Determinants of democratic successes and failures in Africa

Abstract.  This article, first, identifies democratic, authoritarian and 'praetorian' political system types in Africa on the basis of major current indicators. It then systematically tests a broad variety of hypotheses concerning the historical, social-structural, socio-economic, political and institutional determinants and performance characteristics of these system types. A macro-quantitative synopsis attempts to identify the most 'parsimonious' overall constellations of factors in this regard. This is supplemented by a macro-qualitative analysis of major 'conjunctural' conditions identifying the main groups of cases and their determining factors in a 'contradiction-free' manner. The conclusions point to the decisive importance of 'governance' aspects in the future.