Abstract
This paper broadly examines the continued nuancing of the practice of democracy in Africa with a focus on how Africa’s democratic governance is increasingly getting influenced by new actors in the international system, who are driving the formation of a new world order that challenges the current unipolar liberal global order. The paper traces the origins and rationale of the democratization project in Africa and uses this as a basis to delve into some issues around which many African countries have increasingly been engaging with new actors. These broad aspects include: Africa’s international relations, peace and security; civil liberties as well as investments and trade. This paper contends that some states in Africa are charting middle grounds that increasingly, specifically align with their national/elite interests, and broadly, is in tune with the consolidating discourse on Africa Rising.
Highlights
John Rabuogi Ahere *This paper broadly examines the continued nuancing of the practice of democracy in Africa with a focus on how Africa’s democratic governance is increasingly getting influenced by new actors in the international system, who are driving the formation of a new world order that challenges the current unipolar liberal global order
In the last 2 decades, Africa Rising has been a concept used to describe a continent whose states, as a collective, are said to be no longer spectators in global politics and trade
It has been referred to as a project in the sense that at the time of its introduction and adoption by African states, it was something seen more as a foreign ideology and less as something that was inspired by African people’s intrinsic values within their respective socio-cultural contexts. This is because the democratization project in Africa was introduced and continues to be supported by the West, who have had a history of placing immense diplomatic pressure on those countries that were less receptive of the ideology, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall (Thomson, 2000, pp. 167–168)
Summary
This paper broadly examines the continued nuancing of the practice of democracy in Africa with a focus on how Africa’s democratic governance is increasingly getting influenced by new actors in the international system, who are driving the formation of a new world order that challenges the current unipolar liberal global order. The paper traces the origins and rationale of the democratization project in Africa and uses this as a basis to delve into some issues around which many African countries have increasingly been engaging with new actors. These broad aspects include: Africa’s international relations, peace and security; civil liberties as well as investments and trade.
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