This book shows that democratization in sub-Saharan Africa can be successful even if the
government remains dominated by one major political party. If an institutionalized and strong
opposition party - even when too weak to take power - challenges the dominant government party
the quality of democracy improves substantially. The comparative study demonstrates that
competitive opposition parties in dominant party systems are rooted in the historical legacy of
political cleavages related to de-colonization that precede the third wave of democratization
of the 1990s and have survived the instability of post-independence political developments to
the present day. The study covers 19 African countries and 55 elections overall including four
in-depth case studies of Botswana Lesotho Ghana and Mali. It offers scholars and
practitioners of electoral democracies and competitive authoritarian regimes a novel view on
the role of party systems in processes of democratization. It makes an important contribution
to the general literature on state building intertwined with democratization and representation
in old and new democracies.
