Download or read book Democracy and Development in Africa written by Claude Ake and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2001-09-19 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite three decades of preoccupation with development in Africa, the economies of most African nations are still stagnating or regressing. For most Africans, incomes are lower than they were two decades ago, health prospects are poorer, malnourishment is widespread, and infrastructures and social institutions are breaking down. An array of factors have been offered to explain the apparent failure of development in Africa, including the colonial legacy, social pluralism, corruption, poor planning and incompetent management, limited in-flow of foreign capital, and low levels of saving and investment. Alone or in combination, these factors are serious impediments to development, but Claude Ake contends that the problem is not that development has failed, but that it was never really on the agenda. He maintains that political conditions in Africa are the greatest impediment to development. In this book, Ake traces the evolution and failure of development policies, including the IMF stabilization programs that have dominated international efforts. He identifies the root causes of the problem in the authoritarian political structure of the African states derived from the previous colonial entities. Ake sketches the alternatives that are struggling to emerge from calamitous failure--economic development based on traditional agriculture, political development based on the decentralization of power, and reliance on indigenous communities that have been providing some measure of refuge from the coercive power of the central state. Ake's argument may become a new paradigm for development in Africa.
Download or read book Democracy Good Governance and Development in Africa written by Mawere, Munyaradzi and published by Langaa RPCIG. This book was released on 2015-10-24 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in the view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socioeconomically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and malicious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions as to why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africa’s diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africa’s multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continent’s long-standing political and socio-economic dilemmas and setbacks.
Download or read book Popular Media Democracy and Development in Africa written by Herman Wasserman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-10-04 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Popular Media, Democracy and Development in Africa examines the role that popular media could play to encourage political debate, provide information for development, or critique the very definitions of ‘democracy’ and ‘development’. Drawing on diverse case studies from various regions of the African continent, essays employ a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to ask critical questions about the potential of popular media to contribute to democratic culture, provide sites of resistance, or, conversely, act as agents for the spread of Americanized entertainment culture to the detriment of local traditions. A wide variety of media formats and platforms are discussed, ranging from radio and television to the Internet, mobile phones, street posters, film and music. As part of the Routledge series Internationalizing Media Studies, the book responds to the important challenge of broadening perspectives on media studies by bringing together a range of expert analyses of media in the African continent that will be of interest to students and scholars of media in Africa and further afield.
Download or read book Democracy and Development in Mali written by R. James Bingen and published by MSU Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mali, a country rich with history and culture, but one of the poorest in the world, emerged in the 1990s as one of Africa's most vibrant democracies. Strengthened by bold political and economic reforms at home, Mali has emerged as a leader in African peace keeping efforts. How has such a transition taken place? How have these changes built on Mali's rich heritage? These are the questions that the contributors to this volume have addressed. During the past twenty-five years, the scholarly research and applied development work of Michigan State University faculty and students in Mali represents the most significant combined, long-term, and continuing contribution of any group of university faculty in the United States or Europe to the study of Malian society, economy, and politics. The applied nature of much of this work has resulted in a significant number of working papers, reports, and conference presentations. This volume represents a coherent and connected set of essays from one American university with a widely known and highly respected role in African development. While the essays identify and review Mali's unique historical and contemporary path to democracy and development, they also contribute to the advancement of theoretical knowledge about African development.
Download or read book Democracy in Africa written by Nic Cheeseman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-12 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides the first comprehensive overview of the history of democracy in Africa and explains why the continent's democratic experiments have so often failed, as well as how they could succeed. Nic Cheeseman grapples with some of the most important questions facing Africa and democracy today, including whether international actors should try and promote democracy abroad, how to design political systems that manage ethnic diversity, and why democratic governments often make bad policy decisions. Beginning in the colonial period with the introduction of multi-party elections and ending in 2013 with the collapse of democracy in Mali and South Sudan, the book describes the rise of authoritarian states in the 1970s; the attempts of trade unions and some religious groups to check the abuse of power in the 1980s; the remarkable return of multiparty politics in the 1990s; and finally, the tragic tendency for elections to exacerbate corruption and violence.
Download or read book Oil Democracy and Development in Africa written by John R. Heilbrunn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-04-21 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the history, key industry and policy actors, and political economic outcomes in oil-producing African states, filling a gap in the literature on resource-abundant countries by providing an optimistic assessment of circumstances in contemporary Africa.
Download or read book Decentralization Democracy and Development in Africa written by Jan Erk and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 235 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decentralization reforms introduced to Africa in the 1990s have not always delivered the intended long-term outcomes. This is a collection on the consequences of these reforms two decades on. In addition to general and comparative overviews, the book contains case studies on Ghana, Senegal, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Ethiopia, and Uganda. The common theme across the chapters is that the reforms seem to have engendered political consequences beyond decentralization itself – mostly through interaction with the broader historical, political, social, and economic context. The book thus speaks both to the scholarly literature (on decentralization, democratization, and development) and to the community of development practitioners. Most of the literature on decentralization and development emphasizes questions of institutional design and policy, but here the harder-to-pin-down political patterns marking the workings of decentralization are the main focus of analysis. The debates on development, through the case studies, are connected to the scholarly literatures on comparative federalism, comparative decentralization, and local democracy. The main conclusion that emerges from the studies in the book is that no magic formula that can turn countries into peaceful, stable, and prosperous democracies overnight exists. Furthermore, there are risks involved in importing formal institutions without regard to the local historical, political, social, and economic context. The chapters of this book were originally published as a special issue in Regional and Federal Studies.
Download or read book Democracy and Elections in Africa written by Staffan I. Lindberg and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2006-09-11 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Description
Download or read book Dictators and Democracy in African Development written by A. Carl LeVan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book argues that the structure of the policy-making process in Nigeria explains variations in government performance better than other commonly cited factors.
Download or read book Democratization in Africa written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1992-02-01 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The global movement toward democracy, spurred in part by the ending of the cold war, has created opportunities for democratization not only in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Africa. This book is based on workshops held in Benin, Ethiopia, and Namibia to better understand the dynamics of contemporary democratic movements in Africa. Key issues in the democratization process range from its institutional and political requirements to specific problems such as ethnic conflict, corruption, and role of donors in promoting democracy. By focusing on the opinion and views of African intellectuals, academics, writers, and political activists and observers, the book provides a unique perspective regarding the dynamics and problems of democratization in Africa.
Download or read book Engendering Democracy in Africa written by Niamh Gaynor and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-06-01 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book investigates women’s political participation in Africa. Going beyond the formal institutions of electoral politics, it explores a range of spaces where everyday politics take place, at national and at local levels. In recent years there have been significant improvements in the number of women elected to parliament in Africa. However, there is little indication that this is translating into better developmental outcomes, and indeed there is mounting evidence that it could in fact help to bolster some authoritarian regimes. Starting from the premise that politics is a far broader project than securing a seat in national or local legislatures alone, this book explores the opportunities for women’s political participation across a number of informal spaces where women and men gather, organise and interact in a more regular and systematic manner. Combining insights from political science, sociology and feminist theory and drawing on detailed cases from the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria and Rwanda, it examines how power in its multiple dimensions circulates across a range of everyday political spaces, while drawing attention to the links between domestic gender inequalities and the global political economy. Inviting scholars, practitioners and activists to broaden their focus beyond formal electoral institutions if they want to support women to become more politically active, this book provides fresh insights into major issues at the heart of African studies, development studies, gender and development, democratisation, and international relations.
Download or read book Growing Democracy in Africa written by Mamoudou Gazibo and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2016-02-08 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the state of governance in sub-Saharan Africa? Is it possible to identify the best practices and approaches to establishing political systems that promote accountability, transparency, peace, and civic space for all? These are the questions addressed in this book. While the concept of governance is considered to be central to political science, our understanding of it is still imprecise, with extant studies focused primarily either on think-tank indicators, economic management, or political studies of democratization. This book critically examines the record on democratization in Africa thus far, and seeks a new, integrated, focused approach to the study of governance. Such an approach requires revisiting the concept of governance itself, with emphasis on certain decisive components and critical issues. Considered in a democratic framework, the concept of governance can be employed to cast light on accountability issues in several arenas, four of which are considered in detail in this volume: institutions and the rule of law; constitution-making, elections, and political conflict settlement; distribution of power and citizenship; and political economy and corruption. Each contribution offers particular insights in one of these arenas. With a huge and varied continent in rapid flux to study, the sheer amount and variety of interesting new research is enormous. It is expected that the discussions contained herein and the various challenges, achievements, and lessons outlined will contribute to research, inform teaching, and lead to a greater understanding of the issues of democratic consolidation and economic development in Africa.
Download or read book Compatible Cultural Democracy written by Daniel T. Osabu-Kle and published by Peterborough, Ont. : Broadview Press. This book was released on 2000-03 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Introduction : variants of democratic practice -- The great transplantation -- The post-independence problem -- Typical African political systems -- Towards the modification of African political culture -- Ghana : tactical action, socialism and the military -- Nigeria : oil, coups, and ethnic war -- Kenya : settler ideology and the struggle for Majimbo -- Tanzania : Ujamaa, compulsion, and the freedom of association -- Somalia : experiments with democracy, military rule, and socialism -- Senegal : from French colonialism to the failure of partisan politics -- Rwanda : from success astroy to human disaster -- Congo (Kinshasa) : "a most lethal poison."
Download or read book Research Handbook on Democracy and Development written by Gordon Crawford and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2021-03-26 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring and updating the controversial debates about the relationship between democracy and development, this Research Handbook provides clarification on the complex and nuanced interlinkages between political regime type and socio-economic development. Distinguished scholars examine a broad range of issues from multidisciplinary perspectives across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
Download or read book Democracy in Ghana written by Jeffrey W. Paller and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2019-03-07 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed account of politics in Ghana's urban neighborhoods, providing a new way to understand African democracy and development.
Download or read book Transitions and Consolidation of Democracy in Africa written by Samuel Ebow Quainoo and published by Global Academic Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What conditions motivate a transition to democracy? Can the dynamics of a transition influence its outcome? Under what circumstances has democracy been consolidated in Africa? This trilogy of questions has become necessary in light of the current democratic wave engulfing Africa and the rest of the world. In examining the conditions that initiate democratic transitions, this book investigates the circumstances under which democracy movements have operated between 1980 and 1990. It concludes that, contrary to dominant democratic theory, the transitions to democracy in Africa have occurred under declining levels of development. With regard to transitions, the book recognizes that they have their own dynamics. Two main types of transitions are discerned: top-down and bottom-up. The book argues that in spite of the restrictive nature of top-down transitions, they offer a better opportunity for democratic consolidation because of the consensus between elites of the pro-democracy regime and their counterparts in the authoritarian regime, a condition that is normally absent under bottom-up transitions. Finally, relying on the cases of consolidated democracies, the book derives an African democracy model. The model delineates five main conditions that facilitate democratic consolidation, including good leadership, relevant political institutions, external support, civic space, and a reasonable level of development. It cautions, however, that these are not sufficient conditions, nor are all of them necessary. Since countries have unique historical circumstances, specific countries will have to combine conditions in the model that are relevant to that society to consolidate its democracy. The right combination will depend on the specific needs of the individual country.
Download or read book Democracy Good Governance and Development in Africa written by Munyaradzi Mawere and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2015-10-24 with total page 422 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Questions surrounding democracy, governance, and development especially in view of Africa have provoked acrimonious debates in the past few years. It remains a perennial question why some decades after political independence in Africa the continent continues experiencing bad governance, lagging behind socio-economically, and its democracy questionable. We admit that a plethora of theories and reasons, including iniquitous and maledictious ones, have been conjured in an attempt to explain and answer the questions on why Africa seems to be lagging behind other continents in issues pertaining to good governance, democracy and socio-economic development. Yet, none of the theories and reasons proffered so far seems to have provided enduring solutions to Africas diverse complex problems and predicaments. This book dissects and critically examines the matrix of Africas multifaceted problems on governance, democracy and development in an attempt to proffer enduring solutions to the continents long-standing political and socio-economic quandaries and hitches. Contributions are by African scholars and researchers from different disciplinary orientations and countries. Grounded in empirical reality as well as the lived experiences of the contributors, the book is an invaluable asset for social scientists, development practitioners, politicians and civil society activists.
