Description |
1 online resource (317 pages) |
Contents |
Introduction : variants of democratic practice -- The great transplantation -- The post-independence problem -- Typical African political systems -- Towards the modification of African political culture -- Ghana : tactical action, socialism and the military -- Nigeria : oil, coups, and ethnic war -- Kenya : settler ideology and the struggle for Majimbo -- Tanzania : Ujamaa, compulsion, and the freedom of association -- Somalia : experiments with democracy, military rule, and socialism -- Senegal : from French colonialism to the failure of partisan politics -- Rwanda : from success astroy to human disaster -- Congo (Kinshasa) : "a most lethal poison." |
Summary |
Annotation This book argues that it is time for African nations to govern themselves using modified, indigenous political structures and ideologies. Osabu-Kle closely examines the colonization experience and the massive transplantation of Western political forms as well as the post-independence period of structural transformation. He delves into the makeup of a number of indigenous African political systems: the Ovimbunda, Zulu, Ashanti, and Ga peoples whose cultures, though geographically distant, exhibit common characteristics, including consensualism and a balance between centralization and decentralization to check the abuse of power. Osabu-Kle argues that only a type of democracy compatible with the historic African cultural environment is capable of achieving the political conditions for successful development. But he goes beyond establishing that precolonial African political systems were democratic. Rather, he describes how the indigenous political culture might be modified to achieve the political conditions necessary to work towards a successful future. This dynamically written, lively, and informed study provides a provocative challenge to conventional Western commentaries on Africa and current thinking about the continent's "re-democratization." |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 297-306) and index |
Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
Subject |
Indigenous peoples -- Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Politics and government
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Democracy -- Africa, Sub-Saharan
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POLITICAL SCIENCE -- World -- African.
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Colonial influence
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Democracy
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Indigenous peoples -- Politics and government
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Politics and government
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SUBJECT |
Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Politics and government -- 1960- http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85001684
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Africa, Sub-Saharan -- Colonial influence
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Subject |
Sub-Saharan Africa
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Genre/Form |
e-books.
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Livres numériques.
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Form |
Electronic book
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ISBN |
1551112892 |
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9781551112893 |
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9781442602472 |
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1442602473 |
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