Democratic Experiments and Trajectories of Regime Change in Africa: Ghana’s Democratic Trajectory in Comparative Perspective
Year: 2014
Type: preprint
Abstract: In many ways, Ghana represents a puzzling and deviant case of democracy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Despite experiencing problematic inaugural elections in 1992, the country has since developed into a widely-recognized liberal democracy. Explanations for this outcome remain rather limited, with prior accounts suggesting this outcome may be explained either as an idiographic case or an outlier. This paper highlights the case of Ghana by demonstrating its distinction as a democracy emerging from inauspicious conditions. Furthermore, this paper argues that while Ghana is distinct for its evolution to democracy from authoritarian rule, it nevertheless remains a rather paradigmatic example of a country following a democratic trajectory in Africa, with insights leading to a broader understanding of democratization in Africa after the Cold War. Composed as a confluence of domestic and international factors, including access to foreign resources and significant domestic competition between political forces, an explanation of democratic trajectories not only accounts for how this country developed into a widely recognized democracy through a steadfast and incremental process, but additionally contains implications for aiding in the study of post Cold War democratization elsewhere in Africa.
Source: SSRN Electronic Journal
Author: Nicholas Knowlton
Institution: University of Florida
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2337689254