In Democratization by Elections, Staffan Lindberg brings together an impressive range of contributors to further test and develop his theory that simply holding multi-party elections has an independent democratising effect on the wider political landscape, which he first introduced in Democracy and Elections in Africa. Lindberg's influential hypothesis is that because elections teach voters democratic arts, provide opportunities for opposition coordination, and make it legally possible for incumbents to lose, they are far more than simply a barometer of the level of democracy in a given country. He argues that the impact of elections on the wider political landscape has been so significant that they deserve to be seen as nothing less than the motor of democratisation in contemporary Africa. Although Democracy and Elections in Africa was well received, some sceptics remained unpersuaded of the positive power of the polls; significantly, the evidence from disastrous elections in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe seemed to suggest precisely the opposite conclusion to that drawn by Lindberg. Two main doubts were raised about the theory of democratisation by elections, one empirical and one theoretical. The empirical doubt was simply whether all elections could be expected to have a positive impact on democratic consolidation. This was connected to a central theoretical concern: exactly what are the mechanisms through which elections shape wider political processes, and do these mechanisms play out in the same way in all cases? Because Lindberg's first book was primarily a comparative analysis of quantitative data, the mechanisms through which elections work their magic were not specified in great depth or illustrated through case studies.

Democratization by Elections represents a brave attempt to address both these empirical and theoretical issues head-on. Indeed, Lindberg deserves great credit for inviting some of the best scholars working on the topic – including Jason Browlee, Valerie Bunce, Larry Diamond, Alex Hadenius, Jonathan Hartlyn, Ellen Lust-Okar, Jennifer McCoy, Pippa Norris, Jan Teorell and Sharon Wolchik – to interrogate his initial proposition. The book is divided into three parts. The first presents a series of regional and global quantitative studies of the impact of elections which go a long way to refining the empirical foundations of Lindberg's original hypothesis. One of the most important findings comes in Roessler and Howard's chapter on post-Cold War political regimes, which demonstrates that elections are not equally important everywhere; rather, they are most significant in the sub-set of competitive-authoritarian regimes. Hegemonic-authoritarian regimes are essentially closed, and so do not allow the necessary democratic oxygen for elections to empower voters and strengthen the opposition. Electoral democracies are already operating at a significant level of democracy, and are unlikely to be transformed into liberal democracies simply by holding repeated polls. But in competitive-authoritarian systems, where opposition parties meaningfully participate in elections (even though these polls are often heavily rigged against them), elections have liberalising effects. One important implication of this finding is that elections are more likely to be significant in Africa, where competitive-authoritarian regimes predominate, than in Europe or Latin America.

The second section of the book contains a number of chapters that deal in greater depth with specific regions or countries, in order to illuminate the strategic interaction between opposition parties and incumbents around elections. Chapters by Schedler, Bunce and Wolchik, and Moraski, do much to advance our understanding of how elections shape wider political processes in a range of electoral-authoritarian contexts. Africanists will be particularly interested in a chapter on the dynamics of electoral competition by van de Walle and Rakner that fleshes out how the reintroduction of multi-party elections on the continent impacted on legislatures and opposition structures. In the final section of the book, Andreas Schedler and Lindberg draw together the lessons from the preceding chapters to build a theory of democratisation by elections, which Lindberg persuasively argues is needed because democratic consolidation in countries such as Benin and Ghana is guided by processes that are ‘distinct from the paths depicted in the “old” transition literature’ and are hence ‘in need of a supplementary theory’ (p. 341).

The tight focus of the book and the high quality of the contributors ensure that Democratization by Elections is more coherent and focused than most edited collections. However, while all of the contributors agree that elections can be powerful motors of democratisation under certain circumstances, the authors vary in their level of confidence in the overall power of the polls. For example, while Lindberg is keen to emphasise that holding elections ‘has emerged as an important mode of transition’ (p. 341), Schedler strikes a more cautious note, pointing out that ‘elections do not in general bear democratizing consequences’ (p. 308). Given this, one is tempted to wonder whether Democratization by Elections? would have been a more appropriate title. But the variation in emphasis throughout the book does not detract from the significance of this collection: rather, it is a natural consequence of the different regional backgrounds of the scholars involved and the fact that this project is part of an on-going conversation about a new research agenda. Overall, Democratization by Elections represents an important contribution to our understanding of how competitive-authoritarian regimes evolve. It is destined to become required reading for those interested in understanding contemporary political events, especially in Africa. Those sceptical of the positive impact of electoral politics will find it far harder to reject the well-researched and carefully thought-through findings presented here. By refining and further elaborating his initial hypothesis, Lindberg has arrived at an argument that is both path-breaking and persuasive.