Building on theoretical insights from research on the rentier state and the "resource curse," several studies have supported the argument that oil hinders democracy. However, previous research on the rentier state has neglected the global surge of multiparty autocracies or "electoral...

In the early 1990s most African countries carried out extensive reforms of their electoral regimes. Adopting a historical institutionalist approach, this paper critically examines the role of institutional path dependence in accounting for the setup of six African electoral regimes. For this...

This paper builds on institutional analysis to generate new conclusions about the economic viability of federalism. It does so by suggesting that Weingast´s seminal model of marketpreserving federalism falls short of accounting for the poor fiscal performance of multitiered systems in the...

Scholars of institutional design attribute large importance to the choice of new institutions. The comparative analysis of how Rwanda and Zambia crafted their new electoral systems and the systems of government regards procedural, structural and rational choice variables which may influence the...

While much has been written about the special design of Rwanda's judiciary in order to handle the aftermath of the genocide in 1994, other institutional actions resulting from the 2003 constitution have rarely been addressed in research. However, the second (partial) parliamentary elections in...