NEVIS REVIEW No 8
Section II
Ref# 8.2
January 14, 2013
Democracy and Political Culture in Africa- (continued)-part three
by Hiwot Wendimagegn
Leadership as a determinant factor of governance holds a vital place in
the political fabric of a nation. Considering the fact that African
politics is often a personal as opposed to a public undertaking, it is
left in the hands of a few political elites who rule
it with whim. “During the past three decades, roughly 90 percent of
sub-Saharan Africa’s leaders have behaved despotically, governed poorly,
eliminated their people’s human and civil rights, initiated or
exacerbated existing civil conflicts, decelerated per capita economic
growth, and proved corrupt” (Rotberg,2003:28)
Post-colonial
Africa is bedeviled by the misfortune that is poor leadership. Many
scholars have increasingly placed blame on military dictatorship and
clientelism for the continent’s tribulations (Bahru and Pausewang (eds),
2006:17). As one author put it, “vicious, wicked and grossly
incompetent, African leaders have been responsible for the undervaluing
of their national economies and the near collapse of the continent as a
whole” (VonDoepp, 2009:2). These leaders tend to use the state for their
personal gains and thus follow detrimental policies.
When
they are faced with the prospect of losing power, they make political
decisions to engage in pillage rather than pursue developmental goals
that would ensure the welfare of their successors (Goldsmith, 2004:88).
This kind of behavior by those who hold the leadership role and all the
support that sustains them (Clientelism), is termed as “predatory rule”.
An informative example to this assertion is the following:
About 75 percent of Nigerians now live on less than one dollar per day
“yet over the past 40 years, aboutUS$300 billion oil wealth has
disappeared from the country”(…) “Nigeria presents a classical example
of how people in a resource rich country could wallow in abject
poverty”. However, the reason for this paradox lies in the corrupt
nature of the ruling elite, which seems to have filtered down and
infected the fabric of the socio-political, economic and cultural
environment of the society in a way that some people have concluded that
the Nigerian culture may have been embedded in monumental corruption
(Baker, 2008:4).
Albeit predatory rule’s effect on development
has often been the focus of researches its effect on democracy has
barely been given the attention due. The current political realities of
Africa, exemplified by the lack of the political values and orientations
of moderation, civility and tolerance have cursed the continent with
superficial democracy. It is imperative that the paucity of democracy is
assessed vis-à-vis the elite culture of predatory rule considering the
commonness of predatory rule in most nations of Africa.
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The Political Culture of Predatory Rule
After the demise of colonialism, it did not take a while before
politics took a highly personalized aura. The elite strand of African
political culture started to dominate as well as to determine the fate
of the continent (Chazan, 1994:68-79). How unfortunate for Africa to
fall prey to such elites as they had neither the skill nor the interest
to transform their injured nations. Instead, they began to develop
corporate interests that coalesced around the maintenance of supremacy
at the center and embarked upon using power for personal gains (Chazan
et al., 1988: 82-83, Mazuri, 1978,).
Despite coup after coup,
and the passing of time, “ each new leader [resembled] similar levels of
corruption, mismanagement, tribalism, nepotism and other assorted
malpractices as the leader before him” (Meredith, 2005:219). Power was
sought for its own sake irrespective of who was seeking it. This
dishearteningly insured “continuity within change” (Lynch and Crawford,
2011:288).
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The Background to Predatory Elite Rulership
The inception of elite rulership in Africa can be traced back to the
time the colonial powers handed Africa back to Africans. African elites
took over “nations” that had been run by the colonial political culture
for the past 30+ years. Colonial political models were hegemonic rather
than incorporating and imposed rather than integrating. “The values of
participation and competition were obviated by the hegemonic statism of
colonial structures” (Chazan, 1994:65). Social standing and prosperity
within the colonial order was linked to proximity to state power (ibid,
Williams, 1984, Rowely, 1999, …etc). “The elites that inherited such
political legacies moved quickly to consolidate it attempting to
marginalize economically and to disenfranchise politically those who
might compete with them for the apparatus of government” (Rowely
1999:138).
With few exceptions, Africans gained their
independence not by defeating the colonial regimes but as a “gift” from
their colonizers (Chazan, 1994:69). The political legacy bequeathed on
the eve of independence was absolutely alien in derivative and design.
The Westminster model of majoritarian rule and the presidential system
of the fifth French republic constituted the major blueprints for the
initial frames of African politics (ibid, Jackson and Rosberg,
1985:298). International pressure forced colonial powers to leave Africa
after guaranteeing their viable succession. In this vein, they rushed
to ensure their successors were political elites who were major players
behind the anticolonial movements: educated in their systems and
supposedly attentive to their interests (, Ake, 1993, 3, Chazan, 1994,
71, Barkan and Okumu (eds), 1984:65).
As a result, the
political arrangements established at independence were arbitrary and
disorganized. “Beneath the veneer of democracy and the mood of euphoria
that accompanied the declaration of independence of dozens of new state,
the political arena was in flux” (Chazan, 1994:71). The leaders of the
new African states were faced with the question of abiding by pluralist
democratic rules of alien origin when the bulk of their political
education had been acquired in the highly centralized and authoritarian
context of colonialism (Chabal (ed), 1986:30-51). Thus, it was no
surprise that they hastily regressed to authoritarianism, to the kind of
ruling system they were so accustomed to; to a system that was
basically second nature.
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(Editor's
Note- Hiwot Wendimagegn has a Masters in International Relations at
Addis Ababa University , and earned her BA degree in Political Science
and minored in Public Administration again at AAU. She has worked as a
lecturer, and currently works as a consultant and as an event organizer
The section above is a continuation of her series on
Democracy and political culture, part I and II of which we have
presented in NEVIS Reviews No 5 and 6.)
