In principle, the 2007 African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) could be a powerful instrument to bring the African Governance Architecture to life and to help ensure that its universal values, including respect for human rights and the rule of law, are implemented across all African Union member states. Yet how serious in reality are the latter on this question? Ratification of the African Charter has taken five years and, as of late 2019, the implementation of its compliance mechanism is still pending. This article asks how these empirical puzzles can be best addressed. In the absence of robust data on member states’ preferences and with a view to developing hypotheses for further research, this article inductively interrogates how data on the various regimes’ political liberties may or may not relate to the ratification of the African Charter and the implementation of the ACDEG compliance mechanism.

中文翻译：

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2007 年《非洲民主、选举和治理宪章》：试图理解《非洲宪章》迟迟批准和未执行其合规机制

原则上，2007 年《非洲民主、选举和治理宪章》(ACDEG) 可以成为使非洲治理架构栩栩如生并帮助确保其普世价值，包括尊重人权和法治的有力工具。在所有非洲联盟成员国实施。然而，后者在这个问题上实际上有多认真？《非洲宪章》的批准历时五年，截至 2019 年底，其履约机制的实施仍悬而未决。本文询问如何最好地解决这些经验难题。在缺乏关于成员国偏好的可靠数据以及为进一步研究提出假设的情况下，