Jaimie Bleck and Nicholas Van de Walle. Electoral Politics in Africa Since 1990: Continuity and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. xi + 331 pp. List of Tables. List of Figures. References. Index. $29.99. Paper. ISBN: 9781316612477.

Abstract

Jaimie Bleck and Nicolas van de Walle's Electoral Politics in Africa offers unique insights into the complex relationship between elections, democracy, and change (or lack thereof) in Africa. The authors claim that electoral politics in Africa since 1990 have been marked essentially by political continuity-for both good and bad. Multiparty elections are an element of continuity, "as once countries started to hold multiparty elections they continued to do so," but the democratic gains are not yet observable in most countries, and we still find the same political class as well as pervasive clientelism. The stasis in political life is striking, given the dramatic social and economic changes the continent has experienced in the last three decades. So "why has the move to routine and regular multiparty elections not promoted more political change in Africa? And why did it not generate democratic consolidation?" The authors argue that two main factors account for the limited impact of multiparty elections in Africa. The first is presidentialism, namely the presence of strong presidents with enormous influence on how electoral politics unfold. The second is the liability of newness, that is, the fact that almost no African countries had had significant experience of multiparty elections before the transitions in the early 1990s. Thus, moving beyond pessimistic or optimistic appraisals of the nexus between elections and democracy in Africa, the authors define elections as "brief periods" during which political change-either toward democratic progress or backsliding-is more likely to occur. The book's interesting findings draw on hundreds of elections, survey data, newspapers, and case studies. Starting with a path dependent argument to show the surprising importance of founding multiparty elections for political dominance and to explain the very limited alternation over time, the authors then explore the multiple mechanisms used by presidents to win elections. Emphasis is given to the role of incumbency, which allows presidents to claim credit for economic progress, access state resources, and control clientelistic networks to their own advantage, and to the illiberal