African Renaissance Vol 4 Nos 3&4: Consolidating the Democracy Project in Africa: Cases from South Africa, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia
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ISSN : 1744-2532 (Print) 2516-5305 (Online)
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In Volume 4 No 2 2007 edition of the journal, we focused on the Democratic Republic of Congo, often referred to as the DRC, and formerly known variously as the Congo Free State, Belgian Congo, The Congo, Congo/Leopoldville, Congo/Kinshasa and Zaire. The DRC is a country rent by ethnic strife and civil war since 1994, culminating in the First Congo War that toppled Mobutu in 1997. We noted that since 1998, the country has suffered greatly from the impacts of the devastating Second Congo War (sometimes referred to as the African World War), and believed to be the world's deadliest conflict since World War II. Contributors to the issue discussed these conflicts, efforts at mediation, and current talks of post conflict reconstructions.
In this issue we discuss the major challenges to the democracy project in Africa, using South Africa, Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia as case studies. We pose a central question: Are the current efforts at instituting liberal democracy and its ethos in Africa sustainable? What are the challenges facing the democracy project in Africa? How are they being negotiated? And what are the implications of all these for the fate of the democracy project itself, and for Africa’s development aspirations?
In an overview paper, Usman Tar discusses some of the major challenges in instituting and sustaining the democracy project in Africa, noting that in the continent, “state structures remain weak and prone to elite manipulation and abuse.” He also notes that “state-society relations are erratic and contemptuous because the state is commonly perceived as serving the narrow interest of its governing elites”. Dirk Kotzé examines the democratic consolidation process in South Africa, arguing that the “unique nature of South Africa’s democratisation is not its content but its process.” Usman Tar sees Nigeria, especially after the acrimonious April 2007 elections as being something of a paradox, having on the one hand “a plethora of factors and institutions that are potentially conducive to the construction of democracy” and on the other hand exhibiting the typical features of a failing ‘peripheral’ state, including operating “one of the least stable federal and presidential democratic systems in the world.”
Peter F. Z. Zaizay looks at security sector reform and the fight against crime and disorder in Liberia, noting that demobilised soldiers, left largely unemployed, pose a real threat not only to the democracy project in the country but also to its, peace, security and prosperity.
T. Debey Sayndee discusses the post-conflict challenges in Liberia, arguing that the current scramble for the “public space by all age groups and gender” can be considered an essential recipe for building a democratic culture” in that country, and should therefore be harnessed d in the rebuilding process. Mats Utas analyses the recent elections in Sierra Leone, which was won by the opposition APC, and where many voters did a “watermelon” by taking shirts and money from the ruling SLPP, while voting for APC. Abdurahman Abdullahiexamines how Somali women achieved political empowerment in Somalia between 2000 and 2003 (they were “offered a quota of 11% in the Transitional Parliament of 2000”) and argues that the move was a “remarkable milestone that is unprecedented in Somalia.” He believes that such a gesture in a patriarchal Islamic country that is torn by inter-clan feuds, contains within it the seed of hope for the democracy project in the country.
In addition to the above articles, we also brought a number of other articles, from how to reposition family planning to reduce unmet needs to a discussion of the politics of resistance to dictatorship in Nurudin Farah’s novel.