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Political Science African

Compatible Cultural Democracy

The Key to Development in Africa

by (author) Daniel T. Osabu-Kle

Publisher
University of Toronto Press
Initial publish date
Mar 2000
Category
African, Democracy
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781551112893
    Publish Date
    Mar 2000
    List Price
    $51.00
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781442602472
    Publish Date
    Mar 2000
    List Price
    $32.95

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Description

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."

About the author

Daniel T. Osabu-Kle is a Professor in the Department of Political Science, Carleton University

Daniel T. Osabu-Kle's profile page