This essay aims to examine and analyze how the political situation in Thailand looks like and what conditions Thailand has to become a consolidated democracy. This is achieved via a theoretical case study where Linz and Stepans five arenas of consolidated democracy is the center. This theory has been applied to the current political situation in Thailand to get to a conclusion on what the democratic situation actually looks like. In the end this essay comes to the conclusion that the democratic future of Thailand looks really dark and that the conditions for a possible consolidated democracy in the near future are really bad. The main reason for this dark democratic future is the current government and there unwillingnes to adept to a democratic system.

This thesis aims to examine Ghana's and Zimbabwe's democratization process and why the outcome is so different in each country, what are the central factors that have played a role in the country's success or defeat? The theoretical framework is based on Juan j. Linz and Alfred Stepan’s work on how a state becomes democratically consolidated and what constitutes as a consolidated democracy. The essay is a theory-consuming comparative case study focusing on Ghana’s and Zimbabwe’s democratization and why one of them succeeded and the other didn’t.  The results shows that Ghana have come a long way towards consolidating their democracy based on the demands of the theories and that because of their peaceful transition their democracy had a bigger chance of succeeding. Zimbabwe lacks a lot of the democratic procedures and have had a hard time transitioning to a democratic system.

Botswana's democracy has been labeled as ‘the African Miracle’ by the international community. However, in its 50 years of independence, there has been no change in government from the ruling party and the opposition is institutionally weak. The purpose for this study is to analyze the extent of democratic consolidation in Botswana and to try to analyze the challenges in the processes of democratic consolidation. In order to answer the research questions that are put forth in this study, Linz and Stepan’s theoretical framework were used against empirical evidence about Botswana from its independence in 1965 to 2015. The results show that in Botswana the democracy is not consolidated and point toward a more stable democracy than a deeply consolidated democracy. Stable democracy is centered upon the actual functions rather the depth of democracy. The main challenges for further democratic consolidation is the constitutional framework that lack accountability for the executive, the longevity of a dominant party system, the uneven ‘playing field’, the weak opposition, the restrictions and limitation upon the independent media and the civil society. Botswana’s exceptional reputation is exaggerated, while the country have had uninterrupted elections, the depth and quality of the democracy is shallow.