Democratization Against the Odds -- Fragments of Democracy: Participation and Control in Authoritarian Africa -- Cultures of Resistance: Civil society and the Limits of Power -- The Second Liberation: Economic Decline, the End of the Cold War, and Struggle for Democracy -- Exporting Elections: International Donors and the Era of Democratic Dependency -- Subverting Democracy: The Advantages of Incumbency and Politics of Violence -- The Democratic Dividend: Political Competition, Populism, and Public Policy -- Designing Democracy to Manage Diversity and Distrust -- Appendix: The Fate of Africa's Democratic Experiments 1989-2014.

This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the history of democracy in Africa and explains why the continent's democratic experiments have so often failed, as well as how they could succeed. Nic Cheeseman grapples with some of the most important questions facing Africa and democracy today, including whether international actors should try and promote democracy abroad, how to design political systems that manage ethnic diversity, and why democratic governments often make bad policy decisions. Beginning in the colonial period with the introduction of multi-party elections and ending in 2013 with the collapse of democracy in Mali and South Sudan, the book describes the rise of authoritarian states in the 1970s; the attempts of trade unions and some religious groups to check the abuse of power in the 1980s; the remarkable return of multiparty politics in the 1990s; and finally, the tragic tendency for elections to exacerbate corruption and violence.