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| Title: | The Process, Prospects and Constraints of Democratization in Africa |
| Author: | Decalo, Samuel |
| Year: | 1992 |
| Periodical: | African Affairs: The Journal of the Royal African Society |
| Volume: | 91 |
| Issue: | 362 |
| Period: | January |
| Pages: | 7-35 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Africa |
| Subjects: | democracy Politics and Government |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/722560 |
| Abstract: | Spawned by stifling political authoritarianism and economic decay, and triggered by recent changes in Eastern Europe, in 1990 a powerful backwash of popular demonstrations for 're-democratization' flooded all corners of Africa. After a survey of the factors behind these democratic upheavals, the author outlines several common patterns in the redemocratization process: the prodemocracy pressures are continent-wide; the more African autocracies resembled the discredited regimes in Eastern Europe, the greater the challenge from below for total change; military rulers have fared poorly in the democratization sweepstakes; notwithstanding the continental dimension of redemocratization, some countries may be bypassed; the image of the political impregnability of Africa's civilian founding fathers, and of the invincibility of long-ruling iron generals, has been eroded; and the few civilian leaders who early on grasped the significance of the changed global rules of the game have usually been able to survive the trauma. Although the redemocratization process of Africa is of monumental importance, it also carries negative repercussions. Few economic pay-offs are in the offing for most States since in substance nothing has changed with political democratization. Notes, ref. |
