In late October, greater than 80% of Botswana’s voters went to the polls and voted out the incumbent authorities. The sudden end result was accepted by all events, and the outgoing president instantly introduced his plans for a clean transition of energy.
This isn’t uncommon within the southern African nation – Botswana frequently leads the mainland continent in annual “most democratic nations” lists. Since independence in 1966, Botswana has seen not solely excessive ranges of democratic stability but in addition distinctive financial development and low ranges of polarization and different social issues that plague different nations, each in Africa and elsewhere.
In Could 2023, I undertook a two-week exploratory examine in Botswana to analyze why. My findings, lately printed within the peer-reviewed on-line journal Social Sciences, level to the essential function performed by “dikgotla” – the normal village assemblies which can be central to politics in Botswana, know as “kgotla” of their singular kind.
These assemblies, which have been round since time immemorial – probably reaching again 1000’s of years – perform as public boards wherein residents meet frequently to debate public issues and maintain officers accountable.
By taking part in month-to-month dikgotla, Botswana residents find out how politics work, actively take part within the political course of and are higher knowledgeable in relation to nationwide elections.
My analysis primarily relied on observations, together with attending a kgotla session in Modipane, a village in southern Botswana, and interviewing native consultants, chiefs, residents and lecturers all through the nation on the influence of the dikgotla system.
Residents meet month-to-month to debate issues that have an effect on their lives instantly, equivalent to the development of recent roads, hospitals and faculties. Dikgotla are additionally the place neighborly disputes could be addressed and settled. And underneath the system, public officers are known as in and held accountable for the choices they make.
AP Picture/Themba Hadebe
Observing a kgotla session allowed me to witness how Botswana’s citizen-centered, deliberative democracy contributes to stability, social cohesion and financial success.
Briefly, the kgotla custom encourages good governance. After evaluating different doable causes for good governance – each financial and social – and evaluating Botswana with different nations within the area, I imagine that dikgotla are doubtless the driving drive behind Botswana’s good democratic efficiency.
Why it issues
At a time when nations internationally are struggling rising ranges of citizen alienation, disengagement and polarization, Botswana represents a case wherein direct democratic practices at a neighborhood degree have successfully supplemented a consultant system.
The kgotla custom affords a compelling various to purely consultant democracies wherein residents are represented within the political course of by elected officers.
With out understanding how authorities works and what elected officers and state bureaucrats do, residents are likely to depend on unfounded theories about “the system” and “these in energy” and so they threat falling prey to political manipulation.
Botswana’s democratic system mitigates this threat by means of energetic and common citizen participation in native governance by means of dikotla.
What marks Botswana out is that this conventional system has survived and been built-in into the nation’s modern governance construction.
My analysis signifies that strengthening democracy in postcolonial nations could be extra profitable when it makes use of long-standing democratic traditions as a substitute of importing overseas political programs that will not not reply to native wants, solely to these of the previous colonizers.
What’s subsequent
The findings from this preliminary exploratory examine spotlight the potential of kgotla as a mannequin for sustaining participatory democracy. Transferring ahead, I plan to conduct a extra complete examine encompassing various areas of Botswana, together with areas with totally different ethnic compositions from the Tswana-dominated south.
It will enable a extra nuanced understanding of how dikgotla function throughout diversified settings and whether or not regional variations affect their effectiveness. Exploring these elements will likely be essential for figuring out how dikgotla can function a governance mannequin.
The examine of Botswana’s dikgotla can also be half of a bigger analysis undertaking that seeks to spotlight African contributions to Western civilization. To advance this analysis agenda, I’m engaged on a book-length manuscript, tentatively titled “The African Origins of Democracy.”
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