The Institutionalization of Political Power in Africa

Issue Date July 2007
Volume 18
Issue 3
Page Numbers 126-140
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Sub-Saharan Africa has been traditionally depicted as a place where formal institutional rules are largely irrelevant-yet in the past fifteen years these rules have come to matter, and this trend is unlikely to reverse.

About the Authors

Daniel N. Posner

Daniel N. Posner is Total Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and coauthor of Coethnicity: Diversity and the Dilemmas of Collective Action (2009).

View all work by Daniel N. Posner

Daniel J. Young

Daniel J. Young is a doctoral candidate in political science at UCLA and is finishing a dissertation on political parties in Africa based on fieldwork in Malawi.

View all work by Daniel J. Young

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Tanzania: Shrinking Space and Opposition Protest

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Volume 20, Issue 2

Another Step Forward for Ghana

Ghana held its fourth successful elections in late 2008 and subsequently witnessed the peaceful handover of power from ruling party to opposition. The country’s leaders must now reform its institutions…

Volume 1, Issue 4

South Africa’s Future: Symposium—African National Congress