In unexpected ways, government action doesn’t align with citizen preferences.
Abstract
How does foreign policy of African governments reflect the preferences of their constituents? Scholars have studied public opinion in Africa and how constituents assess government performance.
Yet social scientists neglect how and why foreign policy by African governments reflects public opinion, despite much anecdotal evidence of citizens expressing opinion on African foreign policy. In this paper, we investigate the congruence of governmental foreign policy positions and public opinion on issues of free movement and free trade across 34 African countries. We explore two drivers of foreign policy congruence: first democratic vs. autocratic government, and second external rents accruing from natural resources, aid, and remittances.
Our descriptive evidence suggests that, on free trade, African publics tend to be more trade-sceptic than the liberalised policy positions of their governments, meaning low foreign policy congruence. On free movement, low foreign policy congruence stems from African constituents preferring more liberalisation than what governments provide. Surprisingly, multivariate analysis indicates that democracies show lower foreign policy congruence than autocracies on issues of free trade. We argue that this may be because democracies systemically oversupply market liberalisation. We cannot find an effect of external rents on foreign policy congruence.
Florian G. Kern Florian G. Kern is a reader at the University of Essex.
Martin C. Steinwand Martin C. Steinwand is a senior lecturer at the University of Essex.
Samira Diebire Samira Diebire is a PhD student at the University of Essex.
