ABSTRACT
This chapter tests the dysfunctional aspects, or the elements that can reign in the destructive tendencies of personalist regimes, described in the model. Under investigation are the three cases of Guinea, Burkina Faso and Ghana, chosen especially to compare different levels of violent transitions and the interrelation with elections, legislatures and multipartyism – two elements that are considered conductive to democratization and peaceful transitions in the literature. At first glance, legislatures and multipartyism seem to have mitigating effect that tempers violent regime contestation, but a closer look identifies this is a more complicated relation, and shows that other factors like the level of state-weakness and the ability of coup-proofing play important roles during transitions. (The next chapter reevaluates these findings with a larger sample.) Finally, the presence of violent legacies seems to matter greatly for transitions, indicating that path dependencies can be hard to avoid, even with mitigating multiparty institutions.
