Atlas / Claim checks / Does democracy work in Africa
Does democracy work in Africa? The claim, measured
“Democracy has failed in Africa.”
Measured against Botswana Democratic Party and Mauritian Democracy
Distance is measured across six independent axes, each running from −10 to +10, out of a maximum separation of 49.0. How the scoring works →
Strongest case for the claim
Since 2020 there have been successful coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Niger, Sudan and Gabon. Several liberation parties have governed unbroken for four decades. Several long-serving presidents have removed term limits from their own constitutions.
Strongest case against
Botswana held competitive elections continuously from independence and handed power to the opposition in 2024 after fifty-eight years. Mauritius ranks at the top of African democracy indices with repeated alternation. Cape Verde's ruling party legalised opposition and then lost. Ghana has transferred power between rival parties four times. Malawi's constitutional court annulled a fraudulent presidential election and the opposition won the rerun.
What the coordinates show. The atlas codes twenty-seven African organisations. They span from −08 to +10 on the authority axis — the full width of the ruler. The generalisation in the question is not wrong about the cases it selects; it is wrong because it is a generalisation, and the counter-cases are recorded here specifically because they are never the ones cited.
The six measurements
| Axis | BDP | Mauritian Democracy | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +04 | +03 | 1 |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +04 | +02 | 2 |
| AU · Organisation of power | −03 | −05 | 2 |
| SC · Scale of decision | +03 | +02 | 1 |
| ID · Rule of membership | +03 | +02 | 1 |
| CH · Method and tempo | −08 | −08 | 0 |
Both cases are stated because the atlas does not settle arguments by assertion. Where the underlying dispute is conceptual rather than factual, that is said plainly rather than resolved.
Full comparisonCheck it yourself
The interactive atlas holds 319 organisations on six independent axes with the evidence for every score. Paste any claim that equates two political things and it will find them and report the measurement.