Who Asks for Democracy and Why?: Poverty and Demand for Democracy in Ten African Countries

This book is an attempt to contribute to the body of studies challenging the paradigm of African political backwardness that has dominated Africanist political science. It moves from the shortcomings in the literature about the poverty-democracy link and raises the question whether African poor are so backwarded to be unable to ask for democracy. The logistic regression analyses performed using data mainly from four waves of the Afrobarometer surveys (2000-2008) reveals that poverty instead of being an obstacle can sometimes stimulate demand for democracy. Such a result provides further support to the body of studies calling into question the paradigm of African political backwardness because it shows that even poor Africans should not be excluded from the possibility to ask for democracy.