External democracy promotion in Africa: Another false start?

Abstract

This paper asserts that the wave of democratic elections in sub‐Saharan Africa after 1989 was driven largely by external democracy promotion efforts, and that it is for this reason that democratic regimes there are now crumbling. It examines the interaction between external democracy promotion efforts and domestic structural variables, and concludes that while the international community can induce reform and implant electoral processes in Africa, it cannot force sustainable democratic governance in the absence of capitalist economies, civil societies, and bureaucratic states.