidentialism and Regime Corruption 2015
GHA
ZAF
MLI
SEN
SSD
SDN
ETH
KEN
NGA
TZA
UGA
BEN
BFA
MOZ
NER
ZMB
ZWE
GIN
CIV
MRT
BWA
BDI
CPV
CAF
LSO
LBR
MWI
SLE
AGO
CMR
TCD
COD
COG
DJI
ERI
GAB
GMB
GNB
MDG
NAM
RWA
SOM
SWZ
TGO
SML
COM
GNQ
MUS
STP
SYC
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
2
P
r
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s
i
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t
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i
s
m
-1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5
Corruption
4.3 Neopatrimonialism Across Regime Types
As described above, pessimism about democracy in Africa is often driven by the notion
of continuity in neopatrimonial rule despite changes in formal regime institutions. We in-
vestigate this idea of neopatrimonial continuity by simply comparing average scores across
different regime types across Africa from 1960-2016, as seen in Figure 9.11
It is clear from Figure 9 that closed autocracies are, on the whole, most neopatrimonial
while liberal democracies are least so. The three sub-indices, however, differ considerably
in the extent to which they vary across the different regime types. Most notably, aver-
age scores on the Presidentialism index have the largest difference between autocratic and
democratic regime types, with a clear linear relationship from the most “presidentialistic”
in closed autocracies, to the least in liberal democracies. While this is not surprising given
the close association between autocracy and unconstrained rulers, it also suggests that con-
cerns about democracies in Africa remaining highly presidentialistic may be overstated. The
graphs also illustrate that average scores on the Clientelism index are considerably lower in
liberal democracies than in electoral democracies, while scores on the Regime Corruption
index remain relatively high (hovering around 0) in liberal democracies. Together, these
11We use a measure of regime type, called Regimes in the World (RIW), developed by Lu¨hrmann et al
(Lu¨hrmann et al.) using V-Dem data. It classifies all regimes into the four categories appearing in Figure 9.
The graphs look very similar if we restrict the time span only to more recent years.
15
Figure 9: Neopatrimonialism and Regime Types in Africa, 1960-2016
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
-1.5
-1
-.5
0
.5
1
1.5
Closed Autocracy Electoral Autocracy
Electoral Democracy Liberal Democracy
Clientelism Presidentialism
Regime Corruption Neopatrimonial Index
M
e
a
n
 
S
c
o
r
e
 
1
9
6
0
-
2
0
1
6
observations suggest that while democratization may not fundamentally change behavior
regarding the private use of public office, it does appear to have some kind of relationship
to decreasing levels of both clientelism and presidentialism.
5 Does Neopatrimonialism Constrain Democracy?
Finally, we use the indices to investigate whether and how neopatrimonialism may act as
an impediment to democracy in Africa. To do so, we present results for models estimating
the effects of neopatrimonialism on democratic survival and advancement. We find that
presidentialism, perhaps unsurprisingly given its close definitional relationship to democracy
itself, does indeed limit the survival and advancement of democracy. By contrast, however,
clientelism and regime corruption have, at best, ambiguous effects on democracy.
We first estimate the effects of neopatrimonialism on the probability that a democratic
regime in Africa, once in place, survives for 5 subsequent years.12 We estimate two sets of
dynamic probit models, one with random effects and a battery of control variables, the other
with country fixed-effects and no control variables.13 To avoid using V-Dem data in both
12This is a common approach to measuring and estimating democratic survival. For a recent example, see
Graham et al. (2017).
13Combining fixed effects and time-varying control variables decreases the number of observations such
16
our independent and dependent variables, we use an updated version of Boix, Miller and
Rosato’s (2012) dichotomous coding of regime type to measure survival. Table 3 shows the
results. In models 1 and 4, we see that the high levels of neopatrimonialism as measured
by the Neopatrimonial index have a very strong, statistically significant negative effect on
the probability of 5-year democratic survival. When we break down the Neopatrimonial
index into its constitutent dimensions, as seen in models 2, 3, 5 and 6, however, it becomes
clear that presidentialism is largely driving these results. Neither clientelism nor regime
corruption have consistent effects on democratic survival. This finding runs contrary to
concerns expressed in much of the literature on African politics that clientelism, corruption
and presidentialism interact to undermine democracy.14
We next examine whether neopatrimonialism limits positive changes in the level of democ-
racy. In this set of tests, we use time-series cross-sectional OLS regression with fixed effects
to measure the effects of neopatrimonialism in time t on 5-year subsequent changes in Polity2
scores.15 Again, as seen in Table 4 only presidentialism has a statistically significant effect
on the change in Polity2 score. However, this relationship between presidentialism appears
contingent on the level of democracy as reflected in the coefficients displayed Model 5, where
presidentialism loses its statistically significant effect when the interaction term is included
in the model. We explore this potential contingency in more detail below.
Given the strong effects of Polity2 scores on subsequent democratic change across these
models, we repeat the analysis dividing the sample between countries classified as democratic
by the V-Dem RIW measure in time t and those classified as non-democratic. Figures 10
and 11 display the predicted values resulting from this divided sample analysis, which is
specified in the same way as Model 5 above (the model with the highest within-country
R-squared value). Each figure plots the predicted change in Polity2 at different levels of the
Presidentialism index for the post-Cold War years, 1990-2015.
There is strong evidence of discontinuity across the two models. In democratic countries,
higher levels of presidentialism are, as expected, associated with negative change in Polity2
score, though there is a high degree of variance in predicted changes. In non-democratic
countries (V-Dem RIW classification as closed or electoral autocracy), countries with high
that it becomes difficult to have confidence in the results. Control variables include, first, from World
Bank (2017): Log per capita GDP, GDP Growth, Log per capita official development assistance (ODA). We
include a measure of fuel dependence used by Graham et al. (2017), as well as their measure of the age of
democracy calculated from the BMR dichotomous regime measure. We also include Hanson and Sigman’s
(2013) measure of state capacity, Ethno-linguistic fractionalization from Alesina et al. (2003) and a dummy
variable for post-Cold War years.
14The findings are similar for 2-year and 8-year survival rates. Due to space limitations, we do not present
those results.
15The results presented in Table 4 are consistent in random effects models as well.
17
Table 3: Effects of Neopatrimonialism on Democratic Survival
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Neopatrimonialism -4.788*** -1.604***
(-3.94) (-4.10)
Clientelism -1.797 0.132
(-1.86) (0.24)
Presidentialism -2.067** -2.277*** -1.443*** -0.887**
(-3.03) (-3.33) (-3.33) (-2.66)
Regime Corruption -0.587 -1.153**
(-0.79) (-3.27)
Log Per Capita GDP 1.050** 0.555 1.209**
(2.59) (1.57) (2.70)
Oil Dependence -0.023 0.021 -0.031*
(-1.84) (0.74) (-2.04)
GDP Growth -0.025 0.070* -0.021
(-1.21) (2.04) (-0.98)
Log Per Capita ODA -0.087 0.125 -0.184
(-0.46) (0.50) (-0.88)
ELF -3.274** -0.145 -3.345**
(-2.95) (-0.18) (-3.07)
Democracy Age -0.092*** 0.028* -0.091***
(-3.57) (2.25) (-3.44)
Capacity -0.230 -0.575 -0.366
(-0.52) (-1.41) (-0.78)
Post-Cold War 1.441*** 0.757 1.674***
(3.67) (1.76) (3.64)
Constant -0.588 -0.977 -0.499 -3.656 -5.973 -3.499
(-1.11) (-1.57) (-0.62) (-0.88) (-1.29) (-0.81)
N 142 142 142 301 285 301
N (Countries) 28 28 28 28 28 28
Pseudo R-Sq 0.219 0.203 0.188 0.416 0.260 0.430
Country-Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes No No No
Probit model estimating probability of democratic survival after five years.
Z-statistics in parentheses. *p < .05 **p < .01 ***p < .01
18
Table 4: Effects of Neopatrimonialism on Democratic Improvement
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6)
Neopatrimonialism -0.739 -1.728
(-1.26) (-1.98)
Polity2 -0.348*** -0.455*** -0.483*** -0.533*** -0.597*** -0.590***
(-8.51) (-7.54) (-7.23) (-7.20) (-8.88) (-8.54)
Neopatrimonialism*Polity2 -0.052 -0.198*
(-0.77) (-2.36)
Clientelism 0.576 -0.128
(0.86) (-0.18)
Presidentialism -1.780** -2.104*** -1.130 -1.119
(-3.48) (-3.87) (-1.62) (-1.71)
Presidentialism*Polity2 -0.013 -0.027 -0.160* -0.152
(-0.22) (-0.43) (-2.14) (-2.01)
Regime Corruption 1.757*** 0.038
(3.92) (0.06)
Log Per Capita GDP -1.090* -0.990 -0.895
(-2.07) (-1.95) (-1.74)
Oil Dependence 0.007 0.004 0.002
(0.45) (0.26) (0.11)
GDP Growth -0.007 -0.007 -0.006
(-0.87) (-0.89) (-0.81)
Democracy Age 0.037* 0.036 0.035
(2.03) (1.92) (1.88)
Capacity -0.142 -0.125 -0.170
(-0.31) (-0.28) (-0.38)
Post-Cold War 3.263*** 3.153*** 3.219***
(4.56) (3.89) (4.06)
Constant 0.414 0.096 -0.984* 5.288 4.029 3.237
(1.50) (0.26) (-2.05) (1.30) (1.03) (0.80)
N 1762 1762 1788 1633 1633 1656
N Countries 46 46 46 44 44 44
Within-Country R-Sq .164 .179 .189 .338 .332 .326
Fixed Effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Time-series cross-section OLS model with fixed effects and standard errors clustered by country.
Dependent variable is 5-year subsequent change in Polity2 score.
T-statistics in parentheses. *p < .05 **p < .01 ***p < .01
19
Figure 10: Predicted Change in Polity2 in Democratic Countries, 1990-2015
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
P
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C
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a
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g
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i
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P
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t
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2
-1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5 2
Presidentialism
Figure 11: Predicted Change in Polity2 in non-Democratic Countries: 1990-2015
-20
-15
-10
-5
0
5
10
15
20
P
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-1.5 -1 -.5 0 .5 1 1.5 2
Presidentialism
20
levels of presidentialism are more likely to experience positive changes in the Polity2 score
over the subsequent five years, while those that are less presidentialistic are more likely to
become less democratic. In sum, these results suggest that the impact of presidentialism on
democracy is somewhat ambiguous in non-democratic contexts and negative, but inconsis-
tent, in democratic ones.
6 Conclusion
Two features of political regimes in Africa – the prevalence of electoral authoritarianism and
more democratic regimes with strong presidents – have fueled a large body of literature the-
orizing the links between patrimonial forms of authority and contemporary (undemocratic)
regime outcomes throughout the continent. One consequence of this theory is that the con-
cept of neopatrimonial democracy has become virtually synonymous with that of African
democracy. The preceding analysis casts doubt on the strength of this association, as well
as its alleged unique relevance to Africa.
In constructing and analyzing comprehensive measures of neopatrimonialism in African
politcal regimes, we make three important observations. First, for much of the period since
independence, African regimes have not been significantly more or less neopatrimonial than
regimes in other parts of the developing world. Second, regimes in Africa vary considerably
in the extent to which they embody various dimensions of neopatrimonialism. In particular,
presidentialistic regimes may be present irregardless of the other facets of neopatrimonialism.
Third, neopatrimonialism does not appear to act as a major hindrance to democratization
and democratic survival in Africa. At best, its effects are likely to be contingent on a host
of other regime factors.
More fundamentally, this exercise has highlighted the importance of disaggregating the
concept of neopatrimonial rule. Doing so not only permits an investigation into the ways
that particular dimensions may interact with each other, but is also bound to provide more
nuanced theories about the ways that personalistic forms of authority permit or constrain
the operation of democratic institutions. We look forward to colleagues and students picking
up this challenge and making use of these new measures in substantive analyses in the years
to come.
21
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