Political History and Practice Prior to Transition

Abstract

In order to understand the changes in the political systems of Benin and Togo after the political transitions, and to better determine which of those changes is directly attributable to the transition government, we must first consider the political systems that came before the transition. The contrast between the old political systems and the post-transition systems begins here, both for Benin, where the democratic transition necessarily brought about important political changes, and for Togo, where democracy did not take hold, but significant political changes took place nonetheless. In each case, the attempted democratic transition represented a critical juncture in the country’s history, which does not render previous political history irrelevant. But the emphasis in this study is on what has significantly changed between the pre-transition governments of the 1970s and 1980s and the post-transition governments of the 1990s and beyond. This chapter provides some detail about the past political systems in both countries.