Electoral authoritarianism: persistence and innovation in sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter deals with electoral authoritarianism, a comparatively new form of non-democratic rule that has rapidly spread across the world during the past three decades. We first systematize the vast literature on electoral authoritarianism. Subsequently, we map the various trajectories these regimes followed in terms of origins and stability, and discuss some of the internal and external dynamics favouring their persistence. We do so by focusing on sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to almost half of the world’s electoral autocracies and thus represents an optimal context for an in-depth study of variations within this category of non-democratic regimes.