Zambia - The Problems of Democratic Consolidation

Abstract: Democratization has not taken firm root in sub-Saharan Africa even though many democratic transitions took place in the beginning of the 1990?s. Sub-Saharan Africa suffers in other words from a frozen democratic consolidation. This thesis creates a framework for analyzing why the path of consolidation is so rocky for the region and presents five different perspectives. Preconditions, the legacies from the old regime, Civil Society, the domestic elite and the global aspects are the five perspectives in the framework. Each aspect has a saying on why democracy tends not to deepen in sub-Saharan Africa. With the framework created we move on to a case study of Zambia. This particular country is chosen for its history as a democratic role-model for the region. Zambia had its first democratic elections in almost three decades in 1991, but the development towards a truly functional and deep democracy is almost not present. The created framework is applied and the state of the Zambian democracy analyzed. As a conclusion this thesis argues that the legacies from the old regime and the terrible economy as precondition are the two biggest obstacles to the process of democratic consolidation in Zambia.