Paper short abstract:

Does democracy lead to popular welfare in Africa? During the 1990s,the Sub-Saharan region witnessed a second wave of democratization.Today many of new democracies in Africa have improved their growth rates.Unfortunately,this has not yet brought a broad-based prosperity.What are the reasons?

Paper long abstract:

This paper mainly seeks to discuss, in an African framework, the link between democracy and poverty reduction. Does democracy lead to popular welfare in Africa? The collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989 - followed by both the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War - brought a lot of changes in global politics and economics. It goes without saying that these changes had an impact in Africa as well. During the 1990s, the Sub-Saharan region witnessed a second wave of democratization, the so called "Second revolution" (Omozuanvbo Ihonvbere, 2006). Today, many Sub-Saharan countries have completed the first phase of the democratization process and have laid the foundations of a democratic form of government (El-Khawas and Ndumbe, 2005). Peter Lewis (2012) notes that many of new democracies in Africa have improved their growth rates significantly. Unfortunately, Lewis (2012) asserts that the economic growth in the new African democracies has not yet brought a broad-based prosperity. This is confirmed by Fukuyama (2012) who argues that around the world, many democratic transitions have been stalled or threatened by the existence of large inequalities between rich and poor.

Hence, this discussion will investigate the reasons why the democratization and the economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa have failed to reduce poverty. It will also explore the conditions of a positive link between good governance and popular welfare in Africa.