Democratic institutional forms and processes are increasingly widespread in Africa as dictatorial regimes have been forced to give way as a result of popular mobilization and external donor pressure. However the premises of the African scholars whose empirical research and analytical explorations are included in this volume are that democratic form and democratic substance are two different things; Western-derived institutional forms are neither necessarily the most appropriate nor the most practical in the current African context; and rooting democratic norms in the political cultures of African polities raises socio-cultural issues with which political scientists must engage. This book explores various critical questions in the context of particular elections and particular countries as diverse as Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, the Congo, Cameroon and the Central African Republic. They include the continuing impact of police state apparatuses following democratic transition; factors influencing African voters' attitudes and behaviour; the impact of incumbency on electoral competition; women's electoral participation; the phenomenon of often very limited party programmatic choice in the context of huge social diversity and multi-party competition; and the controversial issues around the transplantation of liberal democratic institutions. Underlying these issues is the fundamental question of whether democratic processes as currently practised in Africa are really making any significant difference to the African struggle for economic, social and cultural progress. This volume is valuable for the original perspectives of its African contributors; the issues it explores; and the concrete democratic experiences it analyses; and the challenges it makes to the existing concepts, paradigms and practices of liberal democracy.

This book frames the debates around the pressing desire for some form of unification that found expression in the pan-Africanist movement and formation of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1963 following the advent of home-rule for many former colonies of the Western powers. Discussions in this volume address the following fundamental issues: nationalism and political integration and how the contradictions between both philosophies can be resolved; the amelioration of corruption in order to attract internal and external investments critical for developing the vast natural resources housed in the continent; the need for Africa’s adaptation to the ideology and practice of capitalism and liberal globalization to suit the character of African states in a projected federal United States of Africa; solutions to ethnic conflicts that are bound to happen over clashes of competing group interests; the indispensability and promotion of information communication technologies and urgent need to strengthen a network of regional electric power grids that would provide constant energy to the Union and lead to improvement in communication and economic growth; and recommendation of social democracy as the genre of democracy suitable for a proposed United States of Africa.

The early twenty-first century witnessed remarkable attempts by Africa's political leadership to promote regional integration as a means of fast-tracking economic progress, facilitating peace and security, consolidating democratic gains, and promoting the general welfare of the African people. The transition of the Organization of Unity (OAU) to the African Union (AU), as well as the foisting of a new economic blueprint for the continent-the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), combined with the growing role of the regional economic communities (RECs) in harmonizing and creating subregional norms and standards in the political and economic arena suggests a new trend towards regionalism in Africa. Indeed, in the new regional integration architecture, the RECs are considered to be the building blocks of the integration process led by the African Union. This new impetus of a regional development strategy was largely prompted by the slow pace of economic progress on the continent, the increasing marginalization of Africa in the global economy, and the need to create regional resources and standards that would benefit the continent in all spheres of social life. A painful realization became obvious that small micro-states in Africa sticking to their political independence and sovereignty would hardly make much progress in an increasingly globalised world. A macro-states' approach of regional integration has assumed Africa's new strategy to intervene in and integrate with a globalizing world. The current regional trend in Africa has received very little scholarly attention especially in a systematic and comprehensive way. This is due partly to the fact that the processes are currently unfolding and there is still uncertainty in the outcomes. Poor documentation and the dearth of primary materials (especially from the regional institutions) also contribute to the lack of scholarly work in this area. This study assembles the voices of some of the most seasoned African and Africanist scholars who have constantly, in one way or another, interacted with the integration process in Africa and kept abreast of the developments therein, and seeks to capture those developments in a nuanced manner in the economic, political and social spheres. The essence of this book is to analyze those processes--teasing out the issues, problems, challenges and major policy recommendations, with tentative conclusions on Africa's regional development trajectory. The book therefore fills major knowledge and policy gaps in Africa's regional development agenda. This book is a landmark contribution in a systematic attempt to comprehend Africa's regional development strategy led by the African Union. It examines the background, nuances, and dimensions of the process, which include the basis and historiography of pan-Africanism, the transition of the OAU to the AU, the issue of popular participation in development, the NEPAD and APRM initiatives, the evolving regional peace and security architecture, and the efforts of regional institutions to facilitate democracy, human rights, rule of law and good governance on the continent. The book underscores the fact that formidable obstacles and challenges abound in the trajectory, politics, and processes of this regional development paradigm, especially as Africa navigates an uncertain future in a deeply divided and unequal yet globalised World. The book constitutes a major reference material and compendium for a wide range of readers--students and scholars of African affairs and African development, policy makers both in Africa and the western countries, regional and international institutions and organizations, and all those interested in the past, present and future of Africa's development process.

Japan-Africa Relations seeks to study the complex nature of the dynamics of power relations between Japan and Africa since the Bandung Conference in 1955, with an emphasis on the period starting from the 1970s up to the present.