PP102: Democracy and its discontented: What drives demand for democracy in South Africa?

Support for democracy rests on a range of foundations. Citizens may value democracy  intrinsically, as the most legitimate form of rule regardless of outcomes, or instrumentally, as a  system judged by its capacity to deliver material well-being, security, and effective  governance. Understanding which of these logics predominates is central to assessing the  resilience of democratic regimes. 

In the early years after the end of White-minority rule, South Africans were more likely than  their continental peers to evaluate democracy in material terms, valuing it for what it could  deliver rather than for its inherent virtues. Attitudes were closely tied to assessments of  government performance and expectations of improvements in quality of life (Bratton &  Mattes, 2001). As the regime matured, delivery of political goods entered the equation  (Mattes, 2012). A generation after apartheid’s end, it is worth returning to this question: Is  demand for democracy in South Africa still performance-driven? 

Several factors make this a question of interest. First, as Mattes (2012) showed using  Afrobarometer survey data from 2008, “born-frees”1 were less committed to democracy than  older generations. To what extent has the passage of time influenced this dynamic? South  Africans born in the 1980s have graduated from youth to middle age, a period of life  associated with greater political engagement (Melo & Stockemer, 2014; Dim & Schafer,  2024). As they have aged, they are likely to have accumulated a range of experiences,  interpersonal and/or community responsibilities, and (in some cases) wealth. Has their  perspective on democracy altered as a result? Meanwhile, adults born in the 1990s and  2000s, too young to be captured in the 2008 data, have no working memory of enforced  racial segregation and have grown up under a liberal-democratic dispensation, yet they face globally unsurpassed levels of unemployment and inequality (World Bank, 2022). These and related factors could impact youth perceptions of democracy and its (non-)delivery of material gains in a variety of ways. 

Second, demand for democracy, captured in Afrobarometer survey data as a combination  of support for democracy and rejection of one-person rule, one-party rule, and military rule, is significantly down since 2008. In the political arena, the 2010s were dominated by “state  capture,” a form of grand corruption whereby then-President Jacob Zuma and his cronies  took over several levers of state machinery to serve their own financial and political ends. Until his recall in 2018, Zuma oversaw a stagnating economy, rising unemployment, and  worsening income and wealth inequality; lower levels and poorer quality of service delivery,  especially in electricity, water, and sanitation; and higher rates of violence and insecurity  (Arun, 2019; Magubane, 2019; Pillay, Chitunhu, & Chivandire, 2023). Soon thereafter, South  Africa experienced a “COVID shock” that aggravated social and economic outcomes.  These legacies continue to haunt South Africa today. For example, state-capture  investigations in the criminal-justice and public health-care systems – cases in which witnesses and whistleblowers were murdered – are ongoing (de Villiers, 2021; Wicks, 2025;  Madlanga Commission, 2025). Although this paper does not attempt to unpack the factors  underlying this decrease in demand for democracy, it is nonetheless important to  understand whether South African attitudes toward democracy are still motivated by  pragmatic concerns. If they are, that constitutes prima facie evidence that a non-trivial  portion of the decline in democratic demand was driven by deteriorating delivery of political  and/or economic goods, and that continuing non-delivery may spur further decline.  

Third, the 2024 general election produced a landmark result, as the hitherto dominant  African National Congress (ANC) lost its majority share and entered into a coalition  government with several other political parties, officially known as the government of  national unity (GNU). Afrobarometer Round 10 survey data were collected more than a year.

In contrast to the popular, more literal understanding of “born-frees” as South Africans born after the transition to universal suffrage in 1994, Mattes (2012, p. 135) interprets the term as “those who have come of  age since the advent of democracy,” which he applies to those turning 16 in 1997 (i.e. born in 1981 or later) after the formation of the GNU, and it is possible that this shift in the political landscape has  already influenced public perspectives on democracy. 

Do the same drivers of democratic demand hold across eras? And to what extent are South  Africans still performance-driven in their evaluation of democracy? This study seeks to answer  these questions by rerunning, to the closest possible approximation, Mattes’ 2008 ordinary  least squares linear regression model on 2025 data.  

Results reveal significant overlap between the models, with a few critical differences. The key takeaway is that South Africans are still heavily influenced by government performance in  their demand for democracy. Among political goods, election quality remains strongly  influential, and corruption continues to dampen democratic enthusiasm. Economic  performance, which previously had little effect, now makes a big difference: Positive ratings  of government service delivery are strongly linked with demand for democracy.  

Internet use and consumption of news via traditional media are positively associated with  democratic demand, as is involvement in civic and political activities at the community  level. In contrast, voting and consumption of online news (independently of other Internet  use) have blunting effects. Education – so often a factor that socialises citizens into  supporting democracy – continues to have no effect in South Africa, a result that warrants  further attention from researchers and policy makers. 

Among demographic variables, we find that unemployed individuals are less committed to  democracy than those who are working or economically inactive. This is little surprise given  both the extent of national unemployment and the importance attached to it by the public,  who consistently see a lack of jobs as the most important problem the government should  address (Statistics South Africa, 2025a; Mpako & Ndoma, 2025). Meanwhile, the fact that  racial minorities are less likely than Blacks to demand democracy – a stunning reversal for  Whites, who were more pro-democracy than Blacks 17 years earlier – requires further  investigation to see whether this phenomenon is a product of specifically racialised politics or  whether it can be explained by other factors. 

Finally, an important new development is that demand for democracy is higher among  citizens who are dissatisfied with the way democracy is working and disapprove of the  government’s economic performance. This suggests that a new type of South African  democrat has been unearthed, one who values democracy despite its defects. But because  demand has been in freefall since the early 2010s, only a small proportion of the population  remain committed to the democratic cause. Thus, while a hard core of citizens seems to  value democracy for its own sake, performance still matters for most. 

For democracy activists, policy influencers, and political leaders, the implications are clear:  Strengthen the credibility of elections, foster civic engagement, root out corruption, clamp  down on disinformation (particularly online), address racialised political discourse, promote  the virtues of democracy in school and public awareness-raising campaigns, and, most critically, deliver on what matters most to citizens – jobs and basic services.