Democracy in Africa
Democracy in Africa

Author: Nic Cheeseman

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2015-05-12

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1316239489

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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.

Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa
Democracy, Good Governance and Development in Africa

Author: Mawere, Munyaradzi

Publisher: Langaa RPCIG

Published: 2015-10-24

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 9956763004

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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.

The Politics of Reform in Ghana, 1982-1991
The Politics of Reform in Ghana, 1982-1991

Author: Jeffrey Herbst

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2023-04-28

Total Pages: 194

ISBN-13: 0520309855

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Economic reform was the most pressing question for African and other Third World countries during the 1980s. In this first full-length examination of the political economy of adjustment in Ghana, Jeffrey Herbst describes the causes of Ghana's dramatic economic decline and reviews the politics of reform that began in 1983. Since Ghana was one of the first African countries to adopt a comprehensive reform program and the one that has sustained adjustment longest, the Ghanaian experience has profound ramifications for debates regarding stabilization and structural change across the continent. Herbst devotes special attention to the interaction between the type of government and the politics of adjustment, the reaction of interest groups such as urban labor and the peasantry, and the relationship between economic and political change. His extended field research and sophisticated knowledge of the issues involved, both from the economic and political science literature, make this study of importance not only to Africanists, political scientists, economists, and sociologists, but also to government and financial leaders wrestling with economic reform in developing countries. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993.

In Search of Democracy
In Search of Democracy

Author: Larry Diamond

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-07-16

Total Pages: 471

ISBN-13: 1317411366

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This book evaluates the global status and prospects of democracy, with an emphasis on the quality of democratic institutions and the effectiveness of governance as key conditions for stable democracy. Bringing together a wide range of the author’s work over the past three decades, it advances a framework for assessing the quality of democracy and it analyzes alternative measures of democracy. Drawing on the most recent data from Freedom House, it assesses the global state of democracy and freedom, as of the beginning of 2015, and it explains why the world has been experiencing a mild but now deepening recession of democracy and freedom since 2005. A major theme of the book across the three decades of the author’s work is the relationship between democratic quality and stability. Democracies break down, Diamond argues, not so much because of economic factors but because of corrupt, inept governance that violates individual rights and the rule of law. The best way to secure democracy is to ensure that democracy is accountable, transparent, genuinely competitive, respectful of individual rights, inclusive of diverse forms and sources of participation, and responsive to the needs and aspirations of ordinary citizens. Viable democracy requires not only a state that can mobilize power to achieve collective goals, but also one that can restrain and punish the abuse of power—a particularly steep challenge for poor countries and those with natural resource wealth. The book examines these themes both in broad comparative perspective and with a deeper analysis of historical trends and future prospects in Africa and Asia,. Concluding with lessons for sustaining and reforming policies to promote democracy internationally, this book is essential reading for students and scholars interested in democracy, as well as politics and international relations more generally.

My First Coup d'Etat
My First Coup d'Etat

Author: John Dramani Mahama

Publisher: A&C Black

Published: 2012-07-19

Total Pages: 335

ISBN-13: 1408832690

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An important literary debut from the Vice President of Ghana, a fable-like memoir that offers a shimmering microcosm of post-colonial Africa. 'A much welcome work of immense relevance' Chinua Achebe My First Coup D'Etat chronicles the coming-of-age of John Dramani Mahama in Ghana during the dismal post-independence 'lost decades' of Africa. He was seven years old when rumours of a coup reached his boarding school in Accra. His father, a minister of state, was suddenly missing, then imprisoned for more than a year. My First Coup D'Etat offers a look at the country that has long been considered Africa's success story. This is a one-of-a-kind book: Mahama's is a rare literary voice from a political leader, and his stories work on many levels - as fables, as history, as cultural and political analysis, and, of course, as the memoir of a young man who, unbeknownst to him or anyone else, would grow up to be vice president of his nation. Though non-fiction, these are stories that rise above their specific settings and transport the reader - much like the fiction of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Nadine Gordimer - into a world all their own, one which straddles a time lost and explores the universal human emotions of love, fear, faith, despair, loss, longing, and hope despite all else.

Democracy and Modernity
Democracy and Modernity

Author: Shmuel Noah Eisenstadt

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2023-07-31

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 9004618015

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Presents a colloquium of scholars on the present state of democracy in many parts of the globe, in both developed and developing countries. Where does it stand firm, and where is it on shifting ground? What are the conditions necessary for the consolidation of democracy -- and more.

Ghana, Political and Constitutional Developments
Ghana, Political and Constitutional Developments

Author: Tapan Prasad Biswal

Publisher: Northern Book Centre

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9788172110291

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Ghana, the torch bearer of African Independence from the yoke of colonial bondage, has been pushed to the background from its earlier pre-eminent position in international as well as African affairs. Since independence, Ghana has experienced diverse forms of Government and has almost run out of models for governing herself. Instead of providing leadership to the underdeveloped countries of Africa, Ghana is busy in its quest for evolving a stable and workable political system. In its effort to evolve a stable political system and an operational constitution capable of providing steady economic progress and social upliftment. Ghana has experimented west-minister style parliamentary system, a Single Party Republic and many military regimes following coups and counter coups. Like many of the developing states of Africa, Ghana has been plagued with post-independence political instability. Civilians as well as military governments have been installed with initial enthusiasm but so far none has been able to solve the pressing problems. In fact the quest for a permanent solution to what appears a persistent governmental crisis, has invited many coups and counter coups. It addresses and analyses the maladies that has afflicted the Ghanaian body politic.