Theorizing in Comparative Politics
Democratization in Africa

This book moves comparison beyond a narrow focus on democratization to better understand politics in developing regions of the world.

Goran Hyden (Author)

9781009429511, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 18 January 2024

186 pages
23.5 x 15.5 x 1.7 cm, 0.408 kg

'The book is written with pace, wit, and authority, the author bringing to bear a lifetime of reflection and publishing on the issues under study … an ambitious, accessible, and thought-provoking book which will be important reading for students of African politics, and Comparative Politics more generally, and will no doubt be an essential reference point for both graduate and undergraduate course convenors on these topics.' Jonathan Fisher, Perspectives on Politics

This book addresses a pertinent issue in comparative politics: how can the discipline do analytical justice to regions of the world that differ historically from the Western experience? For decades the West has served as a baseline against which all other regions are assessed, most recently in studies of democratization. Structural differences between regions have been ignored in favour of explanations based on human agency and institutions. In Theorizing in Comparative Politics, Goran Hyden uses the countries of Africa as an empirical case to demonstrate what a structural approach adds to the comparative study of democracy. Priorities like state-building challenge the effort to shape democratic regimes and call for explanations that recognize the impact of local power dynamics on the prospects for democratic development. Informative and thoughtful, this book sheds light on issues that have been underexplored in the field in recent years.

1. Three theoretical spurts
2. How history matters
3. Relevance of social formations
4. Nation-states and state-nations
5. Regimes and institutions
6. Parties and ideology
7. Culture and the public sphere
8. Four neighbours, four regimes
9. What Africa teaches us.

Subject Areas: Constitution: government & the state [JPHC]