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THE CONSTRAINTS ON DEMOCRACY, IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: THE CASE FOR LIMITED DEMOCRACY JohnF. Clark L ? 1990, following the wave of democratization then sweeping the globe, a number of opposition campaigns began against many of rhe authoritarian regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The path ofpolitical reform was blazed by tiny Benin, where a national conference bringing together important groups from the civil society and government produced a new constitution in 1990. Under diat new constitution, Mathieu Kérékou, the nonelected president ofseventeen years, was voted outofoffice in 1991 . The national conference route to political change was then taken by Congo, Gabon, and eventually almost every other francophone country on the continent1 In anglophone Africa, Zambia was the paradigm case. There the country's venerable president oftwenty-seven years, Kennerh Kaunda, voluntarily stepped aside and allowed free elections in November 1991, which he lost to opposition leader Frederick Chiluba. These events gave heart to opposition leaders in other anglophone African countries, including Malawi, Kenya, and Nigeria, though die results were less dramatic. Ofcourse, in the West it has been South Africa's near miraculous transformation , also beginning in 1990, that has captured most ofdie attention. Since 1990 most of these movements have reached some sort of tentative resolution. In a number ofcountries, including Zaire and Togo, dictators have temporarily ridden out the wave ofcampaigns for democracy and reestablished their dominance after having apparendy been rendered impotent by their 1 See John F. Clark, "The National Conference as an Instrument of Democratization in Francophone Africa," Journal of Third World Studies, XI, 1 (Spring 1 994). John F. Clark is an assistant professor at Horida International University. He was a U.S. Department of State intern in Brazzaville, Congo, in 1990. He is currendy coediting a book enrided Political Reform in Francophone Africa. 91 92SAIS ReviewSUMMER-FALL 1994 opponents. In orhers, including Ghana and Gabon, the old rulers have remained in power by allowing minor reforms and holding new elections in order to legitimate dieir rule. In a third category, which includes Benin, Congo, Mali, Zambia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Malawi, long-standing audioritarian rulers have been ousted dirough coups or have been voted out ofoffice. Yet, even in these last cases, it is fer from certain that democracy has yet been consolidated. To many analysts, the wave ofreform between 1990 and 1994 must have come as a great surprise. Among many others, for instance, Samuel Huntington argued in die mid-1980s that the prospects for more developing countries to establish democratic political systems were quite poor.2 This pessimistic prediction coincided closely widi Huntington's well-established analysis ofdie problems feeing developing countries and die policy prescriptions that flowed from it In his view, the major challenge for developing countries was not at least in the short term, democratization, but rather the establishment oforder.3 In diis conception, order was die prerequisite for economic growth and die expansion of state power, which in turn were the ultimate prerequisites for democracy. In die 1980s Goran Hyden masterfully applied a similar logic to the problem of politico-economic development in Africa specifically.4 According to Hyden, diere was litde prospect for development in Africa until the "economy of affection," or the preindustrial, nonrational biases in microeconomic decisionmaking could be eliminated. Other scholars explicidy argued diat premature, and hence misguided, efforts at democratization only delayed development5 Predictably, both Huntington and Hyden have reacted very skeptically to rhe recent campaigns for political change in the developing world, including Africa. While theseviews ofHuntington and Hyden appear to spring from rather conservative assumptions about political prospects for the developing world, diose on the far left were also skeptics about democracy in African and odier 2 "Will More Countries Become Democratic?" Political Science Quarterly, 99 (Summer 1984). 3 See Huntington's deservedly famous Poíiricaí Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968). 4 No Shortcuts to Progress: Africa Development Management in Perspective (London: Heinemann, 1983). 5 Rodney M. Marsh, "Does Democracy Hinder Economic Development in the Latecomer Developing Nations?" Comparative Social Research, 2 (1979): 215-48. CONSTRAINTS ON DEMOCRACY IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA 93 developing societies. Indeed, quasi-Marxist analysts of Africa have generally...

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