This chapter analyses the trajectory of African democracies in the context of the changing meanings ascribed to democracy in donor discourses. Put simply, I argue that the manner in which democracy is conceptualized in develop- ment discourse and democracy promotion has implications for the practice of democracy. Approaching democracy as an essentially contested concept, the chapter charts democracy’s shifting status and the meaning ascribed to it in development discourse and thus reveals its contingent and constructed character. Combining a theoretical and textual analysis with an empirical discussion of processes of democratization on the continent, it shows how the practical and political consequences of development discourse’s narrations of democracy can be the support and maintenance of authoritarian practices, and in some cases even authoritarian regimes.
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