Democratization and armed conflicts in post-cold war Africa (1989-2012)

Abstract

The coming of the “Third Wave of democratization” to Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s coincided with the dramatic increase of armed conflicts on the continent. The purpose of this study is to revisit the connection between these two phenomena, and to address more specifically the following questions: To what extent has Africa been democratized since the end of the Cold War? To what extent did the democratization process contribute to the occurrence of armed conflicts on the continent? And under what conditions can a process of democratization lead to an armed conflict? This study finds that the “Third Wave of democratization” has been limited in depth, and could not have possibly contributed to the increase of armed conflicts in the Post-Cold War Africa.