An Assessment of Africa’s Philosophy of Local Electoral Democracy and its Ideology of Centralism

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume V, Issue XI, November 2021 | ISSN 2454–6186

An Assessment of Africa’s Philosophy of Local Electoral Democracy and its Ideology of Centralism

Ikemefuna Taire Paul Okudolo
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in African Studies in ILMA Entity
North West University (NWU), Mafikeng, South Africa

Abstract: This study promotes the belief that Africa’s local electoral democracy is rooted more in an ideology of centralism and hegemonic desires of the higher tiers’ political elites over local administration. In this study, we contend that the local electoral democracy across Africa is in a state of crisis, producing practices at variance with the philosophy of Western liberal democracy which the continent pretends to imitate. Utilizing the political culture theory, the study’s argument is anchored on the evidence that the process of local electoral democracy across Africa rather emanates from an espoused political culture dictated by a desired centralizing ethos and inclinations of dominance of the local government by the higher political authorities, especially the state/provincial level. Its methodological construct is akin to the descriptive phenomenological qualitative research design. By analyzing observed experiences and documentary data using the qualitative content analysis approach, we contemplate the ingrained philosophy behind local electoral democracy in Africa as different from the idealistic sense of the democratic theory. The study’s findings accentuate the thesis that the actual African philosophy of local electoral democracy is not rooted in the ethos of Western liberal democracy, and thus democracy is largely lacking in African local government areas.

Keywords: Philosophy; local electoral democracy; liberal democracy; epistemological norm; Africa

I. INTRODUCTION

Borrowing Chemhuru’s (2019, p, 71) thoughts on what constitutes an African “epistemological theory of normativity” that shapes her philosophy of local elections toward entrenching local autonomy? And what does this indicate about the ontology of electoral democracy in the mind of the average African political elite for the sake of optimizing effective local participation in governance? Not to be detained by details, pre-colonial Africa ab initio succeeded in evolving a philosophy of choosing local political leaders. Although, these processes varied in system and structure among African nationalities. Such as that in many, the eldest son succeeds; in others it could be gerontocracy, while in many others election into position of authority revolves between families, clans, villages, etc. The point we stress here is that across pre-colonial Africa, the epistemic normative reasoning around election of or electing representatives were democratic in so far as democracy implies acceptable choice of majority of the people to be governed.

Read More