Historical institutionalism has been used to explain the emergence of democracy and dictatorship in various regions of the world, but not applied to political development in Africa. Based on the recently refined concepts of historical institutionalism, the aim of this study is to provide a...

Um die Gestalt und die Funktionsweise politischer Herrschaftssysteme zu verstehen und zu erklären, ist es notwendig, deren informelle Elemente - die neben formalen Elementen existieren und mit diesen interagieren - in den Blick zu nehmen. In der Tat haben sich die Politikwissenschaft und die...

Analyses of the shape and functioning of systems of political rule need to address informal institutions, which exist alongside and can relate to formal institutions in various ways. In this paper, I first discuss some analytical foundations of the study of such institutions. I then suggest that...

Neopatrimonialism relates to the co-existence of two different logics of political domination: legal-rational rule, which is associated with modern statehood, and patrimonial rule, which corresponds to the traditional type of domination. In recent years, the concept has been applied to...