ABSTRACT
The dramatic changes in East Europe have had profound repercussions through-out the globe. As Robert H. Bates (1990, p. 29) notes, “not since the mid-19th century have so many popular uprisings toppled rulers and filled the boulevards with crowds affirming freedom and self-governance.” What was most unexpected was that pro-democracy pressures coalesced in Africa where “it cannot be said that democracy has failed … because in most countries it has never been tried” (Jackson and Rosberg 1985, p. 293), taking by surprise observers who had assumed that “with a few exceptions, the limits of democratic development in the world may well have been reached” (Huntington 1984, p. 218). At the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall thirty-eight of sub-Saharan Africa's forty-five states were governed by one-party systems and/or military regimes; eighteen months later military rule was in retreat, all the People's Republics were dismantled, and competitive multiparty elections and a free press and judiciary were back in vogue as civilian groups reclaimed long-lost political thrones and the process of democratization was methodically changing the political map of the continent.
