BREAKING BARRIERS, CREATING NEW HOPES: DEMOCRACY, CIVIL SOCIETY, AND GOOD GOVERNANCE IN AFRICA

Africa in the last two decades has witnessed complex, intricate, but dynamic political struggles aimed at evolving a new culture of politics and norms of political governance. This process, which is largely variegated and contradictory, has seen dominant orthodoxy under attack, entrenched political habits giving way, old barriers gradually being deconstructed and new hopes emerging. The book interrogates Africa’s current strides towards democracy and good governance, and the interposition of the civil society in the process. It raises critical issues both at the level of theory and practical manifestation of those processes. It identifies and delineates the phases of those processes, examines key theoretical and methodological issues on the governance project, the nuance dimensions and perspectives to it, and reviews six country case studies on the progress so far. Hitherto neglected issues such as gender, pastoralism, ethnicity, constitutionalism, local governance, the economy and the African Union are analyzed within the governance discourse. The six country case studies covered are Botswana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Zambia and Ethiopia. The book offers a rigorous, comparative, and holistic approach to the issue of democracy and good governance in Africa.

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