Ref lections on Democracy and Development in Africa: A Hew Trail of Political Reforms

Abstract

Liberal democracy is the most affectionate and all-embracing de facto and de jure form of constitutional governance worldwide. Unrepentant authoritarian regimes and other pseudo-democracies across Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, Middle East and Africa also purports to practice democracy and its imperatives. This is to achieve regime legitimacy and catch the eye of the proponents of democracy around the world. In the unique case of Africa, metropolitan states customarily evaluate the democratic credentials of peripheral states as a sine qua non to accessing international financial assistance. It is envisaged by proponents of democracy that its practice is the sidekick to national development, prosperity and human development. This paper is a reflection that thematically interrogates the efficacy of democracy as a coherent dissilient to Africa’s development. It concludes that, the argument of liberal democracy being pivotal to Africa’s development is dispiritingly distant and a hyperbole.