This timely book, written by a Zairian sociologist, provides a useful evaluation of the transition from one party dictatorship to multiparty democracy in Post-1990 Zaire. The in-depth causes of this failed transition are rooted in the Belgian colonialism, and more importantly in the nature and the role of the post-colonial state that Mobutu Sese Seko and his associates have engineered and implemented in Zaire for more than three decades and that is now disintegrating into civil war and rebellion.

The book calls for free market rationality and socio-economic development at the grass roots level as the prime mover that can recreate, empower and free the Zairian civil society in order to put the democratic transition back on track. This is a necessary and a sufficient condition that will enable this civil society to make appropriate choices of its representatives, who can design and set up social structures conductive to sustainable democracy.