Democracy In Africa Research Articles

Gendered Analysis of the Wave of Coups and Terrorism in the Sahel

The prevalence of coups and terrorism in the Sahel raises serious human security concerns due to their devastating impact on socio-economic stability, state fragility, democratisation, etc. The current wave of coups and terrorism opens up avenues for asking questions about the progress of democratisation in Africa, issues of human security, protection of human rights, and, more specifically, how the prevalence of violence affects women’s lives. Hence, it is imperative to interrogate the resultant impact that the prevalence of coups has on the protection of women’s rights in the region. Therefore, this paper examines the gendered implications of the prevalence of coups and terrorism in the Sahel region. Using Nigeria and Burkina Faso as case studies, it argues for a gendered understanding of the differential impact that the increasing rate of terrorism, military coups, and worsening state fragility have on women, as well as their corresponding effects. This is in face of the prolonged Boko Haram insurgency in North-eastern Nigeria that has led to massive loss of lives, intense political instability with over 300 schoolgirls having been kidnapped till date and the September 2022 military coup led by Captain Ibrahim Traore in Burkina Faso that suspended the constitution with no progress for democratisation in sight. The paper employs a qualitative methodology and a thematic analytical framework to interrogate the gendered implications of coups and terrorism on women. It finds that a gendered analysis of coups and terrorism in the Sahel enables relevant bodies to implement preventive or mitigating measures aimed at managing hostilities, safeguarding human security, and promoting gender equality.

Language and democracy in Senegal

AbstractDemocracy is a Western concept often used to describe certain political regimes around the world, as well as a certain form of governance. In Senegal, this concept of Greek origin is one of the most widely used, even if some Senegalese do not have a clear understanding of it. For some, it means the freedom to give one's opinion without running the risk of being arrested. For others, it's about having institutions that guarantee the rights of all citizens. The paradox, however, is that politicians seek the votes of Senegalese voters in a language they understand but run the country in a language they do not. In this article, we seek to show the dichotomy between the language of the quest for power and the language of the exercise of that power. More broadly, the study addresses the role of Senegalese national languages in the exercise of democracy in the country. This study contributes to the debate on language and democracy in Africa, particularly in Senegal.

Nigeria’s 4-D Diplomacy and Regional Integration in West Africa: A Peacebuilding Debacle?

Nigeria’s soft power capabilities in Africa largely derive from its historical Afrocentric and good neighborliness foreign policy orientation. In West Africa and beyond, this foreign policy slant was activated to advance the de-colonial and anti-apartheid movements as well as restore political order in several security-beleaguered parts of Africa. Apart from the rigid application of Chapter Two of the ECOWAS Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance which frowns at power acquired or maintained through unconstitutional means, Nigeria’s Afrocentric and good neighborliness foreign policy posturing has shifted under President Bola Tinubu’s administration. The foreign policy shift reflects the global dominance of liberal democracy in the context of the resurgence of military coup d’état in West Africa. Relying on the fundamental assumptions of liberal internationalism, this study unpacked how the shift in Nigeria’s foreign policy stance has affected regional integration in West Africa. The study found that it is not in Nigeria’s national interest to be in open hostility with its proximate neighbors because of its inclination toward the propagation of the ideals of liberal democracy in Africa.

Lived Poverty and the Fate of African Democracies

In comparative politics, economic development is a requisite to democracy (Lipset, 1959). Democracy is deemed to fail in less developed countries as poverty has proven to be detrimental to democratic performance. This study offers a perspective on the effects of poverty on the fate of democracy in Africa. Models are estimated for the Poverty-Democracy linkages using variables derived from merged Afrobarometer survey data (2002-2018). The results indicate that poverty in Africa has a mixed effect on democracy more generally. In particular, the analysis indicates that the experience of poverty, which we have termed ‘lived poverty’, has a negative effect on demand and supply of democracy as well as on a number of attributes of political participation. The fact that the poor demand democracy less than the well-to-do while at the same time perceiving limited supply of democracy, in our view explains why more African regimes are consolidating as hybrid regimes instead of moving towards democratic consolidation

Where You Sit Is Where You Stand: Perceived (In)Equality and Demand for Democracy in Africa

In this paper, I explore whether perceived individual inequality is associated with popular demand for democracy in 33 African countries. Past research has diverged on whether individual-level inequality should increase or decrease support for democracy, with some arguing that people might see democracy as a solution to inequality, and others that people might see it as a cause. Much of this research however uses country- level measures of inequality. Recent research however increasingly suggests that such country-level scores of inequality insufficiently capture how ordinary people perceive levels of inequality. I advance our understanding of co-variates of demand for democracy by using a perceptual measure of inequality from the Afrobarometer survey: how people feel their living situation compares to others in their country. I find that perceived relative equality is significantly associated with greater demand for democracy, while perceptions of both relative deprivation and relative advantage are significantly associated with lower democratic demand. These effects are largely significant above and beyond the effect of absolute poverty and known predictors of demand for democracy, such as free and fair elections and level of education.

The Fragility of Democracy in Africa: Are Military Coups D’état a Never-Ending Issue?

The Fragility of Democracy in Africa: Are Military Coups D’état a Never-Ending Issue?

Social Policy, Development and Democracy in Africa: Reconnoitering Thandika Mkandawire’s Philosophy

Social Policy, Development and Democracy in Africa: Reconnoitering Thandika Mkandawire’s Philosophy

Effects of Digital Technologies on Africa’s Electoral Democracy

This paper uses a South African case study to closely examine how the recent explosion of digital technologies has impacted electoral democracy in Africa. It seeks to answer a key research question about the risks and benefits of using technology in elections on the continent. Although South Africa has not adopted e-voting, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) piloted the use of thousands of new voter management devices in the 2021 local government election. At the time, the IEC also said it had delivered its ‘most technologically advanced election’ yet. Despite embracing some of the technological changes, the IEC argues that it is not yet cost-effective to introduce new voting technology in South Africa. There is strong evidence from other African countries too suggesting that the constitutionality and feasibility of electronic voting devices is questionable. The integrity of elections can also be doubtful if the process is not inclusive of the population. Aside from a thorough literature review, this paper analysed a combination of official IEC statements and reports on technology and e-voting in South Africa, including public pronouncements on the use of digital technologies on the African continent. Insights from this work will benefit election officials, policymakers, scholars, and others interested in the advancement of research in this growing field of study.

Engendering Democracy in Africa: Women, Politics and Development

Engendering Democracy in Africa: Women, Politics and Development

The Character of the Post-Colonial State and Arms Proliferation in Fragile Democracies in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

The Character of the Post-Colonial State and Arms Proliferation in Fragile Democracies in Africa: The Nigerian Experience

"Reflecting back" on public participation in the judicial appointment of the South African Chief Justice?

After more than two decades of South Africa's democracy, the significance of the reform of the judiciary is grounded in the process of judicial appointments to restore its public credibility from South Africa's tainted past. Such reform is now constitutionalised through the establishment of the Judicial Services Commission (JSC) which serves as a focal point in the restoration of such confidence in the judiciary. The JSC's processes seek to ensure the rebuilding of public confidence which entails, amongst others the legitimacy of judicial appointments that should be reflective of gender and racial composition as envisaged in the Constitution 1996. However, the public has since weighed heavily on the criteria and discretion exercised by the JSC on its judicial appointment processes. The debates were intensified by President Ramaphosa's unprecedented reform to involve public participation and establishment of the advisory panel in his constitutional role of the nomination process of the Chief Justice. The President opened an opportunity for a pool of eligible candidates to be recommended for his consideration after they were determined and sifted by the advisory panel. The last four candidates were recommended by the panel and after their interviews, the JSC recommended Justice Mandisa Maya as Chief Justice for appointment by the President. Instead, the President appointed Justice Raymond Zondo as Chief Justice and Justice Maya as Deputy Chief Justice which raised debates and questions on the exercise of this constitutional discretion. The purpose of this article and its focus and limitation is to examine the role of public participation and the establishment of the advisory panel in the nomination process of the Chief Justice. It raises questions about whether public participation does not amount to the representative form of democracy in judicial appointments. In addition, it will restore trust, credibility, and confidence and extend the protection of the judiciary from unjustified attacks from the members of the public. In turn, the value of the credibility of the recommendations of the JSC as a constitutional structure in the judicial appointment processes. Therefore, the paper argues that public participation in the nomination of the Chief Justice is an indirect intrusion of the representative form of democracy in judicial appointments. Public participation is also unlikely to make a significant contribution to the protection accorded to the judiciary by the Constitution. If the President could "water down" the JSC's recommendation, there is uncertainty towards the strive for the attainment of transformative ideals of the new democracy.

Foreign Election Interference in Africa’s De-Democratization Culture

The 2016 USA elections appear to have made Russia the “poster-boy” for election interference across the globe, allegedly using tools such as disinformation, misinformation, mal-information, email hacking, leaking of confidential information, and others. All such activities are a threat to national self-determination, democracy, and the autonomy of the people. Since then, elections in developing democracies in Africa are also alleged to have experienced interference by the usual suspect: Russia. In Africa, the actors of election interferences have been expanded beyond Russia to include foreign countries and companies in past elections in Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, and Ghana. The next general elections in Ghana are in December 2024. In the previous general elections in Ghana, there were no significant allegations of election interference, although, in 2020, the specter of foreign election interference emerged in the political discourse. The actions of the domestic actors to de-democratize elections were mentioned selectively. It may be simplistic to argue in favor of election non-interference in Ghana’s political business cycle every four years since 1992, but the allegations are not supported by evidence and are merely anecdotal and subjective or based on geopolitical realism. What can be proven is the de-democratization of incumbents and other domestic political actors in domestic elections through open vote-buying by politicians and vote-rigging by incumbent political leaders. In such a political dysmorphic situation, it is difficult to accuse any entity of being the mastermind of election interferences in Africa.

A Return to Khaki Rule? Democracy and Africa's Lost History of Military Government

Abstract Much of West Africa (and particularly the Sahel) may be once falling again under military government. This essay asks what, if anything, historians of Africa can contribute to an understanding of this phenomenon. I argue that writing the history and understanding the memory of military government will entail a renewed approach to political history and social theory. It will also entail confronting — just as so many citizens are currently doing — the peculiar failures of democracy in Africa's neoliberal era.

Paulin Hountondji: The Struggle for Meaning and the Struggle for Action

AbstractPaulin Hountondji is an essential figure in the literary and philosophical world of Africa. Rereading The Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture, and Democracy in Africa allowed me to rediscover a man whose theoretical work is indissociable from action. Conscious of the dangers of sterile speculation and above all passionate about improving Africans’ conditions of existence, Hountondji develops a way of thinking that leads to action. My reflection foregrounds the priorities of a philosopher whose ultimate aim is human flourishing and the coming of freedom to the continent.

Sustaining democracy in Africa: The case for Ghana

AbstractOn balance, Africa generally has made some progress in good governance under liberal, multiparty democracy in the past two or three decades. But there are well‐noted, wide‐ranging dysfunctions in governance, which inhibit human development and fulfilment. Several papers have been published, which propose various solutions to the dysfunctions. Among them are proposals for types of all‐inclusive democratic politics. I examine a couple of these proposals and conclude that they generate formidable feasibility challenges, even for the types of democracy they advocate. This paper focuses on Ghana, but with a thrust intended to have import for the sustainability of democracy across Africa. The argument is basically that the operating democratic constitutions in Africa provide a normatively desirable liberal, multiparty democracy, which promises a reasonably good life for all without exception; but practice has resulted in enduring, multiple deprivations and low standards of living for millions of citizens. The reason for the undesirably wide gap between the ideal and the practice is not because multiparty democracy is inconsistent with African traditions or is otherwise not good for Africans, as some scholars claim, but because of those who tend to run it—their general incompetence, including or marked by their intellectual and ethical inability to rise above partisan limitations and failure to leverage the efficiencies of the free market system. The proposed solution for Ghana, intended to eliminate or significantly mitigate the dysfunctions just mentioned and to sustain the multiparty democracy, is to redesign the National Development Planning Commission (NPDC), a constitutional organ which serves the partisan executive, into a robust, non‐partisan, independent institution, anchored on the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances, to enable it to do at least the following two things: (a) to produce, with representation from key stakeholders, including political parties, technocratically objective, competent, efficient and accountable rolling and all‐inclusive National Development Plans (NDPs) in place of vote‐inspired and partisan manifestoes, with budgets approved by parliament; and (b) to monitor, evaluate and report on the governing party's implementation of the NDPs to parliament. Democracy will become sustainable as the general quality of lives grows steadily under the continuous implementation of all‐inclusive NDPs, which are to be crafted to efficiently and sustainably deliver public goods and services that serve district, regional and the common needs and interests of all Ghanaians rather than the interests of the few and powerful or, at best, of majorities.

Understanding democracy in Africa: Concept and praxis

AbstractDemocracy is a political system that has some universal appeal, and, this seems to invest it with some kind of legitimacy over other systems of government. But this in no way suggests that it is homogenously conceived or practiced across the world—particularly in Western and African countries. Yet there is some supposition that some cultures have (almost) perfected their practice of democracy while others are learning its rudiments. This tends to arouse the philosopher's interest in the conceptual and practical bases for the supposition. In African philosophy, the notion of consensus has often been touted as a kernel and mēnsūra for evidence of democracy in traditional African thought. This paper examines the propriety of this move, taking into account the specific positions of the Ghanaian philosophers, Kwasi Wiredu and Kwame Gyekye. It explores the political dynamics of contemporary Africa and brings out the challenges and prospects for the sort of democracy that is being practiced—or, at least, is said to be practiced—in Africa. It is often debated in African political thought whether consensus or majoritarian rule (characterized by such activities as voting and multipartism) defines democracy, but the paper argues that neither of them really brings about democracy. It then highlights the humanistic end of democracy. Using the Ghanaian experience especially, the paper proposes ways of improving the understanding and practice of democracy in Africa.

Why democracy fails in Africa

AbstractOftentimes, we have been informed that democracy is the best form of government possible. In African politics, this view has mostly been adopted and pursued as true. Surprisingly, democracy has mostly failed as a system in most parts of the continent—with most democratic governments undermining the mandates of the citizens who are supposed to have placed them in power, and also escalating the already spiralling decline of the continent through bad leadership and corruption. In this article, and with Nigeria as the primary case study, I offer explanations regarding why democracy fails in most African countries. Specifically, I argue that mass miseducation and false self‐interestedness are the main culprits that limit the success of democracy in Africa. I further propose that democracy in Africa can only be salvaged when there is proper moral ideology guiding the informal education of citizens, when citizens are offered proper quality formal education that would grant them the necessary skills and aid them to make informed decisions, and when citizens take a turn from false self‐interestedness to true self‐interestedness (which is fealty to collective interests).

The Truth About Africa's Coups

Abstract: The recent coups in Africa do not portend a return to praetorian politics in the region. They are the outcomes of country-specific historical processes associated with the underdevelopment of state capacity, the decay of political institutions, and the failures of electoral politics to improve citizens' material conditions. At the same time, the coups are an important warning regarding the state of democracy in Africa. Surveys show that majorities of Africans harbor both a deep dissatisfaction with democracy and an openness to military interventions to address civilian political dysfunction. While coup contagion is a remote possibility due to strong norms against military rule in much of the region, popular dissatisfaction with democracy and permissiveness towards military interventions in politics present a real risk of autocratization through elections.

RESURGENCE OF MILITARY COUPS IN AFRICA: CAN THE AFRICAN UNION AND REGIONAL ORGANIZATIONS DEFEND AND CONSOLIDATE DEMOCRACY?

Since the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) transformed into the African Union (AU), the continental body has abandoned the non-interventionist tenet in favor of non-indifference. It also adopted the Unconstitutional Changes of Government (UCG) framework as well as other measures to protect and strengthen democracy. The UCG and other current frameworks are challenged by the recent uptick in military coups and coup attempts, which also shows a democratic backsliding and poses a significant danger to the consolidation of democracy in Africa. Since achieving independence, the African continent has been consistently afflicted by instances of coups and attempted coups. Contrary to popular opinion, the return of coups over the last ten years suggests that enhanced democratic practices do not always result in fewer instances of coups or coup attempts. Even while the AU and other regional organizations in Africa are politically determined not to reward military governments or those that have emerged from extra-constitutional arrangements by allowing them to join the community of nations, the plague persists. This essay examines the application of the AU’s methodology for using UCG together with other metrics. It also makes an effort to provide other hypotheses for the recurrence of this phenomenon. The study suggests that it is time for the AU to properly apply its UCG strategy outside of coup events to successfully preserve and consolidate democracy. The AU has to have the guts to investigate what leads to these illegitimate coups and pay more attention to the rising danger to democracy in Africa.

Resisting change: Explaining education policy reforms in Ghana

AbstractThis article examines the complexities surrounding the implementation of comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) within Ghana's basic education system, exploring the intersection of religious, cultural, and political factors. Introducing CSE has sparked significant public discourse and resistance in Ghana, where religious and cultural beliefs are deeply ingrained and often institutionalized in politics. The study utilizes punctuated equilibrium theory to understand the sustained opposition to CSE policy changes. It examines the historical progression of Ghana's educational reforms, highlighting the struggle to maintain cultural and religious values while promoting human rights and gender equality. The contribution of this study is its exploration of the political institutionalization of religion in Ghana, investigating the combined impact of religious bodies, political entities, and civil organizations in shaping public opinion on education policy reform. It further underscores the intricate task of navigating socio‐cultural beliefs and human rights in policy‐making processes.Related ArticlesBingham, Natasha. 2016. “Fighting for Our Cause: The Impact of Women's NGOs on Gender Policy Adoption in Four Former Soviet Republics.” Politics & Policy 44(2): 294–318. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12155.Holst, Cathrine, and Mari Teigen. 2024. “The ‘Boy Problem’ in Public Policy.” Politics & Policy 52(1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12570.Nchofoung, Tii, Simplice Asongu, Vanessa Tchamyou, and Ofeh Edoh. 2022. “Gender, Political Inclusion, and Democracy in Africa: Some Empirical Evidence.” Politics & Policy 51(1): 137–55. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12505.