Following a military coup in 1999 and flawed and violence-ridden elections in 2000, democracy in Côte d’Ivoire faces an uphill battle against the forces of xenophobia and ethnic chauvinism.
About the Author
Jeanne Maddox Toungara is professor of history at Howard University in Washington, D.C., where she teaches courses on Africa and the African diaspora. Her research interests include political culture, gender, and state formation in modern Africa. She lived in Côte d’Ivoire for 15 years and is completing a book-length manuscript about a nineteenth-century kingdom founded in its northwestern region.
In Africa today, investment flows in and civil societies grow stronger, yet many of the continent's leaders continue to behave autocratically, defending their privileges against the spread of law-based rule.
Although elections take place on schedule in Mozambique, they are of dubious quality, and the most recent one was held amid an uneasy peace following renewed outbursts of civil strife.…
