Africa, 1990-1997: From abertura to closure

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 1998, Pages

  Joseph, Richard ^a  

^a CARTER CENTER   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 18744419428     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/jod.1998.0028     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. Richard Joseph, "Africa: The Rebirth of Political Freedom," Journal of Democracy 2 (Fall 1991): 11-24.
2. See Richard Joseph, "Democratization in Africa After 1989: Comparative and Theoretical Perspectives," Comparative Politics 29 (April 1997): 363-82.
3. Such an assessment applies most clearly to Gabon, Togo, and Zaire. In Congo, Niger, and Madagascar, national conferences contributed, in more disorderly fashion than in Benin, to regime change. Everywhere else - in Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, and Nigeria, for instance - the government crushed or outmaneuvered conference advocates.
4. This formulation can be applied to all post-1989 examples in Africa: Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, Namibia, and South Africa. With the exception of Angola, where insurgents led by Jonas Savimbi refused to accept their electoral defeat in 1992, elections in general have proven an effective exit from the stalemate of warfare.
5. Achille Mbembe, "Democratization and Social Movements in Africa," Africa Demos 1 (November 1990): 4.
6. See Jean-François Bayart, Stephen Ellis, and Béatrice Hibou, La criminalisation de l'état en Afrique (Brussels: Editions Complexe, 1997).
7. See Ray Ekpu, "Nigeria's Embattled Fourth Estate," Journal of Democracy 1 (Spring 1990): 106-16.
8. For a fuller discussion, see Richard Joseph, "Autocracy, Violence, and Ethno-Military Rule in Nigeria," forthcoming in Richard Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1998).
9. See Jean-Germain Gros, "The Hard Lessons of Cameroon," Journal of Democracy 6 (July 1995): 112-27.
10. This summary is based on several visits by the author to Liberia and neighboring countries from 1991 to 1994 in connection with peace initiatives. I conducted two subsequent research visits in 1995 and 1997 financed by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace.
11. These observations are drawn from the available scholarly literature and other reports as well my personal engagement (1989-94) in conflict-resolution efforts, first between the Mengistu regime and its adversaries, and then between the EPRDF and its opponents.
12. Michael Bratton and Nicolas van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa: Regime Transitions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 221. I concur, however, with their emphasis on institutionalization in this important study.
13. See my "Democratization in Africa After 1989," and "Reconfiguration of Power in Late Twentieth-Century Africa," forthcoming in Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
14. See my "Democratization in Africa After 1989," and "Reconfiguration of Power in Late Twentieth-Century Africa," forthcoming in Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
15. Christopher Clapham, Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics 35 (October 1982): 1-24.
16. Christopher Clapham, Africa and the International System: The Politics of State Survival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); and Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, "Why Africa's Weak States Persist: The Empirical and the Juridical in Statehood," World Politics 35 (October 1982): 1-24.
17. Several media reports on the visit of U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright to seven African nations in December 1997 - only one of which (South Africa) had a democratically elected government - emphasized this point. See Hugh Dellios, "Faking It in Africa," Chicago Tribune (4 January 1998); and Howard W. French, "Albright in Africa: The Embraceable Regimes," The New York Times (16 December 1997).
18. Several media reports on the visit of U.S. secretary of state Madeleine Albright to seven African nations in December 1997 - only one of which (South Africa) had a democratically elected government - emphasized this point. See Hugh Dellios, "Faking It in Africa," Chicago Tribune (4 January 1998); and Howard W. French, "Albright in Africa: The Embraceable Regimes," The New York Times (16 December 1997).
19. Jeffrey Herbst, "The Structural Adjustment of Politics in Africa," World Development 18 (July 1990): 949-58.
20. I first heard Marina Ottaway advance this notion of "closure" during a workshop in April 1996, although I use it here more narrowly than she does. See Marina Ottaway, ed., Democracy in Africa: The Hard Road Ahead (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 3.
21. See Robert Bates, "The Economic Bases of Democratization," forthcoming in State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
22. This is what happened for several years in the former Zaire, which experienced an expansive abertura in 1990-92. A supreme master at using the extroversion of his vast country to political advantage, President Mobutu overcame all challenges and was only dislodged by armed force after he became fatally ill.
23. On Rwanda, see the insightful analyses by Timothy Longman of the defeat of the abertura (1990-94) in "Rwanda: Chaos from Above," in L.A. Villalón and P.A. Huxtable, eds., The African State at a Critical Juncture (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 75-91; and "State, Civil Society, and Genocide in Rwanda," forthcoming in Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
24. On Rwanda, see the insightful analyses by Timothy Longman of the defeat of the abertura (1990-94) in "Rwanda: Chaos from Above," in L.A. Villalón and P.A. Huxtable, eds., The African State at a Critical Juncture (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1997), 75-91; and "State, Civil Society, and Genocide in Rwanda," forthcoming in Joseph, ed., State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
25. Larry Diamond, "Is The Third Wave Over?" Journal of Democracy 1 (July 1996): 20-37.
26. Ibid., 25.
27. Ibid., 32.
28. Ibid., 30.
29. In fact, the very hollowness of the electoral democracies that Diamond discusses suggests the need for a broader approach to democratization than the dominant Schumpeter-Huntington framework. See my own formulation in "Democratization in Africa After 1989."
30. See African Renewal, Conference on African Renewal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 6-9 March 1997; and Richard Sklar, "African Polities: The Next Generation," forthcoming in State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
31. See African Renewal, Conference on African Renewal, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 6-9 March 1997; and Richard Sklar, "African Polities: The Next Generation," forthcoming in State, Conflict, and Democracy in Africa.
32. Thomas Carothers, "Democracy Without Illusions," Foreign Affairs 76 (January-February 1997): 85-99.
33. Ibid., 91.
34. Fareed Zakaria, "The Rise of Illiberal Democracy," Foreign Affairs 76 (November-December 1997): 22-43.
35. Ibid., 22.
36. Ibid., 40 and 42.