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The Politics of Neoliberal Democracy in Africa by Usman A. Tar Pdf
"Since the late 1980s the changing dynamic of global development has driven the tide of democratic expansion in the developing world. In Africa, western donors have sought to impose 'neo-liberal' visions of socio-economic and political institution-building, spreading political reforms and economic liberalisation with far-reaching consequences. Associated with external interventions, but also sometimes conflicting with them, are internal protests against authoritarianism, which have problematically reinforced and/or undermined the donor agenda for democratic reform.Here, Usman Tar questions the assumption that Africa was lacking the essential components for a spontaneous transition to democracy. He explores the dynamic, but contradictory, links between external and internal dimensions of neo-liberal democratic expansion in Africa, focusing on Nigeria. Tar dissects the struggles for democracy, and for democratic policy and practice in a country with rich economic potential but a troubled political dispensation."--Bloomsbury Publishing.
The Politics of Neoliberal Reforms in Africa by Piet Konings Pdf
Neoliberalism has become the dominant development agenda in Africa. Faced with a deep economic and political crisis, African governments have been compelled by powerful external agencies, in particular the Bretton Woods institutions and western states, to pursue this agenda as a necessary precondition for the receipt of development aid. What is particularly striking in Africa, however, is that neoliberal experiments there have displayed such remarkable diversity. This may be due not only to substantial differences in historical, economic and political trajectories on the African continent but also, and maybe more importantly, in the degree of resistance internal actors have demonstrated to the neoliberal reforms imposed on them. This book focuses on Cameroon which has had a complex economic and political history and is currently witnessing resistance to the neoliberal experiment by the authoritarian and neopatrimonial state elite and various civil-society groups. It is the culmination of over twenty years of fine and refined research by one of the leading scholars of Cameroon today.
Africa Under Neoliberalism by Nana Poku,Jim Whitman Pdf
The period since the 1980s has seen sustained pressure on Africa’s political elite to anchor the continent’s development strategies in neoliberalism in exchange for vitally needed development assistance. Rafts of policies and programmes have come to underpin the relationship between continental governments and the donor communities of the West and particularly their institutions of global governance – the International Financial Institutions. Over time, these policies and programmes have sought to transform the authority and capacity of the state to effect social, political and economic change, while opening up the domestic space for transnational capital and ideas. The outcome is a continent now more open to international capital, export-oriented and liberal in its political governance. Has neoliberalism finally arrested under development in Africa? Bringing together leading researchers and analysts to examine key questions from a multidisciplinary perspective, this book involves a fundamental departure from orthodox analysis which often predicates colonialism as the referent object. Here, three decades of neoliberalism with its complex social and economic philosophy are given primacy. With the changed focus, an elucidation of the relationship between global development and local changes is examined through a myriad of pressing contemporary issues to offer a critical multi-disciplinary appraisal of challenge and change in Africa over the past three decades.
Democracy is the faith that the process of experience is more important than any special result attained, so that special results achieved are of ultimate value only as they are used to enrich and order the ongoing process. Africans must therefore be allowed to apply their cultural and historical experiences and talents in working out a pattern of 'government of the people, by the people, and for the people' according to their own understanding and as their own peculiar circumstances demand. Those who do not want the vertical 'Western-Style Democracy' must be given a fair chance to demonstrate an alternative African horizontal democracy. Perhaps what they come up with might be of benefit to politics even in the West, provided that their radical system of horizontal democracy protects the life, liberty and property of citizens, and provided that the people want it. The question of externally imposed or market-driven multi-party or dual-party or non-party is a matter of modality and should not occupy the center stage in Africa.
Neoliberalism, Civil Society and Security in Africa by P. Carmody Pdf
Free market policies have been in operation across Africa for the past 25 years, yet they have failed to reverse deepening poverty. This book explores, with case studies, why such policies continue to be implemented and the ways in which they have been reinvented by socialization, depoliticization, regionalization and securitization.
Neoliberalism and Resistance in South Africa by Shaukat Ansari Pdf
This book critically examines the persistence of market orthodoxy in post-apartheid South Africa and the civil society resistance such policies have generated over a twenty-five-year period. Each chapter unpacks the key political coalitions and economic dynamics, domestic as well as global, that have sustained neoliberalism in the country since the transition to liberal democracy in 1994. Chapter 1 analyzes the political economy of segregation and apartheid, as well as the factors that drove the democratic reform and the African National Congress’ (ANC) subsequent abandonment of redistribution in favor of neoliberal policies. Further chapters explore the causes and consequences of South Africa’s integration into the global financial markets, the limitations of the post-apartheid social welfare program, the massive labour strikes and protests that have erupted throughout the country, and the role of the IMF and World Bank in policymaking. The final chapters also examine the political and economic barriers thwarting the emergence of a viable post-apartheid developmental state, the implications of monopoly capital and foreign investment for democracy and development, and the phenomenon of state capture during the Jacob Zuma Presidency.
The Politics of Transition in Africa by Giles Mohan,Tunde Zack-Williams Pdf
Part of a series of studies that examine political issues confronting African peoples, societies and states, this text explores: theories of the state, the transition to democracy and economic development. Published in association with ROAPE North America: Africa World Press
Destroying Democracy by Jane Duncan,Linda Gordon,Gunnett Kaaf,Dale T McKinley,Alf Gunvald Nilsen,Devan Pillay,Mandla J Radebe,Alfredo Saad-Filho,Ingar Solty Pdf
A history of the erosion of democracy across the globe Democracy is being destroyed. This is a crisis that expresses itself in the rising authoritarianism visible in divisive and exclusionary politics, populist political parties and movements, increased distrust in fact-based information and news, and the withering accountability of state institutions. Over the last four decades, democracy has radically shifted to a market democracy in which all aspects of human, non-human and planetary life are commodified, with corporations becoming more powerful than states and their citizens. This is how neoliberal capitalism functions at a systemic level and if left unchecked, is the greatest threat to democracy and a sustainable planet. Volume six of the Democratic Marxism series focuses on how decades of neoliberal capitalism have eroded the global democratic project and how, in the process, authoritarian politics are gaining ground. Scholars and activists from the political left focus on four country cases – India, Brazil, South Africa and the United States of America – in which the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled and highlighted the pre-existing crisis. They interrogate issues of politics, ecology, state security, media, access to information and political parties, and affirm the need to reclaim and re-build an expansive and inclusive democracy. Destroying Democracy is an invaluable resource for the general public, activists, scholars and students who are interested in understanding the threats to democracy and the rising tide of authoritarianism in the global south and the global north.
Neoliberalism and Globalization in Africa by J. Mensah Pdf
This book looks at Africa's involvement in contemporary neoliberal globalization, paying particular attention to the social, economic, political, and cultural cost of the unbalanced structure of global wealth and power between Africa and the rest of the world.
Neoliberal policies promised to correct multiple distortions in postcolonial Africa. But democratic politics, land reform, rights and freedom all suffered. Shivji calls for Africa-centred thinking that embraces the continent's right to self-determination.
Democracy and Neoliberalism in the Developing World by Clifford E. Griffin Pdf
This study of comparative political development provides insights into the likelihood that the liberal-democratic system of government will become institutionalized in industrializing and non-industrialized countries in the wake of neoliberalism - the global economic and political changes currently underway. It argues that over the near to medium term, liberal-democratic governance will plant roots of systematic stability only in that subset of developing countries in which preconditions for democracy already exist. In addition, the author argues that some liberal-democratic governmental institutions and processes, such as parliaments, legislatures, and general elections, will become established in other developing countries such as Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and eventually Cuba - countries in which the cultural and attitudinal preconditions for democracy remain absent or underdeveloped, and undermined by the fragile base upon which these new democracies rest.
The Politics of Neoliberal Democracy in Africa by Usman A. Tar Pdf
Since the late 1980s the changing dynamic of global development has driven the tide of democratic expansion in the developing world. In Africa, western donors have sought to impose 'neo-liberal' visions of socio-economic and political institution-building, spreading political reforms and economic liberalisation with far-reaching consequences. Associated with external interventions, but also sometimes conflicting with them, are internal protests against authoritarianism, which have problematically reinforced and/or undermined the donor agenda for democratic reform.Here, Usman Tar questions the assumption that Africa was lacking the essential components for a spontaneous transition to democracy. He explores the dynamic, but contradictory, links between external and internal dimensions of neo-liberal democratic expansion in Africa, focusing on Nigeria. Tar dissects the struggles for democracy, and for democratic policy and practice in a country with rich economic potential but a troubled political dispensation.
The Condition of Democracy by Jürgen Mackert,Hannah Wolf,Bryan S. Turner Pdf
Recent years have seen contestations of democracy all around the globe. Democracy is challenged as a political as well as a normative term, and as a form of governance. Against the background of neoliberal transformation, populist mobilization, and xenophobic exclusion, but also of radical and emancipatory democratic projects, this collection offers a variety of critical and challenging perspectives on the condition of democracy in the 21st century. The volumes provide theoretical and empirical enquiries into the meaning and practice of liberal democracy, the erosion of democratic institutions, and the consequences for citizenship and everyday lives. With a pronounced focus on national and transnational politics and processes, as well as postcolonial and settler colonial contexts, individual contributions scrutinize the role of democratic societies, ideals, and ideologies of liberal democracy within global power geometries. By employing the multiple meanings of The Condition of Democracy, the collection addresses the preconditions of democratic rule, the state this form of governance is in, and the changing ways in which citizens can (still) act as the sovereign in liberal democratic societies. The books offer both challenging theoretical perspectives and rigorous empirical findings of how to conceive of democracy in our times, which will appeal to academics and students in social and political science, economics, and international relations amongst other fields. The focus on developments in the Middle East and North Africa will furthermore be of great usefulness to academics and the wider public interested in the repercussions of western democracy promotion as well as in contemporary struggles for democratization ‘from below’. During the last 50 years, liberal democracies have been exposed to a fundamental reorganization of their politico-economic structure that transformed them through the impact of neo-liberal economic doctrines focused on low taxation, free markets, and out-sourcing that have little regard in reality for democratic institutions or liberal values. The failures of the neoliberal ‘remedy’ for capitalism are now dramatically obvious through the banking crisis of 2008-2011, the increase in income inequality, the social and psychological damage caused by the austerity packages across Europe, and widespread dependence on experts whose influence over government policies typically goes without public scrutiny. While this has only accelerated the destruction of the social fabric in modern Western societies, the dramatic redistribution of wealth and an open 'politics for the rich' have also revealed the long-time well-covered alliance of the global oligarchy with the Far Right that has the effect of undermining democracy. The contributions to this volume discuss a wide variety of processes of transformation, the social consequences, dedemocratization and illiberalization of once liberal democracies through the destructive impact of neoliberal strategies. These strongly politico-economic contributions are complemented with general sociological analyses of a number of cultural aspects often neglected in analyses of democracy.