This book tests many of the assumptions, hypotheses, and conclusions connected with the presumed role of civil society organizations in the democratization of African countries. Taking a comparative approach, it looks at countries that have successfully democratized, those that are stuck between progress and regression, those that have regressed into dictatorship, and those that are currently in transitional flux and evaluates what role, if any, civil society has played in each instance. The countries discussed—South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Tunisia—represent a diverse set of social and political circumstances and different levels of democratic achievement, providing a rich set of case studies. Each sample state also offers an internal comparison, as each has historically experienced different stages of democratization. Along the course of each case study, the book also considers the effect that other traditionally studied factors, such as culture, colonization, economic development and foreign aid, may have had on individual attempts at democratization. The first extensive work on civil society and democratization in Africa, the book adds new insights to the applicability of democratization theory in a non-Western context, both filling a gap in and adding to the existing universal scholarship. This book will be useful for scholars of political science, economics, sociology and African studies, as well as human rights activists and policy makers in the relevant geographical areas.

African nations have watched the recent civic dramas of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street asking if they too will see similar civil society actions in their own countries. Nigeria—Africa’s most populous nation—has long enjoyed one of the continent’s most vibrant civil society spheres, which has been instrumental in political change. Initially viewed as contributing to democracy’s development, however, civil society groups have come under increased scrutiny by scholars and policymakers. Do some civil society groups promote democracy more effectively than others? And if so, which ones, and why? By examining the structure, organizational cultures, and methods of more than one hundred Nigerian civil society groups, Kew finds that the groups that best promote democratic development externally are themselves internally democratic. Specifically, the internally democratic civil society groups build more sustainable coalitions to resist authoritarian rule; support and influence political parties more effectively; articulate and promote public interests in a more negotiable fashion; and, most importantly, inculcate democratic norms in their members, which in turn has important democratizing impacts on national political cultures and institutions. Further, internally democratic groups are better able to resolve ethnic differences and ethnic-based tensions than their undemocratically structured peers. This book is a deeply comprehensive account of Nigerian civil society groups in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Kew blends democratic theory with conflict resolution methodologies to argue that the manner in which groups—and states—manage internal conflicts provides an important gauge as to how democratic their political cultures are. The conclusions will allow donors and policymakers to make strategic decisions in their efforts to build a democratic society in Nigeria and other regions.

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.

The global movement toward democracy, spurred in part by the ending of the cold war, has created opportunities for democratization not only in Europe and the former Soviet Union, but also in Africa. This book is based on workshops held in Benin, Ethiopia, and Namibia to better understand the dynamics of contemporary democratic movements in Africa. Key issues in the democratization process range from its institutional and political requirements to specific problems such as ethnic conflict, corruption, and role of donors in promoting democracy. By focusing on the opinion and views of African intellectuals, academics, writers, and political activists and observers, the book provides a unique perspective regarding the dynamics and problems of democratization in Africa.

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.

This book tests many of the assumptions, hypotheses, and conclusions connected with the presumed role of civil society organizations in the democratization of African countries. Taking a comparative approach, it looks at countries that have successfully democratized, those that are stuck between progress and regression, those that have regressed into dictatorship, and those that are currently in transitional flux and evaluates what role, if any, civil society has played in each instance. The countries discussed--South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt and Tunisia--represent a diverse set of social and political circumstances and different levels of democratic achievement, providing a rich set of case studies. Each sample state also offers an internal comparison, as each has historically experienced different stages of democratization. Along the course of each case study, the book also considers the effect that other traditionally studied factors, such as culture, colonization, economic development and foreign aid, may have had on African civil society and democratization. The first extensive work on civil society and democratization in Africa, the book adds new insights to the applicability of democratization theory in a non-Western context, both filling a gap in and adding to the existing universal scholarship. This book will be useful for scholars of political science, economics, sociology and African studies, as well as human rights activists and policy makers in the relevant geographical areas.

Civil society is one of several Western political and social concepts that have not traveled successfully to Africa. Revived in response to the search for democracy in Eastern Europe during the late Soviet era, Western donors promoted and funded new civil society organizations in sub-Saharan Africa, regarding them as an essential grounding for African democratization. Most of these new civil society organizations had little in common with African associational activity. Focusing on the characteristics and behavior of long-standing African organizations would appear a better starting point for developing a useful concept of an African civil society. One candidate worth serious investigation is the Buganda Kingdom Government. This organization violates most distinctions central to Western notions of civil society. Yet it continues to behave like a civil society organization. Its political and conceptual collisions offer guidance toward a useful notion of African civil society and understanding Ugandan politics.

This text examines the potential value of the concept of civil society for enhancing the current understanding of state-society relations in Africa. The authors review the meanings of civil society in political philosophy, as well as alternative approaches to employing the concept in African settings. Considering both the patterns of emerging civil society in Africa and issues relating to its further development, they give particular emphasis to the cases of Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zaire.

The United States and many other international donors have embraced civil-society aid as a key tool of democracy promotion. This collection of essays analyzes civil-society aid in five regions - South Africa, the Philippines, Peru, Egypt and Romania - focusing on crucial issues and dilemmas.

Since the emergence of the dissident “parallel polis” in Eastern Europe, civil society has become a “new superpower,” influencing democratic transformations, human rights, and international co-operation; co-designing economic trends, security and defense; reshaping the information society; and generating new ideas on the environment, health, and the “good life.” This volume seeks to compare and reassess the role of civil society in the rich West, the poorer South, and the quickly expanding East in the context of the twenty-first century’s challenges. It presents a novel perspective on civic movements testing John Keane’s notion of “monitory democracy”: an emerging order of public scrutiny and monitoring of power.