Why do some regime transitions generate effective and successful democratic states which persist over many decades while other autocracies persist unreformed? This process can be illustrated during the last decade by developments in two neighboring states in West Africa, Benin and Togo, which took divergent pathways on the road traveled to democracy. Both Benin and Togo inherited the legacy of French colonial rule. Both are poor. Both are multiethnic societies. Both states gained national independence in 1960, and after a few short years as fragile parliamentary democracies, both became military dictatorships. Yet in the early-1990s, under a new constitution, one made the transition to a relatively successful democratic regime, experiencing a succession of elections during the last decade which observers have rated as free and fair, and a peaceful and orderly transition of power from governing to opposition parties. The other remains today an unreconstructed and corrupt military-backed autocracy.

What caused the contrast? In particular, did the power-sharing constitution adopted in Benin during the early-1990s facilitate the development of a sustainable democracy? Proponents of power-sharing arrangements make strong claims that regimes which include elite leaders drawn from rival communities encourage moderate and cooperative behavior in divided societies. Power-sharing regimes are widely believed to be valuable for democracy in all states, but to be vital for containing and managing intercommunal tensions in multiethnic societies emerging from civil conflict, thereby helping to sustain fragile democracies.