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This handbook aims primarily to create a record of mass attitudes of citizens in selected African countries towards democracy, markets, civil society, and other aspects of civil-state relations. However, while there has been a great deal of information on the attitudes and behaviours of African elites, the orientations of the general public towards political and economic change have, to a considerable extent, been unknown, undervalued and ignored.

In attempting to correct this, surveys in 19 African countries found:

• On a continent where most people continue to live in rural areas and where a good education is hard to find, people may not be well enough informed to offer dependable opinions but as long as questions are stated plainly people can express clear opinions about economic survival and political authority. 
• Whether or not attitudes exactly mirror exterior circumstances, an individual’s interior perspective forms the basis of any calculus for action therefore, more often than not, public opinion findings reinforce, rather than undercut, the thrust of official aggregate statistics. 
• In the realms of society, politics and the economy, perceptions matter just as much if not more than reality. That which people think to be true, including judgments about present conditions or past performance and expectations for the future, is a central motivation for behaviour. 
• Most people continue to live in rural areas and where a good education is hard to find, people may not be well enough informed to offer dependable opinions.
  
  

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