The Democratization of Africa: Dynamics and Trends.

• Author: Nti, Kwaku
• Position: AFRICA - Book review

Amtaika, Alexius, ed. The Democratization of Africa: Dynamics and Trends. Austin, TX: Pan-African University Press, 2017.

The chapters in this edited work focus on the democratization experience in South Africa and Nigeria; although a few chapters address that process in Botswana, Lesotho, Ghana, and Nigeria. The authors conduct these discussions against a background of intellectual and philosophical concerns about culture, development, and democracy. Like the proverbial question of the hen and the egg, this book grapples with the question of whether democracy underpins development or development engenders democracy. It complicates this discussion with a look at the role of culture in that dynamic. In an attempt to address these issues, the book gravitates toward the view that there is an indisputable connection among these categories. Thus, the authors agree with the post-Cold War scholarly view that there is a causal and...