An ‘alpenglow’ of Electoral Pluralism is Eviscerating Africa from Polymorphic Autocrats RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VIII

An ‘alpenglow’ of Electoral Pluralism is Eviscerating Africa from Polymorphic Autocrats - 

Public Lecture - Respublica Literaria CXV, MMXVI RL Volume XI No V

Costantinos BT Costantinos, PhD

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies, College of Business and Economics, AAU

Abstract

The surprise presidential win of a real estate agent and political novice over Gambia’s leader of 22 years has the country, and many on the continent, celebrating. Gambia’s long-time leader, Yahya Jammeh, who once promised to rule for ‘one billion years’, conceded the presidency to Adama Barrow, but later on changed his mind. More than a hundred and ten successful coup d’états and counter coups have taken been recorded in Africa since the independence efforts in the 60s. Regardless of how they came to power, many leaders are regarded as the worst dictators in Africa, their regime marked by horror, terror, chaos and bloodshed. The lecture delves into the political transition process in Africa since independence, military coups that haunted the continent and presents the analytical limitations in current perspectives of the transition to sustainable democracy and development in Africa; with the distinction between concepts and processes of political openness and political participation. It draws conceptual distinction between political openness and democracy and the political agencies and ideologies at play; distinguishing between strategic and processual dimensions of the political change.

Key words: dictators, coup d’état, democratic experiments

See lecture  here  or    https://www.academia.edu/30804538/An_alpenglow_of_Electoral_Pluralism_is_Eviscerating_Africa_from_Polymorphic_Autocrats

Photo credit – Lily Kuo, 2016 - Democracy Digest

Strands in Political Theory: Analytical & Operational Trajectories of Political Transition in Africa RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VIII

Strands in Political Theory:

Analytical & Operational Trajectories of

Political Transition in Africa

Public Policy Lecture, RL- CXXIV, MMXVI Vol. XI No. VIII

Lecture and Think Piece – CXI – 1993, Cotonou, Benin & Revised for a

2014 speech at the African Union Headquarters, Addis Ababa

Costantinos Berhutesfa Costantinos, PhD,

Professor of Public Policy, School of Graduate Studies,

College of Business & Economics, AAU,

Summary

          It is asserted that if large rural majorities in Africa are too poor to participate, too dispersed to organize, too remote from information to know alternatives, a multiparty democratic system with universal suffrage does not give them democratic influence. The trajectories of struggles over political rules can be summarized according to the predominance of one organizational sector or another. Governing elite, and in particular the executive, take the lead in bringing about political liberalization. If state-led transitions are characterized by the presence of an executive leader willing and able to undertake some limited reform, society-led transitions progress thanks to the actions of organized opposition groups and despite the unrelenting resistance of governing elite and the executive. Perhaps the majority of transitions constitute a hybrid of these first two types, with a combination of opposition pressures and incumbent initiatives propelling the process.

       On the other hand, current discussions and analyses of transition to plural politics in Africa generally are marked by several limitations. These include a tendency to narrow democratic thought and practice to the terms and categories of immediate, not very well considered, political and social action, a naive realism, as it were. Furthermore, it includes the inattention to problems of articulation or production of democratic systems and process within African politics rather than simply as formal or abstract possibilities. There is also the dimension of ambiguity as to whether civil society is the agent or object of democratic change and concerning the role of the state and a nearly exclusive concern in certain institutional perspectives on political liberalization in Africa with generic attributes and characteristics of political organizations and consequent neglect of analysis in terms of specific strategies and performances of organizations in processes of transition. Finally, it is the inadequate treatment of the role of international agencies and of relations between global and indigenous aspects or dimensions of political liberalization in Africa.

Key words: political transition, Political liberalization, democracy, analytical limitations 

See link to lecture here or https://www.academia.edu/30810634/Strands_in_Political_Theory_Analytical_Operational_Trajectories_of_Political_Transition_in_Africa