How do individual Africans view competitive elections? How do they behave at election time? What are the implications of new forms of popular participation for citizenship and democracy? Drawing on a decade of research from the cross-national Afrobarometer project, the authors of this seminal collection explore the emerging role of mass politics in Africa's fledgling democracies.

Zimbabwe's July 2013 election brought the country's inclusive power-sharing interlude to an end and installed Mugabe and ZANU-PF for yet anotheraits seventhaterm. Why? What explains the resilience of authoritarian rule in Zimbabwe?
Tracing the country's elusive search for political stability across the decades Michael Bratton offers a careful analysis of the failed power-sharing experiment an account of its institutional origins and an explanation of its demise. In the process he explores key challenges of political transition: constitution making elections security-sector reform and...