ABSTRACT
Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) and São Tomé and Principe are part of a handful of democratic success stories in Africa. Despite their insularity, small populations and lack of natural resources, they stand out from most of their continental counterparts for their democratic credentials. While both countries seem to confirm the assumption that “small is beautiful” the case study literature highlights differences between the two in terms of democratic performance, cabinet and party system stability. This chapter’s main goal is to explore these differences further. It examines whether and under which conditions decentralization positively impacts democratic performance in small states. This is a puzzling topic as decentralization effects on democratization are double edged: on the one hand it can foster participation, representation, and accountability; on the other, it can lead to parochial and more polarized politics, and the capture of power by local elites. The chapter thus seeks to clarify these effects. It starts reviewing the literature on decentralization and democracy in small states and narrating the main political events in each country since independence. It then examines the impact of decentralization on democracy across five criteria – citizen development, accountability and responsiveness, representativeness, and checks and balances (Diamond and Tsalik 1999) – relying on several sources of data (surveys, online newspapers, election data, reports, legislation). Overall, the analysis demonstrates that, as in other small jurisdictions, various interactions between formal and informal institutions shed light on the differential impact of decentralization on democratization in Cabo Verde and São Tomé Príncipe.
