Twenty years after its ‘Second Liberation’ from authoritarian rule, Africa's experience of electoral democracy continues to both inspire optimism and generate despair. As its highly appropriate sub-title suggests, this wide-ranging and highly readable volume is principally concerned with exploring these divergent outcomes, identifying important processes and assessing the prospects for democratic consolidation. It represents an important contribution to the debate on African democracy.

The book begins with eight theoretical essays contributed by, amongst others, Richard Joseph, Joel Barkan, Larry Diamond and Michael Bratton. Two of these chapters offer particularly important insights relating to emergent areas of research. Firstly, Barkan provides a nuanced overview of parliamentary development in Africa which suggests that, despite uneven progress in empowering these institutions, ‘the legislature is emerging as a “player” in some countries’ (p. 45). Secondly, Bratton's analysis of Afrobarometer data – the only quantitative research to be found in the book – suggests that clientelism ‘can help to generate legitimacy for a democratic regime’ (p. 116). Unfortunately, however, none of the conceptual chapters are focused on political parties, which play a pivotal role in modern political contestation but which remain largely neglected within the literature.

The second part of the book contains sixteen single country case studies arranged by geographical region, rather than by theme. This broad array of essays facilitates a good balance between optimistic and pessimistic perspectives, while permitting the inclusion of cases sometimes neglected in studies of democratisation, such as the Republic of Somaliland. The analysis is generally informative, insightful and balanced, with Weiss' essay particularly noteworthy for its perceptive interpretation of the Democratic Republic of Congo's election in 2006. Unfortunately, however, this chapter represents – alongside Mbow's work on Senegal – the only case study drawn from francophone Africa, even though Mali and Benin would have offered valuable lessons on the entrenchment of democratic norms and institutionalisation of party competition. Indeed, the book also features an essay on Botswana which, given its predictions of a ‘downward spiral’ (p. 293), might be deemed unduly pessimistic by students of politics in that country.

Despite having been completely overhauled since its first edition appeared in 1999, the book does not primarily consist of new material, with twenty-one of its twenty-four essays having appeared in the Journal of Democracy prior to their inclusion here. Some of its content is, therefore, avoidably outdated. For example, Bratton and Masunungure ponder the possibility of a power-sharing deal between ZANU-PF and the MDC factions in Zimbabwe, even though such an agreement was struck in 2008, whilst Clark's essay on the ‘decline’ of military interventionism takes no account of recent adventurism in Mauritania, Niger, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Madagascar. Such difficulties do not, however, serve to invalidate the conclusions offered by these and other essays. Indeed, given its broad sweep of anglophone Africa, highly readable style, balanced perspectives, and penetrating analysis, this volume represents an important contribution to the field and a valuable resource for students wishing to comprehend the seemingly contradictory outcomes associated with African democratisation.