Kwasi Wiredu’s consensual democracy and one-party polities in Africa

Abstract

How justified are those who think that the clamour for one-party politics in Africa was inspired by the character of African consensual democracy such as the one defended by Kwasi Wiredu? I show that though Wiredu’s consensual democracy may share some similarities with a one-party polity, it does not necessarily follow that it has inspired the emergence of one-party polities in Africa. Similarly, the absence of any discernible similarities between African consensual democracy and one-party polity may not also necessarily entail that the former has not inspired the latter. When one considers the ontological nature of Wiredu’s consensual democracy and the one-party polity, it becomes contentious to claim that the latter emerges from the former. However, based on Wiredu’s idea of consensual democracy, one might argue that consensual democracy has a common ancestry with a one-party polity because they both seem to emerge from “party1”.