So, at some level, a belief in democracy was necessary in Benin as in elsewhere. Support for it - Absolutely. But what's interesting in the Benin case is that you were lacking that level of political elite leadership that were committed democratic ideologues.
Rachel Beatty Riedl
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A full transcript is available at www.democracyparadox.com.
Rachel Beatty Riedl is the John S. Knight Professor of International Studies, Director of the Einaudi Center for International Studies, and professor in the Department of Government at Cornell University. She also cohosts the podcast Ufahamu Africa with Kim Yi Dionne. Her chapter "Africa’s Democratic Outliers Success amid Challenges in Benin and South Africa" appears in the forthcoming book Democracy in Hard Places.
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