In Democracy in Africa, Nic Cheeseman provides a compelling and nuanced survey of the varieties of democracy that have emerged in Sub-Saharan Africa since the early 1990s. In doing so he attempts to explain the successes and failures of democracy in the region. Cheeseman's careful attention to the history of competitive politics in the region allows him to strike a delicate balance between breadth and depth in accounting for the different histories of democracy in Africa.

In the introduction, he outlines a relative cost theory of democratic transitions. In this view, two key factors drive the probability of transition to democracy (from an incumbent leader's point of view): the relative costs of repression and reform. The cost of repression is determined by the extent to which opposition groups are united, have material resources, and have the support of powerful civil society organisations. The cost of reform refers to the opportunity cost of leaving office – as determined by the loss of specific benefits of being in office and the risk of reprisals from successors. Cheeseman then situates this theoretical framework in the context of Africa, where he identifies neo-patrimonial rule, over-developed gatekeeper states and the preponderance of identity-based logics of political organisation to be key factors that further inflect the prospects of democratisation in the region.

The vantage point of a historical survey allows Cheeseman to detail how strategies of autocratic rule led to the first crisis of democracy in Africa and put different states on different trajectories. Then as now, incumbent African leaders sought to silence dissenting voices under the pretext of protecting a precarious sense of unity and stability. However, the silencing of opposition did not generate any dividends for most Africans. Instead, it only served to reinforce the practice of a politics of exclusion, ethnic favouritism and repression. This was met by resistance from different segments of African society – including civil society organisations, religious groups and students. The culture of defiance that emerged during this period found an opening in the economic crises that visited several African countries in the lost decade of the 1980s. The collapse of the Soviet Union marked the peak of the decade-long crisis of legitimacy of African autocratic regimes, forcing many of them to liberalise their politics by legalising multipartyism.

The process of democratic transition in Africa was helped along by Western donors eager to see the spread of their favoured systems of government. Cheeseman rightly notes that many of the West's democracy promotion efforts were too narrowly focused (e.g. the holding of multiparty elections) or too complex to be reasonably achievable (the creation of a citizenry capable of holding elected officials accountable). Many of these efforts also had a short time horizon, thereby limiting their scope.

Incumbent African leaders did not take the ongoing political changes lying down. Many fought back. Those with the advantage of having ample economic resources bought support using state resources. Others resorted to repressive tactics that drove opposition groups underground or into exile. Oftentimes these strategies were conditioned by pre-transition political developments. Over time violent strategies of political survival found acceptance in the wider global community as security concerns trumped commitment to political reform. Many of these repressive regimes also found an outside option in the form of economic assistance from China. Concerns over security and the economic rise of China effectively ended the efficacy of Western aid conditionalities in Africa.

Despite the many challenges to democratic consolidation in Africa outlined in the book's chapters, Cheeseman expresses optimism by highlighting cases that seem to trend in a normatively preferable direction. For example, Ghana has since 1992 seen the consolidation of a fairly stable two party system that has survived closely fought elections and seen peaceful transitions of power. At the same time, the mere existence of competitive politics has made incumbent presidents more responsive to voters – as seen in the spread of free primary education in Africa. Lastly, many African countries have adopted and observed the norm of two-term limits for holders of executive office.

Cheeseman concludes with a call to institutional innovativeness to deal with African countries' specific socio-political contexts. Such innovations may include the formal inclusion of chiefs to be part of state institutions; recognition of the need to balance political competition with ethnic inclusion; and smart forms of sub-national governance to diffuse conflicts over the allocation of scarce resources.

This is an admirable book that provides a concise history of the process of democratisation in Africa. Where it falls short is in the lack of a direct link between the theoretical framework outlined in the introduction and the different cases presented throughout the book. The account would have benefited from having fewer cases and a clearer explanation of how the cases proceed from and are informed by the theoretical framework. Cheeseman is the first to acknowledge the challenge of summarising 80 years of dozens of country-specific histories in 80,000 words. Nonetheless, the rich historical details in the book are a valuable resource to students of political development and democratisation in Africa. In particular, the book is a timely reminder of the importance of history in an age marked by a methodological bias towards the present and the easily quantifiable.