Has decentralization contributed to democratization at the local level in Mali? : a comparative study of three local governments : Kontela, Mopti, and Tambaga

In this thesis I have studied the democratic decentralization reform in the West-African country Mali. The reform was implemented in 1999, as part of the nationwide democratization process, which started with the establishment of the national democratic republic in 1992. The reform has been examined by doing three comparative case studies of local governments, the two rural cases of Kontela and Tambaga in the Kayes region and the urban case of Mopti in the Mopti region. Most different systems analysis has been employed to study the differences between the three cases. In addition, most similar systems design has been used to analyze the changes within the cases over time. Further, the thesis has assessed the three cases as to whether democratization has materialized in them by using the substantial democracy/democratization definition and analytical framework by Törnquist (2002, 2003). This framework has a more encompassing definition of democracy than most mainstream liberal democracy definitions do, stating that human rights and political actors’ capacity to use these rights and the institutions of government, administration and civil society have to be in place in order for democracy/democratization to be substantial. In addition to using this framework to assess the cases, I added some elements from Crook’s and Manor’s framework of democratic decentralization, because these represented a better operationalization of the aspect of accountability. The main conclusion of the thesis, deriving from the assessment of the three cases was that the reform has lead to fulfillment of only some elements of substantial democratization. These elements was that a local government and state administration have been established, most civil and political rights examined were respected, and a democratically oriented civil society existed to some extent in one of the cases, Mopti. However, the three cases of local governments diverged on the extent to which the different elements of democratization were fulfilled. The urban local government in Mopti had reached further than the other two rural local governments in terms of its institutions and rights having better quality and a wider scope, reaching out to the population. Further, more actors had the capacity to use the institutions and rights. Moreover, the civil right of equal treatment before the law only existed somewhat in Mopti, and not in the other two cases, due to the use of customary law principles. In order to