Region: Africa

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July 2004, Volume 15, Issue 3

South Africa After Apartheid: The First Decade

Over the ten years since its first nonracial elections in 1994, South Africa has seen its democratic order become more firmly institutionalized, even as the electoral dominance of the ANC has continued to grow.

April 2004, Volume 15, Issue 2

Change in Uganda: A New Opening?

The decision by Uganda’s leaders to abandon the country’s “movement” system and adopt multiparty pluralism creates a significant opportunity for democratic progress.

July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3

Why Post-Settlement Settlements?

The decaying trajectory of democratization in South Africa represents a kind of settlement failure, resulting for the main parties in the transition having come to the table with incompatible cultural paradigms of negotiation.

July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3

Nigeria: Elections in a Fragile Regime

The election cycle concluding in the spring of 2003 was a guarded success. High hurdles to better governance and democratic consolidation remain, but Nigerians can now face them with greater hope.

July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3

Kenya: Third Time Lucky?

After falling short in 1992 and 1997, Kenya’s large but fractious opposition coalition swept to victory at the polls in 2002. Transition has arrived, but can democratic transformation follow?

July 2003, Volume 14, Issue 3

Africa: States in Crisis

Democratic and ecnomic development will become sustainable in sub-Saharan Africa only with the emergence of coherent, legitimate and effective states.

October 2002, Volume 13, Issue 4

Zimbabwe’s Hijacked Election

Realizing that power would slip from his grasp if he allowed an honest presidential election in 2002, longtime strongman Robert Mugabe resorted to antidemocratic tactics that set a new low in cruelty and dishonesty.

January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1

South Africa: Democracy Without the People?

A decade after the end of apartheid, South African democracy may be headed for trouble because the country has yet to fulfill the three requirements of democratic consolidation: inequality-reducing economic growth, stable institutions, and a supportive political culture.

January 2002, Volume 13, Issue 1

Mozambique: A Fading UN Success Story

The United Nations did superb work in helping Mozambique to end its long-festering civil war and start down the path to recovery, but those gains could slip away amid ominous conditions of partisan polarization, excessive political centralization, and a winner-takes-everything electoral system.

April 2001, Volume 12, Issue 2

A Peaceful Turnover in Ghana

With longtime ruler Jerry Rawlings obeying constitutional term limits, the opposition won a narrow electoral victory, bringing Ghana its first peaceful transfer of power since independence.

January 2001, Volume 12, Issue 1

Fighting Authoritarianism in Zimbabwe

The stunning defeat of a draft constitution backed by President Robert Mugabe and the opposition’s unexpectedly strong showing in the June 2000 parliamentary elections may have marked the beginning of the end of ruling-party hegemony in Zimbabwe.

April 2000, Volume 11, Issue 2

Pushing for Press Freedom in Liberia

Since its establishment in 1964, the Press Union of Liberia has championed the right of journalists to report freely on events in Liberia and abroad. Political setbacks continue to put it to the test.

April 1999, Volume 10, Issue 2

Regime Change in Africa

Review of Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective, by Michael Bratton and Nicolas Van de Walle

July 1998, Volume 9, Issue 3

Second Elections in Africa

The early 1990s saw a wave of competitive multiparty elections in Africa. These contests can be described as "founding" elections in the sense that they marked for various countries a transition from an extended period of authoritarian rule to fledgling democratic government. By the middle of the 1990s, this wave had crested. Although founding elections…

January 1997, Volume 8, Issue 1

A Laureate’s Lament

A review of The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, by Wole Soyinka.