Summary of the factors leading to the crisis of democratization

Most of the countries of the Greater Horn of Africa (GHA) participated in the post-Cold War democratization wave by broadening access to some aspects of civil liberties to their populace, liberalizing the press, establishing multi-party systems, and conducting elections. However, the democratization process in the region has not advanced much beyond these initial steps. Over two and half decades after the initial changes, democratization in the region remains stagnant with widespread human rights violations, dominant parties controlling the political process, and elections that hardly bring about changes in ruling parties or leadership. Widespread violations of customary land rights by the state, marginalization and poverty of various identity groups, rampant state-identity conflicts, corruption, persistent inequality of women, and disproportionate unemployment and alienation of the youth are other manifestations of the stagnation of the democratization process. Under such conditions, it is safe to say that political power in the region continues to serve the interests of the elite in power rather than the interests of the public.

Given the conspicuous crisis of the democratization process in the countries of the GHA, one principal objective of this volume has been to explain the key factors that engender the crisis. A second objective was to explore an alternative approach that would transform the structural and institutional factors that have choked the democratization process.

As pointed out in many of the chapters, the factors that impede democratization are many, although they vary in importance. The primary group of factors are the underlying structural and institutional conditions. One such underlying factor relates to the problems of diversity management and crisis of nation building, which foster numerous conflicts that stifle the democratization process. Another underlying factor is the institutional fragmentation that delinks large segments of the population from the institutions of the state and hinders their effective participation in the political process. A third factor is deformed state structures that concentrate power in the hands of the executive body of the state (often autocratic men) and hinder the establishment of strong mechanisms of horizontal accountability within the different organizations of the state as well as vertical accountability to citizens at large.