Can Sudan’s ‘unlikely transition’ beat the odds?

From Democracy Digest, the National Endowment for Democracy’s daily blog:

U.N. humanitarian agency said Tuesday that tribal clashes between Arabs and non-Arabs in Sudan’s West Darfur province have displaced about 40,000 people, with thousands crossing to neighboring Chad,  Associated Press reports (HT:FDD).

After decades of dictatorship, Sudan’s unlikely transition to democracy may finally be happening. How did the battle-scarred country reach this point, and what might derail the delicate transition? asks Ashley Quarcoo, an international development practitioner and visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

History tells us that Sudan faces an uphill battle toward democracy. Between 1946 and 2010, more than three-quarters of the world’s toppled autocratic regimes ended up in another form of autocracy. Less than a quarter successfully moved toward democracy, she writes:

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