Abstract

In this paper, I analyze and compare the origins and the source of the legitimacy of the institutions of government in the Western World and in former colonies Africa. I then look at the different forms of capital, in particular histo-cultural capital and social capital, and the access that people in the West and in Africa have to them. In comparing the two, I determine that while the West had the required conditions to establish Democracy, Colonialism and its effects did not allow Africans to tap into their capital, to convert it into the basis for the democracy. I finally look at postcolonial states in Africa, and establish that the process of democratization must be focused on long-term results.