Abstract
The coming of the “Third Wave of democratization” to Africa in the late 1980s and early 1990s coincided with the dramatic increase of armed conflicts on the continent. The purpose of this study is to revisit the connection between democratization and occurrence of armed conflicts, and to address specifically the following questions: To what extent has Africa been democratized since the end of the Cold War? To what extent could the democratization process contribute to the increase of armed conflicts on the continent? And under what conditions could a democratization process lead to an armed conflict? This study finds that the democratization since the end of the Cold War has been limited in space and depth in Africa, and could not be considered the major factor that led to the increase of armed conflicts on the continent. Nevertheless, in the context of democratization, an armed conflict could break out under the following conditions: overlapping social cleavages, incomplete democratization, mobilization of armed groups (or militia), and intense power struggle among political leaders or groups. Key words: Africa, democratization, armed conflicts, Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Congo, Guinea-Bissau.
Highlights
According to Samuel Huntington, the “Third Wave of democratization in the modern world began, implausibly and unwittingly, at twenty-five minutes after mid-night, April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, when a radio station played the song „Grandola Vila Morena‟ (Huntington, 1991)
The review of literature reveals that there is no consensus, neither on the causes of armed conflicts in general, nor on the connection between democratization and armed conflicts in particular. Given this ambiguous connection between democratization and armed conflicts in post-Cold War Africa, the purpose of this study is to address the following questions: 1) To what extent has Africa been democratized since the end of the Cold War? and 2) To what extent could the processes of democratization contribute to the increase of armed conflicts on the continent? 3) Under what conditions could a process of democratization lead an armed conflict?
Combining the analyses of quantitative and qualitative data on democratization and armed conflicts from Freedom House and Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP)/Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), this study finds that, by and large, Africa has been politically stable since the end of the Cold War, and the transitions to democracy have been limited in space and depth
Summary
According to Samuel Huntington, the “Third Wave of democratization in the modern world began, implausibly and unwittingly, at twenty-five minutes after mid-night, April 25, 1974, in Lisbon, Portugal, when a radio station played the song „Grandola Vila Morena‟ (Huntington, 1991). Since this powerful wave swept many other countries all over the world. The number of democratic countries around the world jumped from 44 in 1974 to 65 in 1990 (Freedom House 2013c) It was oscillating between 85 and at the end of the 20th century, before stabilizing around since 2005 (Freedom House, 2013c). The number of democratic regimes on the continent slowly moved from two in 1989
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