There is considerable academic consensus that international organizations (IOs) help to support and foster the dominant regime type of its respective members, and that more democratically dense organizations will boost democracy within. In this context, the accession in 2014 of autocratic resilient Equatorial Guinea to the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries (CPLP) proves a compelling case-study as the official narrative emphasized membership would trigger a subsequent democratization process. However, ten years after the fact, such outcome remains open-ended. This paper argues that failure to lock-in such a path for Equatorial Guinea requires considering key idiosyncrasies in the supply-and-demand equation of democratization promotion efforts led by IOs. We explore this argument by demonstrating how the CPLP's institutional limitations and Equatorial Guinea’s own pursuit of autocratic survival have contributed to impede a democratization drive from taking hold.

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• Political Science - Social Sciences