THIRD WAVE DEMOCRATIZATION IN POST-COLD WAR AFRICA: THE RISE OF ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
THIRD WAVE DEMOCRATIZATION IN POST-COLD WAR AFRICA: THE RISE OF ILLIBERAL DEMOCRACY IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: Hopes that „third wave” transitions in sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s would usher in a new era of liberal democracy vanished fairly quickly when new forms of liberalized authoritarianism emerged. Illiberal democracy has taken hold as the political trajectory shifted from an opening to a closure when the wave of regime transitions lost steam by the end of the decade. Unlike a relatively steady process of democratic consolidation and a renewed democratic awakening in post-Communist Europe, the region saw continued democratic erosion or breakdown of democratically elected governments and the institutionalization of various illiberal, semi-authoritarian regimes by the turn of the century. Contrary to presumptions of a rebirth of liberal democracy prevalent among some scholars and policy-makers, third wave democratization in Africa predominantly ended up in illiberal democracies and stable semi-authoritarian regimes. Based on a cross-regional analysis and new data made available only recently, this article examines the levels of institutionalization of three main features of democracy: elections, liberal democracy, and the rule of law. It employs a path-dependent institutional approach that focuses on political institutions—both formal and informal—both as causal explanations for the democratic deficit of the transitions and as objects of study in the analysis of democratic consolidation or lack thereof.

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