Governance Research Agenda: Towards A Democracy Assessment Framework for Southern Africa

This paper discusses the utility of research methods in the governance field in the SADC region in particular. The main argument of the paper is that the methods are as good as the outcome of the research exercise. In a word, the poorer the methods, the poorer the concomitant results of the research. If methods are poor and leading to poor results, the research enterprise is likely to lack utility for positive policy change, democratic transformation and social advancement of the lives of communities.