Rachel Beatty Riedl is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, Illinois. Riedl is an Executive Committee member of the Program of African Studies; is affiliated with the Program in Comparative-Historical Social Science; serves as a Faculty Associate in Equality, Development, and Globalization Studies at the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies; and is a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. She has also served as a visiting postdoctoral fellow in the Program on Democracy at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, Connecticut. Her work has been published in such journals as Comparative Political Studies and the African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review. She has consulted for USAID, the State Department, and the World Bank on governance reforms throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Riedl has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Her dissertation was awarded an honorable mention for the Juan Linz prize for best dissertation in comparative democratization from the APSA in 2009.

'This well-designed comparative study helps to explain the structure of political party competition in Africa's new democracies. The author shows how and why authoritarian precedents continue to shape institutional outcomes. Future analysts of party systems and democratic stability will have no choice but to take Riedl's important and challenging findings into account.' Michael Bratton, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies, Michigan State University

• 1. A theory of party system variation; 2. Variations in party system institutionalization in Africa; 3. Competing explanations: from colonial rule to new democratic institutions; 4. Modes of authoritarian power; 5. Authoritarian power and transition control; 6. The emergence and endurance of the multiparty system; 7. Africa and beyond: party systems in new democracies.

Rachel Beatty Riedl is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University, Illinois. Riedl is an Executive Committee member of the Program of African Studies; is affiliated with the Program in Comparative-Historical Social Science; serves as a Faculty Associate in Equality, Development, and Globalization Studies at the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies; and is a Faculty Associate at the Institute for Policy Research. She has also served as a visiting postdoctoral fellow in the Program on Democracy at the Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University, Connecticut. Her work has been published in such journals as Comparative Political Studies and the African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review. She has consulted for USAID, the State Department, and the World Bank on governance reforms throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. Riedl has been the recipient of fellowships and grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Kellogg Institute for International Studies at the University of Notre Dame, and the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies. Her dissertation was awarded an honorable mention for the Juan Linz prize for best dissertation in comparative democratization from the APSA in 2009.

'This well-designed comparative study helps to explain the structure of political party competition in Africa's new democracies. The author shows how and why authoritarian precedents continue to shape institutional outcomes. Future analysts of party systems and democratic stability will have no choice but to take Riedl's important and challenging findings into account.' Michael Bratton, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies, Michigan State University

• 1. A theory of party system variation; 2. Variations in party system institutionalization in Africa; 3. Competing explanations: from colonial rule to new democratic institutions; 4. Modes of authoritarian power; 5. Authoritarian power and transition control; 6. The emergence and endurance of the multiparty system; 7. Africa and beyond: party systems in new democracies.