Review of Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective, by Michael Bratton and Nicolas Van de Walle.
About the Author
Joel D. Barkan is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Iowa and nonresident senior associate with the Africa program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He is the author of the 2011 CSIS report “Kenya: Assessing Risks to Stability.”
Morocco was not immune to the 2011 upheavals in the Arab world, but the country’s monarchy deftly managed the crisis through cosmetic constitutional reform.
There is a troubling tension around “people power” in Africa today: African social movements are among the most successful at ousting autocrats. But the continent’s entrenched antidemocratic institutions leave these…
World events-recent, current, and almost certainly to come-drive home the truth that before there can be a democratic state, there must first be a functioning state, period. Creating workable states…
