This thought-provoking book does not simply link the West's good governance agenda with the demise of the Soviet Union. Abrahamsen shows that this democratic agenda involves little more than superficial institutional reforms. The West's primary goal in developing countries remains the enforcement of structural adjustment. African governments, in particular, remain in a double bind, nominally responsible to their electorates at home, but also beholden to external creditors and donors. Demands by impoverished electorates that their new democratic institutions actually work to defend their interests are often branded as illegitimate by the West.