Authoritarian State or State Authority in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Alternative Perspective for Social Change in the Absence of Political Change
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In the ever-evolving landscape of global governance, the dynamics of democracy and authoritarianism continue to shape political transitions, yet our conceptual frameworks often lag these transformations. This paper critically examines the prevailing approaches to authoritarianism in sub-Saharan Africa, challenging the conventional view that defines authoritarian states merely as negations of democracy. Through a comparative analysis of four widely recognized democracy indices, the study reveals methodological biases that overlook the nuanced roles of political authority in transitional states. By exploring the intersection of normative and positive analyses, the paper rethinks the teleological assumptions underlying the classification of authoritarian regimes. It proposes an alternative perspective on the relationship between democracy and legitimacy, arguing that this relationship is pivotal in understanding social change in contexts where political alternation is absent. The study aims to provide a more comprehensive framework for assessing political development, one that prioritizes the values and norms critical to structural transformation in Africa. This paper contributes to the debate on power dynamics in autocratic regimes, highlighting how legitimacy acts as a catalyst for democratization. Ultimately, the research seeks to refine our understanding of the mechanisms through which political power operates in sub-Saharan Africa, offering new pathways for evaluating and fostering political change. We hope to contribute to a better assessment of how best to measure the effects and impact of power, while also considering the values and norms that should prevail in assessing structural transformation in Africa and the conditions that should be considered in selecting countries that are considered “politically like-minded”.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.005 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.003 | 0.026 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".