Electoral Politics in Africa since 1990: Continuity in Change

Abstract

Democratic transitions in the early 1990s led to a significant change in sub-Saharan African politics. Between 1990 and 2015, several hundred competitive legislative and presidential elections were held in all but a handful of the region’s countries. This book is the first comprehensive comparative analysis of the key issues, actors, and trends in these elections. In the book, we ask: What motivates African citizens to vote? What issues do candidates campaign on? How has the turn to regular elections affected the push for greater democracy? Has regular electoral competition made a difference in the welfare of citizens? We argue that regular elections have both caused significant changes in African politics and been influenced by a rapidly changing continent − even if few of the political systems that now convene elections can be considered democratic and many features of older African politics persist.