Emergent Democracies and Electoral Processes in Sub-Saharan Africa

The main argument is that to explain the importance of democratization processes in Sub-Saharan Africa, it is necessary to take as a referent the authoritarian roots of modern States, which emerged out of decolonization. This enables us to understand the dimensions of the qualitative change that began in the 1990s. This change generates, among other democratic goods, the citizens’ preference for democratic regimes, the expansion of fundamental rights and the legitimacy of elected governments within multi-party systems.