Introduction

Abstract

Since 1989, when democracy’s third wave began its sweep across Africa, over fifty-seven new constitutions have been adopted in forty-one African countries. And yet only a handful of these have laid the groundwork for more democratic states. This stunning statistic leads us to ask: Why has African constitutionalism failed so consistently? The answer seems to lie in the fact that successful democratic transitions depend not just on reformulating the rules that govern society by writing new constitutions, but on establishing governmental and institutional legitimacy. After years of centralized rule and routine abuse of power, the challenges to establishing legitimate postcolonial states are immense. While the sovereign National Conference of Benin remains a landmark event that cleared the path for democratic transitions in several Francophone states, the memory of Zaire weighs heavily as an example of elite manipulation of the constitutional conference that was to liberalize that famously corrupt state. Since the collapse of Mobutu Sese Seko’s regime, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC, formerly Zaire) have been besieged by a devastating conflict that has taken nearly four million lives to date. This conflict was exacerbated by the genocide into which Rwanda plunged in 1994 as a result of attempts to democratize the deeply divided country.