The political science literature is replete with arguments about the improbability of democratization in Africa. In this book, we have argued that democratization in Africa is a long-term institution-building project that is fraught with obstacles and constantly threatened with reversal. Nevertheless, in the early 1990s, political actors in more than a dozen African countries overcame objective handicaps in order to complete the minimal steps required for the installation of democratic regimes. Although most of these democratic experiments will fail, a handful of imperfect multiparty electoral systems could well survive.

Sweeping generalizations about Africa as a whole are too often derived from case studies of individual countries. Extrapolating from the case of Somalia, for example, one might be led to the unfortunate conclusion that political openings in Africa are bound to dissolve into clan warfare and collapsed states. Conversely, beginning with Bénin – as we did – one might be tempted to incorrectly project the likelihood of democratic transition onto countries where conditions are actually quite unfavorable. Although we have gained insights from many valuable case studies, we have tried to resist the temptation to overgeneralize from single cases. We have demonstrated, for example – the case of Zaire notwithstanding – that an economic crisis of hyperinflation is not the main catalyst of political reform in Africa. And, despite Kenya's experience with political conditionality, we have shown that political change is rarely driven by an ultimatum from the international donor community.