Commentaries on recent political developments in the sub-Saharan region run the gamut from giddy Afrophilia to gloomy Afropessimism. Early assessments were hopeful, seeing the peaceful electoral displacement of authoritarian regimes in countries like Benin and Zambia as harbingers of “political renewal” and a “second liberation.” A critical backlash soon followed in the wake of a series of disputed elections in places like Angola and Kenya. At best, analysts pondered thoughtfully about the sustainability of multiparty competition under conditions of ethnic fragmentation and elite corruption or, at worst, lapsed into apocalyptic warnings of impending civil disorder in the wake of the “stalling . . . winds of change.”
