Democratic Transition in Anglophone West Africa

Ibrahim offers a comparative study of the democratic transitions in the Anglophone countries of West Africa, identifying regional trends and discreet factors. He argues that democracy is creeping up the agenda, owing to a determined struggle for human rights, and because democracy has been denied to the people for so long. He identifies a number of common issues across the region: the rise of a militarized secular state; a significant increase in public corruption; the primitive accumulation of capital; an intense battle to deepen democracy between civil society and the state; the appropriation of gender politics by the state through the office of "first ladies"; and the growing discord between elections and political choice. The study also addresses what may be considered an acceptable regional model in Ghana, and an unacceptable example in Liberia. The author is a leading political scientist, who has published widely on democratization, pluralism and religious conflict in English and French.