Public opinion and democratic legitimacy

When the third wave of democracy washed across Africa in the early 1990s, leading Africanists openly questioned whether civil liberties, multi-party elections, and representative institutions held any real meaning for ordinary Africans. Many suggested that the reforms that restored political rights and civil liberties, and ushered in multi-party elections, had taken place simply as a function of economic crisis (e.g. Bates 1994), or pressure from international actors such as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank (e.g. Munslow 1993; Young 1993; Nwajiaku 1994). Little attention, in contrast, was paid to the desires of Africans themselves.