Africa's tragedy has at different times been subjected to various paradigm shifts ranging from modernisation to neo-Marxist theories with each paradigm identifying different sources of the tragedy. The tragedy, to some scholars, is rooted to the crisis of development. But to some African scholars, a key aspect to the crisis remains the question of 'which and whose democracy?' The central issue for investigation in this thesis is the efficacy of 'best-practice' political and economic templates prescribed by both liberals and socialists for Africa. These templates appear to be producing hybridised political order that breeds crises of political instability, leadership, economic hardship, violent conflicts etc; with no visible solution in sight. There is therefore a need for the reconstruction of Africa's development strategy with unique models based on a foundation of 'best fit' values nurtured by the indigenous grains of the African societies. The thesis adopts critical theory using textual and contextual analysis as its methodology to engage literature on liberal, popular, social, and socialist democracy. It also engages the Africanist and African debate on democracy to discuss what works contextually in Africa and what does not work. The thesis sets out to establish how neo-communitarianism and speconomy can collectively serve as models for development in the sub-Saharan Africa, that is currently mediated by the alienating role of an incoherent public sphere dominated by representations of foreign ideologies which do not seek to create a common consciousness in all citizens but rather to help maintain and perpetuate a fractured image of the Enlightenment.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:678437 |
| Date | January 2012 |
| Creators | Olateju, Olatunji Agboola |
| Publisher | Swansea University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa42710 |
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