Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa Political Dysfunction and the Struggle for Social Progress

This book explores various critical questions in the context of particular elections and particular countries as diverse as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, the Congo, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. They include the continuing impact of police state apparatuses following democratic transition; factors influencing African voters' attitudes and behaviour; the impact of incumbency on electoral competition; women's electoral participation; the phenomenon of often very limited party programmatic choice in the context of huge social diversity and multi-party competition; and the controversial issues around the transplantation of liberal democratic institutions. Underlying these issues is the fundamental question of whether democratic processes as currently practised in Africa are really making any significant difference to the African struggle for economic, social and cultural progress.
This volume is valuable for the original perspectives of its African contributors; the issues it explores; and the concrete democratic experiences it analyses; and the challenges it makes to the existing concepts, paradigms and practices of liberal democracy.