See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/320166466

Democracy and Development in Africa

Article · January 2011

CITATIONS READS
2 26,739

1 author:

Abraham Musa Peter

Federal University Lokoja
34 PUBLICATIONS 30 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

The Rise of Boko Haram from Local to International: An Appraisal of the Relevance of Multinational Approach on Counter – Insurgency View
project

Beyond Government of National Unity: An Assessment of the Political Stalmate in Kenya. View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Abraham Musa Peter on 02 October 2017.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

LAPAI JOURNAL OF CENTRAL NIGERIA HISTORY 151

Book Review

Title: Democracy and Development in Africa

Author: Claude Ake
Publisher: Spectrum Books Limited
Place of Publication: Ibadan
Year of Publication: 2003
Number of Pages: 173
ISBN: 978-029-336-1

Reviewer: Abraham Peter

University of Maiduguri, Maiduguri, Nigeria

The revival of the discussion of democracy and development is

consequent upon the assumption that the attainment of development is would be
made possible by the realization of democracy. In other words, achieving
democracy is directly linked to overcoming the current spate of
underdevelopment in Africa and other third world countries. In this case, the
externally based prescription of the Western powers represented by the Bretton
Woods Institutions, bilateral donor agencies, and donor governments is that
liberal democracy precedes development.
In a wide spectrum of discourse on this subject matter, several views
prevail. One school of thought sees democracy as a necessary precondition for the
achievement of development. For instance, Alence (2004), d Macedo (2003),
Knutsen (2010), and Rodrik (2000) point to the fact that democracy provides
necessary institutions for development. Todaro and Smith (2009) pointed to the
fact that on the long run, both democracy and development will go hand – in –
hand whereas Oslon (1993) adds that stable democracy provides avenue for
economic development.
A good number of scholars have looked at it from another angle arguing
instead that development precedes democracy. Judging from the experiences of
the Asian Tigers’ miracle and the emphasis on the developmental state thesis,
Acemoglu & Robinson (2006), Bollen & Jackman (1985), De Meur & Berg-
Schlosser (1996), Goldstone & Kocornik-Mina (2005), Helliwell (1994),
Huntington (1991) Kim (1998), Kopstein & Wittenberg (2010), Lipset (1981),
Luebbert (1991), Moore (1966), among others argued that development ought to
precede the contemplation of democratisation.
An understanding of the centrality of this discourse propelled the writing
of “Democracy and Development in Africa” by late Professor Claude Ake. It is
obvious African countries have sandwiched between different regime types.
There have been instances of movement between military rule and civilian rule; a
LAPAI JOURNAL OF CENTRAL NIGERIA HISTORY 152

blend of monarchical system of government; and a switch between either

parliamentary, presidential and hybrid systems of government. The critical
question is whether any particular regime type or system of government can either
engineer or inhibit development.
To Ake, the fundamental issue in Africa was not that development has
actually failed but that development was not in the agenda of the political leaders
that succeeded the colonial masters. This was elucidated under the following
salient considerations.
First, the political legacies of colonialism do not encourage endogenous
development strategy. The culture of repression, alienation, harassment, and
intimidation prevalent during the colonial era has been carried over to the post-
independence experiences of most of the African countries. This necessitates the
emergence of powerful states in Africa only in the defence of political office
holders and the harassment of the common people. The interest of these powerful
states is not in the transformation of their local economies but the exploitation of
the people. So, the post independence state has no emancipatory agenda. Political
competition assumed the dimension of warfare instead of the game of ideology.
Development was conceived as an autonomous process; independent of
politics, culture, and institutional framework. This wrong paradigm pervaded
most of the African countries since independent till date. As Ake argued, there
was neither development of politics nor politics of development. That according
to him results in the marginalisation of everything including development at the
expense of politics that even assumed a destructive dimension. The development
of politics or what has been popularly described as the politics of development
goes beyond the development policies of the post independent African countries.
For instance, Ibeanu (2008) adds that the most authentic way of alleviating
poverty is to embark on the politics of development. When development comes
in, poverty will gradually fades away.
The various strategies of development such as import substitution, export
promotion, technology transfer, among others failed to achieve development,
instead; the economic situation of Africa deteriorated. This became eminent as the
political structure is faulty, the administrative systems and the social institutions
are weak – hence non-supportive of spirited developmental drive.
With the attainment of independence by African countries without
discerning the vision of development and specified agenda for building a
prosperous nation, the Western prescription became a readymade developmental
agenda. Ake submitted that; “in time they recognized emerging differences
between their own interests and the concerns of the external development agents.
Eventually they began to develop their own ideas but how to proceed became a
problem, thus paving the way for a conflict of agendas” (emphasis added) (Ake,
2003:21).
LAPAI JOURNAL OF CENTRAL NIGERIA HISTORY 153

Enmeshed in this confused state, African states became victim of

externally packaged Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and other
development agendas that necessitated the economic collapse of the 80s
especially in Nigeria and Tanzania. This struggle over development agendas has
persisted even after about five decades of thee independence of several African
countries.
Africa neglected agriculture which probably made the highest contribution
to GDP at the early stage of their post independence experience (this claim has
been under attacks in recent times particularly in Nigeria where the argument has
been that budgetary allocation to the agric sector continue to increase but the
political elites have deliberately hindered the real famers access to the basic
inputs that would boost agricultural productivity). Ake argued that SAP prevented
the people from possessing their own independent strategies and development
policies. Agriculture, import substitution strategy, export promotion strategy of
development failed because “the African elites have been interested in political
survival than development, and the condition of their survival have usually been
inimical to development” (Ake, 2003:96). All these development strategies failed
because they do not put into consideration the realities and peculiarities of
African conditions.
Africa was later enmeshed in devastating debt crisis that became another
burden for development. The economic situation deteriorated particularly in the
80s. The African political elites and the international development community
combined to marginalize development. The African elites “developed a siege
mentality” (Ake, 22003:116) to the point that “they became so absorbed in the
struggle for survival that they could pay much attention to anything else,
especially development” (Ake, 2003:116). In most parts of Africa, political
repression has forced highly educated and talented people to become political or
economic refugees in other countries, their talents lost to the cause of national
development.
Development can only be related to and driven by social will in the
context of democracy. It is only in this context that the people can be the means
and the end of development. Without democracy, the advantages of
demarginalising Africa in the development process and giving them control
cannot be realized. Antipathy to democracy by some African elites has constituted
a major impediment to development.
Only an emancipatory process would be able to guarantee development.
So, oppressive and exploitative disposition of the state to its citizens contradicts
the logic of development. But Ake succinctly posited that “if authoritarian
regimes are able to mimic some democratic values and use them effectively to
achieve rapid economic growth, there is no need to put so much emergy into
clamouring for democracy” (Ake, 2003:128). As relevant as this may sounds, the
LAPAI JOURNAL OF CENTRAL NIGERIA HISTORY 154

prevalence of authoritarianism has hitherto privileged the continuation of

underdevelopment and the perpetual misery of Africa.
Ironically, the pushed for democracy has ended in ritualistic multi-party
elections that are often manipulated in favour of the incumbent. This has caused
untold political problems in Africa particularly in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe
when the outcome of the allegedly fraudulent presidential elections in 2007 in
Kenya and Nigeria and 2008 in Zimbabwe caused untold harm to human
population in Kenya and Zimbabwe leading to the negotiation of a government of
national unity and the variant of it in Nigeria. Liberal and social democracy has
not been able to find its footing in Africa. The critical question is; is democracy
feasible in Africa? Can it be practicable and applied to the challenges of
development? Should Africa focus on development first before contemplating
democratisation? In consideration of the school of thought that places emphasis
on the necessity of a strong and authoritarian regime as a necessary condition for
development, Nigeria has had most of its post-independence experience under
military dictatorship without any tangible show of development as the
experiences of the Asian Tigers such as Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, and
Hong Kong show.
Ake’s “Democracy and Development in Africa” is still relevant today as
the stories of African countries have not changed significantly for the better. In
fact, the prevalence of sit-tight issue in Zimbabwe, the failure of the former
Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to handover after losing to the opposition party,
the unsuccessful attempt of former Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obansajo to
pushed for a tenure elongation, the one-party dominance in Nigeria, South Africa,
Botswana, Zimbabwe, among others; and the dictatorial regimes of North Africa
are indications of the prevalence of the problems identified by Ake in today’s
Africa. With these developments, what is the future of development in Africa?
Only time would tell.

References
Acemoglu, D., & Robinson, J. A. (2006). Economic origins of dictatorship and
democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Alence, R. (2004). Political institutions and developmental governance in sub-
Saharan Africa. Journal of Modern African Studies. Cambridge University
Press.
Bollen, K. A. & Jackman, R. W. (1985). Economic and noneconomic
determinants of political democracy in the 1960s. Research in Political
Sociology, Volume 1, pages 27-48. Published by JAI Press Inc.
de Macedo, J. B. (2003). Development redux: reflections for a new paradigm.
OECD Development Centre, OECD Working Paper, No. 215.
 LAPAI JOURNAL OF CENTRAL NIGERIA HISTORY 155

De Meur, G., & Berg-Schlosser, D. (1996). Conditions of authoritarianism,

fascism, and democracy in interwar Europe. Comparative Political Studies,
29, 423-468.
Helliwell, J. F. (1994). Empirical linkages between democracy and economic
growth. British Journal of Political Science 24: 225-248.
Huntington, S. (1991). The third wave: Democratisation in the late twentieth
century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
Ibeanu, O. (2008). “Nigerian state and the economy, 1999 – 2004”, in E.
Amucheazi & O. Ibeanu (eds). Between theory and practice of democracy in
Nigeria: an assessment of Obasanjo’s first term in office by academics and
practitioners. London: Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd.
Kim, W. (1998). Democracy and economic development in South Korea and its
application. International Journal on Korean Studies, Volume II, Number I.
Knutsen, C. H. (2010). Africa’s growth tragedy revisited: weak states, strong
rulers. Department of Political Science, University of Oslo Centre for the
Study of Civil War, PRIO
Kopstein, J. S. & Wittenberg, J. (2010). Beyond dictatorship and democracy:
rethinking national minority inclusion and regime type in interwar Eastern
Europe. Comparative Political Studies 2010 43: 1089.
Krugman, P. (1994). The myth of Asia’s miracles. Foreign Affairs, 63:6, Nov.
/Dec. 1994
Lipset, S. M. (1981). Political man: The social bases of politics. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Luebbert, G. M. (1991). Liberalism, fascism, or social democracy: Social classes
and the political origins of regimes in interwar Europe. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Moore, B., Jr. (1966). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and
peasant in the making of the modern world. Boston: Beacon.
Olson, M. (1993). Dictatorship, democracy, and development. The American
Political Science Review, Vol. 87, No. 3, pp. 567-576.
Rodrik, D. (2000). Institutions for high – quality growth: what they are and how
to acquire them. NBER Working Paper Series.
Todaro, M. P. & Smith, S. C. (2009). Economic development. England: Pearson
Education Limited.

View publication stats