ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the extent to which the extent of socio-political change brought about in Liberia by the election of Mrs Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2005 and 2011 and the extent to which there have been some limitations to the regime. It considers the characteristics of the four sets of political regimes which preceded the coming to power of Mrs Johnson Sirleaf. First, traditionally classical; second, ostensibly open to the whole population, but based on a biased form of charismatic leadership; and third, a ‘classically’ dictatorial regime, with the long and harsh civil war having taken place between the second and the third forms characterising these political regimes. The chapter also examines the career of Mrs Johnson Sirleaf, and describes the experience which Mrs Johnson Sirleaf came to have had in Liberia, other African states and the United States before coming to power as president of her country.
