Authoritarian Rule and Democracy in Africa: A Theoretical Discourse

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most of the dominant social groups still perceive of politics as the struggle for the control andappropriation of public resources. Difficulties in forging a sustainable social alliance 11 havecontributed to the intensification of authoritarian practices. The adverse conditions created byboth economic liberalization and authoritarian rule provide an “enabling environment” forcivil groups to press for democratization. Democratization in this context is an antidote tostructural adjustment. This distinguishes the democracy movement in Africa from that ofEastern Europe and explains the ambivalence of Western powers and international financialinstitutions toward the struggles for democracy in Africa. 12 While in support of democracy,they remain opposed to any attempts to change the direction of the economic reforms.The second conclusion is the contradiction between the dynamic pressures fordemocratization at the civil arena and the conformist thrust of the political actors at the statelevel. Democratization requires the liberalization of both civil and political society. Most ofthe active groups in civil society have not been able to make much impact at the widerpolitical arena. The military and the principal political parties continue to dominate thissphere. The decision by the civil political class to accept the military-decreed parties is anindication of its reluctance to open up the political system to democratic challenges andestablish effective links between the pressures in civil society and the democratization of statepractices. On the other hand, the strength of the civil groups is compromised by the virtuallack of participation of the peasant communities in the pro-democracy movement. Both themilitary and the politicians rely on the disarticulations in rural-urban relations, and thepatronage networks that arise therefrom, to maintain the status quo at the political level.Underlying the authoritarian character of democratization is the crisis of state power andcapitalist hegemony in civil society. The debate on capitalism in Africa has been concernedprimarily with the dominance of capitalist property relations rather than with the socialcontext in which they operate. 13 Radical political economists tend to assume that thehegemony of the business class and the power élite will naturally follow from thedevelopment of capitalism. But the recession and the market reforms seem to have generatedan intense ideological and cultural opposition to capitalist rule. The rate of popular rebellionsand withdrawals from formal state and transnational projects is a function of weak ruling classhegemony (Rudebeck, 1989 and 1990). This weakness has undermined the capacity of theruling authorities (both civil and military) and business groups to opt for democratic forms ofgovernment. Beckman’s advocacy for a “bourgeois democracy” in Africa, with strongpressures from popular forces, is difficult to sustain in this context (Beckman, 1990). AsGutto puts it, African ruling classes “fear free and fair elections” (Gutto, 1988). Elections,conducted fairly, will impose some accountability on state practices and check the excesses ofrent-seeking activities. The dilemmas of the ruling groups have meant that in most countriesin the continent, popular social movements have come to play a major role in the struggles fordemocracy. This has not excluded sections of the dominant power groups from joining theseforces in the pro-democracy movement.The central role of the poor and disadvantaged in the democracy project underlines the needto link formal democracy with more substantive forms of popular rule. I highlight twoarguments for this linkage. The first, primarily theoretical, is derived from my original11 Programmes such as MAMSER (mass mobilization for self-reliance) and DFRRI (directorate forfood, roads and rural infrastructure) have not achieved their objects of creating a new social orderdespite the huge resources they command and their co-optation of many professionals.12 French troops were sent to oil-rich Gabon in 1990 to defend Oman Bongo’s régime against the massdemonstrations for democratization.13 The debates on capitalism in Kenya in the Review of African Political Economy (Nos. 8, 17, 19)and on classes and imperialism in Africa, in Dar es Salaam (Y. Tandon (ed.), State, class andimperialism, Tanzania Publishing House) did not address the social dimensions of capitalism.28
formulation of the problem, in which authoritarianism is linked with particular forms ofaccumulation and social structures. Stable democratization logically assumes significantchanges in the structure and forms of accumulation, than an exclusive focus on rules andinstitution building. Such changes, as we have argued, involve the integration of rural-urbanrelations, and an improvement in the democratic participation of popular groups in thegovernance of economic enterprises. This calls for the empowerment of the majority, butsocially deprived groups, the provision of popular welfare and the reduction of inequalities.The second argument is political or normative. Social movements have themselves linked thestruggles for democracy with questions of alternative development strategies (Anyang'Nyong'o, 1987; Mamdani, Mkandawire and Wamba-dia-Wamba, 1988). Indeed, it isprimarily the debate on how to overcome the economic and political problems of the crisisand economic reforms that has brought to the fore questions of political rights andaccountable government. For instance, the original decision of the Nigeria Labour Congressto launch a Labour Party was to provide a platform to strengthen workers’ struggles againstrepression and the economic hardship of structural adjustment (Olukoshi, forthcoming). ALabour Party in government was expected to implement the union’s alternative programme tothe economic reforms (NLC, 1985).This linkage between democracy and alternative development questions an aspect of thecurrent African debate that emphasizes the struggle for “democracy in its own right” (Anyang'Nyong'o, 1988b,c; Mkandawire, 1988b; Gutto, 1988; Shivji, 1990; Ibrahim, 1990). Pressuresfor democratization do not present themselves in such idealist and abstract terms. While it isan ideal to be cherished, democracy must make sense to the interests of the contending socialgroups. These interests do not have to be narrowly defined as economic; they can also besocial and political. Linking democracy to the restructuring of the economy allows individualsand organizations to pose the question of democratic governance of public resources muchmore sharply. It is a more realistic way of surmounting the colossal tasks of launchingunderdeveloped crisis economies along the paths of stable and sustainable democratization.29
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Page 9 and 10: themselves at the level of civil so
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Page 15 and 16: to oil its patronage machine and go
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Authoritarian Rule and Democracy in Africa: A Theoretical Discourse

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