Democracy and Economic Reforms

During the early 1980s many African countries were compelled by bad economic circumstances and poor economic prospects to adopt structural adjustment programs dictated by their external creditors. By the late 1980s, it had become clear that these economic reform programs were failing to achieve their objectives. This factor as well as the effective disintegration of the Soviet empire enabled the Western-dominated multilateral institutions to insist on a simultaneous adoption of democratic political reforms- ostensibly, as a mechanism for introducing accountability (good governance) to policy making. Although the combination appears illogical due to the social and political instability which result from SAPs, there are compelling reasons to believe that also they may lead to more democratic political economies.