That small African countries are relatively under-studied is as clear as it is undesirable, and therefore this examination of democratic contestation in six such countries is a timely and worthwhile contribution. Framed by Levitsky and Way's (Reference Levitsky and Way2002) concept of Competitive Authoritarianism, these six case studies offer rich and detailed information about the nature of politics in countries that tend to receive relatively scant attention (Botswana, Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, Djibouti and Guinea-Bissau). By imposing the framework of Competitive Authoritarianism, the editors cajole the contributors into focusing on five common ‘arenas of democratic contestation’: the electoral arena; the legislature; the judiciary; the media; and civil society. This is useful because it facilitates comparison across the cases, which the editors do in the concluding chapter, albeit somewhat briefly.
The editors' primary aim is to ‘draw attention to the democratic performance of less populated African nations’, and in this regard they are certainly successful. Moreover, this set of detailed and clearly structured case studies represents a valuable resource for scholars searching for information on these relatively under-examined countries. That being said, it is hard not to feel that the volume could have been a little more ambitious, both conceptually and theoretically. While the Competitive Authoritarianism framework provides welcome structure and clarity across the case studies, it also highlights at least two important issues that remain unacknowledged, and which in turn raise further questions.
The first of these issues concerns the substantial variation that is evident across the cases. Five of the six cases are coded as being Competitive Authoritarian, and yet as the case studies make clear, there are marked differences between these countries, across all five of the arenas. This raises a question about how useful the concept is, if it encompasses such a broad variety of regimes. For example, is it helpful to label not-quite-democratic Botswana and not-quite-authoritarian Togo in the same way? More interestingly though, it makes one wonder how this variation can be explained. Although the editors speak to this briefly in the concluding chapter, they could have gone much further in this regard.
The second issue concerns the subjectivity of coding the cases. Given the numerous arenas of contestation, and the amount of possible variation within each, it is not clear what the precise criteria for coding regimes as Competitive Authoritarian actually are. Again, this raises further questions. For example, Benin and Botswana are both close to democracy, so what would it take for either of them to cross the threshold away from Competitive Authoritarianism? Would we need to see development in just one, in some, or in all five of the arenas? The same question might be asked of Togo and Djibouti, which fall at the authoritarian end of the spectrum. Therefore although the theoretical framework is helpful, these illuminating cases raise important and searching questions of it, which this volume might have attempted to grapple with more thoroughly.
The editors are right in stating that the case studies in this volume can help inform democratic theory. Given that they have clearly thought a lot about this in the context of Africa, it seems a shame that they themselves did not go further theoretically, in an area that seems ripe for development. Nevertheless, the case studies in this worthwhile volume offer much for scholars of African politics to learn from and lean on.
