Tracks of the third wave: democracy theory, democratisation and the dilemma of political succession in Africa

Introduction

Huntington's Third wave and democratisation in the twentieth century (1991b) is a milestone in democracy theory. In line with the general democratic trends Huntington (1991a) designated as third wave, Jaggers and Gurr (1995) carried out a tracking of the third-wave polities using the Polity III data set to analyse the paths of third-wave states. Findings of the study relating to African states reveal uninspiring promises of democracy. But the analytical tools of the study are rooted in the procedural third-wave discourse on democracy. Such tools cannot explain why most of the third-wave states in Africa are generating defective versions of democratisation. I argue that the third-wave procedural discourse is not only an inadequate formulation but is also one of the sources of the perverse forms which democratic transitions are taking in several African states.

A wave of democratisation, according to Huntington (1991b, p. 15), ‘is a group of transitions from non democratic to democratic regimes that occur within a specified period of time and that significantly outnumber transitions in the opposite direction during that period of time’. He identifies three such historic waves of democratisation, with the third wave commencing in 1974 with the military coup in Portugal that ended decades of dictatorship. This touched off demands for democracy across authoritarian states. Factors associated with the spread of the third wave are: deepening legitimacy crises of authoritarian systems; economic growth and the expansion of the urban middle class in many countries; transformation of churches from being defenders of the status quo to being opponents of authoritarianism; changes in the policies of external actors, including the European Community and the United States, and their posture towards the promotion of democracy and human rights in other countries and ‘snowballing’ or demonstration effects enhanced by new means of international communication (Huntington 1991b, pp. 45–46).

Mass demands for the opening up of the political space have been an expression of more fundamental demands for material improvement in living standards. Thus within political demands are embedded socio-economic demands. Huntington sees these demands only from a procedural minimalist epistemology. This variant of democracy discourse that predominantly frames political practice emphasises procedure to the exclusion of the substance of democracy. It thus offers scope for dictatorships to mimic the formal requirements of the minimalist discourse to reproduce authoritarian rule and other aspects of misrule that are not accounted for in the dominant perspective on democracy. But ‘democracy … involves ideals and principles as well as procedures and institutions’ as Riley (1992, p. 549) puts it. Similarly, Simon (1995), and Gandhi and Lust-Okar (2009) have drawn attention to the inadequacies of the limited focus on elections in thinking about democracy.

Building on the procedural idea of democracy, Huntington understands twentieth-century political systems as being democratic ‘to the extent that its most powerful collective decision makers are selected through fair honest and periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes and in which virtually all adult population is eligible to vote’ (1991b, p. 10). This construct, which is built on Joseph Schumpeter's earlier work, diminishes the worth of normative traditions of democratic theory and their emphasis on the substantive component of political rule. It idealises the empirical, institutional and procedural definition which is said to be the only approach with empirical referents that render the concept of democracy measurable and useful. However, if liberal democracy is reducible to elections as Huntington (1991b), Schumpeter (1976) and other liberal democracy discourses lead us to understand, the social contract element and the basis of citizen claims on the state are lost. This analytical thrust abandons the idea of people (demos) and privileges system reproduction. But de-emphasising people in favour of system or procedure theoretically reinforces political alienation.

Mid-range liberal democracy theorists recognise the importance of some aspects of normative thesis on democracy. They emphasise the importance of participation. If participation is understood in the light of deliberative democracy of the kind in which democratic control is substantive rather than symbolic (see Dryzek 2000), then it would be touching on the heart of democracy. Unfortunately, in the procedural discourse participation tends to be conflated with voting.

Political elites' preoccupation with the retention of power is central for explaining crises of political succession. Four broad patterns of political succession can be identified in the third-wave countries in Africa. These patterns include: illegitimate and unpopular self-succession, hereditary trends, the appointment of proxies, and rare instances of free and fair political succession. This paper contests that the trends in Africa's political succession are connected with limitations of its minimalist basis.

Third wave, liberal democracy and political succession: contending perspectives

A central distinction in democratic theory is between the minimalist and maximalist views. At the core of the minimalist view is the electoral regime that represents the defining framework for democracy. Schumpeter popularised this approach by summing up the democratic method as ‘that institutional arrangement for arriving at political decisions in which individuals acquire the power to decide by means of competitive struggle for the peoples vote’ (Schumpeter 1976, p. 269). The role of the people in the Schumpeterian thesis is in the production of government or an intermediate body which produces a national executive. His main critique of the classical emphasis on people as the core of democracy is that ‘the will of the majority is the will of the majority and not the will of the people’ (Schumpeter 1976, p. 269). This critique is founded on pragmatic minimalist grounds. Thus, ‘if results that prove in the long run satisfactory to the people at large are made the test of government for the people, then government by the people as conceived by the classical doctrine of democracy would often fail to meet it’ (Schumpeter 2003, p. 8). Also, managing the affairs of society requires career politicians. As he argues

Huntington finds two things crucial in this genre of democracy, namely, contestation and participation. He notes that

Despite the importance of empirical measures in social sciences, it is difficult to deny that ‘not everything about democracy can be an empirically discovered fact, at some point; philosophical assumptions have to be made and argued’ (Graham 1986, pp. 7–8). Indeed if democracy is about procedure, method and arrangement for taking decisions, ‘why does it exercise such a strong hold over us and why are we prepared to die for it?’ (Graham 1986, p. 19). For instance, the spark of the Arab Spring was death by self-immolation of a Tunisian vegetable vendor for being denied his very little space of economic existence. This singular event was the tinder box that lit the fire of mass political revolts. The underlying factors behind these are ‘polarization of incomes, rising food prices, lack of dwellings, massive unemployment of educated and uneducated…’ (Anderson 2011, p. 10). A democracy theory that ignores these material dimensions of citizens' lives fundamentally disengages state and society.

Taking on the proceduralists, Macpherson (1977) declared the death of liberal democracy because it has come to mean the democracy of the capitalist market. He thinks that this is a deviation from the liberal democracy of J.S. Mill and other ethical liberal democrats. The ethical liberal democrats emphasised a society striving to ensure that all its members are equally free to realise their capabilities. But proceduralists pose the indicators of democracy as free and fair elections, political equality, freedom and protection from infringement and institutionalised constraints on the exercise of power (Diamond 2002, Jaggers and Gurr 1995, Buhlmann et al. 2008). Macpherson's counter point is based on critique of the line of thought that seeks to adapt democracy to suit the market society. He draws attention to the fact that liberal democracy (not democracy) started in capitalist market society and its meaning has been under the influence of the market. Indeed the earliest theoretical formulations by the utilitarian school on the subject drew from classical political economy. In this vein, the need for government was deduced, with desirable functions for it as a political apparatus for administering the market while democracy is reduced to a desirable system of choosing and authorising government (Macpherson 1977).

Despite tracing the provenance of liberal democracy to market society, Macpherson does not see that the framework offered from market-oriented discourses captures the true essence of liberal democracy. The procedural model treats democracy as a market mechanism in which voters are consumers while politicians are entrepreneurs. As an adaptation of the market model,

With focus on mechanistic equilibrium generated by the process, the approach plays down the role of political rule in creating conditions of equal opportunity for the development of citizens' capacities. Consequently, the formal equality it professes at the political level of structure is empty because it is a carry-over of the principle of competitive equality in unequal market conditions. Protection of rights therefore means protection of the market ethos of competition and contract regime. In the political context it is the right of free competition for votes. Thus for Schumpeter, political party is ‘a group whose members propose to act in concert in competitive struggle for power. Party and machine politicians … constitute an attempt to regulate political competition exactly similar to the corresponding practices of trade association’ (O'Toole 1977, pp. 456–457). Pluralism ensures wider political spaces for the elites to enter political competition, while rationalism is left for the voter who uses his vote as political money to buy what he considers the best plan for society. It is Schumpeter's position that

Socio-economic rights as part of democracy discourse are rightly emphasised by some writers. Zuern (2009) argues that popular perceptions about democracy and the assessment of regimes in some third-wave states in Africa rest largely on the substantive criteria despite contrary claims of Lewis and Bratton (2000). Similarly, Doorenspleet (2010) refers to studies that show support for democracy but not satisfaction. But the absence of satisfaction undermines support and ultimately the political system. Support itself draws from ability of an elected government to address citizens' socio-economic needs. Thus, Huntington (1991b) sets his minimalist thesis up for challenge by noting that authoritarian regimes are inescapably driven to look for performance as a source of legitimacy. He held that the beginning of authoritarian regimes may be received with mass support. This ‘negative legitimacy’ derives from the failures of the ‘democratic’ regime. This suggests that socio-economic outcomes are the main popular concern. Therefore, discussing democracy in the light of procedure and ignoring the substantive content of governance presents a hollow picture of form without content.

Privileging of form over content or procedure over substance is the reason the third-wave democracies that emerged in Africa pander towards the dominant epistemology rather than the creation of public good which is really why governments are constituted. Ake's reflection on democratisation and the slant of liberal democracy in Africa draws attention to the danger of excluding the substance of democracy which would create a democracy that fails to address the gaps in governance. As he puts it:

As elections matter more than the substantive content of governance in the dominant conception, dictatorships in Africa have been able to make ‘political adjustment into despotic adjustment’ (Ndjio 2008, p. 120). Despotic adjustment leads authoritarian regimes to conduct elections but violate liberal democratic principles of freedom and fairness, thereby rendering elections the instrument of authoritarian rule rather than instruments of democracy. States with these characteristics have also been qualified as ‘defective democracies, hybrid regimes or new forms of authoritarianism’ (Schedler n.d., p. 4). Competitive authoritarianisms (Levitsky and Way 2002, Bunce and Wolchik 2010) and ‘illiberal’ democracies (Diamond 2002) are similar qualifications associated with the mutations of democracy in third-wave states. This development is related to the epistemological basis of the third-wave conception of democracy.

Huntington (1997) reckons with critiques of electoralism and accepts this as detraction from the proper democratic form. He tried to defend his view of democracy by pointing at Diamond's distinction between liberal democracy and electoral democracy. Nonetheless, his model of liberal democracy does not go any further than the procedural economistic rational choice view of society in which choices are expressed in votes and goods delivered in governance in terms of certain guarantees of rights for social equilibrium similar to that of the market. On the contrary, the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) (2010) rightly sees little use for electoral democracy if not accompanied by reforms that improve people's lives.

Proceduralism evades the issue of the epistemological roots of the dysfunction in Africa's democratisation. This is because elections cannot in themselves be an end. Instead, they are necessary conditions for fulfilment of the main reason for the existence of government. Popular liberation struggles in Africa and other parts of the world were based on aspirations for political rule that addresses the socio-economic needs of citizens. Nzongola-Ntalaja (1997, p. 4) comments in this vein that ‘struggle for national liberation meant not only freedom from colonial rule, but also and more importantly a better standard of living and more secure future for their children’. Ake (2003), and Onyeonoru and Aborisade (2001) also connect democratic struggles to socio-economic aspirations of the citizens. Thus Macpherson's (1977) reflections on ethical liberal democracy are relevant in the African context. While conceding that liberal democracy developed in Western capitalist society, he refuses to conflate liberal democracy with Western capitalism. Understanding the concept of liberalism from the ethical perspective he sees that ethical position with respect to liberal democracy implies a commitment to free equal development of all individuals. However, he believes that achieving this requires a non-market, classless society whose political practice contains non-historically limited insights of liberalism including:

In searching for how procedural democracy is linked to the succession dilemma in Africa, different positions emerge in the literature. Thus it becomes interesting to explore how the components of democracy materialise in the entire processes related to succession. Govea and Holm (1998) linked political crises to unregulated succession rather than to economic and social crises. This follows the dominant knowledge on democracy which fails to reflect on the class basis of political power and the purpose of democracy beyond a mere actualisation of stability in society. Connectedness of social structures links crisis in each sphere to overall system crisis and it could be argued that the interests of the ruling elite which straddle the socio-economic and political spheres of society is what create succession crises in third-wave democracies. The dominant discourse ignores structural linkages of society and presents multipartyism as the solution to African politics. Therefore democratisation means, for the elite, a process of competing for power. The consequence of concentrating on the political structure is that politics further excludes the already disaffected masses (cf. Nyamnjoh 2005).

Focusing on East Africa, Warioba (2006), Musambayi (2006), Tusasirwe (2006), Matua (2006) and Othman (2006) show political succession as being at the heart of political tensions in that area. Agyeman-Duah (2003) uses a more general analysis to show that interests of the ruling group or individual are the main basis of succession crises in the continent. Political succession is therefore generating tensions among political elites such that elections are said to represent a fading shadow of democracy (Adejumobi 2000, Diamond 2002). The electoral focus of the third-wave discourse seeks to reproduce procedural democracy in Africa without regard to Africa's cultural specificities that are not underpinned by a market ethos. Minimalist democracy fails to reproduce the African community that cares. This creates the structural alienation of the majority and at the same time obsessive need by politicians to control state structures for personal interests. Consequently, the inadequacies of the hegemonic democracy framework manifests in struggles for political succession in Africa thereby setting the theory up for contestation.

Explaining the crisis of democratic theory and perverse manifestations of the third wave in Africa

Theory building is akin to developing a template within which practice is fitted or measured. There operates a dialectical process in which epistemologies undergo crises. Thomas Kuhn (1970) had put forward a discourse in his classic, Structure of scientific revolutions. He showed that normal science or the dominant paradigm undergoes crisis through the rise of counter-instances and alternative viewpoints. Where the counter-instance is found more appropriate in explaining issues related to the puzzle, it becomes the new normal science. Thus we have:

This framework could be used to view the knowledge continuum in which democratic theory has been developing. Beginning from the classical meaning of the concept as people's government, the theory has other major moments of robust theoretical interest in the ideas of Locke, the Encyclopedists, Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Schumpeter, among others. In the progression of the theory, it has gone through several mutations. Each mutation tends to be a reconstruction of knowledge to either reflect an ideal to be pursued or an effort to fit knowledge into the realities of social structures ranging from demographic expansion to the character of the economic base. Mindful of the impossibility of direct democracy amidst population growth beyond city states and of course the rise of capitalism, Lockean theory of representative government is posed as a contract in which citizens obey government in return for the protection of their natural rights of life, liberty and property.

Contributions of utilitarian theorists recognised evolving market conditions in the Western world and viewed democracy from the point of view of man as utility maximiser living in a condition of conflicting interests. The governing few in society would therefore be committed to their interests without regard to others. The way to prevent government from despoiling the rest of the people is to render it frequently removable by the majority. A guarantee of the greatest happiness for the greatest number can only come from this practice. J.S. Mill's contribution in this school has a maximalist inclination. He suggested that apart from voting and participation, democracy should make people ‘more active, more energetic; it would advance them in intellect, in virtue and in practical activity and efficiency’ (Macpherson 1977, p. 51). Jefferson's contribution to the theory was a case for creating conditions that ensure absence of fundamental class divisions. He saw the presence of opportunity for freedom and independent enterprise to all citizens as necessary for democracy.

In line with Thomas Kuhn's logic of growth and crisis of paradigms, the journey of recorded democracy discourse goes back to the classical tradition through the Enlightenment to contemporary times. Closely observing this process reveals the emergence in each particular age of sets of ideas that reflect the level of historical development of material forces. The dominant theory of governance in each epoch can therefore be seen as an aspect of the hegemonic project of that period. Little wonder Greek classical thought, especially the Platonic school, was critical of democracy (Popper 1962, Macpherson 1977). Theories of government that found reason in the assent of the mass of the citizens as the basis of political power actually arose with increasing disenchantment against feudal monarchies and the growth of a new socio-economic class that also needed a political voice and power in an emerging capitalist order. To command appeal, the masses were included in the notion of people. It became necessary, as Locke did, to formulate governance ideas in which sovereignty drew from the governed. Ideas of the rights of man and equality arose as a corresponding slogan. The entry of Schumpeter into the discourse reflects the changing character of the market and its increasing requirement to roll back the people and more effectively dominate them through the seemingly neutral political mechanism of elections. In search of a system of government and procedure that best guarantees this order Schumpeter thought of a democratic method that reflects the market ethos. He was writing in a full-blown market order in which system equilibrium was necessary. His emphasis on how the system is reproduced rather than its content regarding citizens' lives leads Macpherson to qualify the Schumpeterian thesis as the equilibrium model of democracy (Macpherson 1977).

The Great Depression prompted the rise of Keynesian economics in which regulation created a compromise which led to an inclusive economic order that characterised the Fordist era. The pattern continued until the rise of neoliberalism which corresponds at the political level with the Schumpeterian perspective on democracy. In that connection, democratisation in every part of the world is taken to mean the diffusion of the minimalist thesis which represents the political variant of capitalist modernisation necessary for legitimating the dominant architecture of global power. Hence, Mamdani (2002, p. 289) sees that the wave of African democratisation articulated as the ‘second independence movement’ suffers from the inability to grasp the mode of rule that needs to be democratised. He was referring to democratic activism in Africa that focuses on form rather than substance. Similarly, Young (2004) sees this as ‘virtual democracy’.

Discourses that universalise the minimalist model not only ignore Western democratic theories of substantive slant, but also the substantive participatory ideals of African village communities (Zuern 2009). In all, what takes place are mutations of the democracy epistemology driven by the dominant regime of each epoch. This is to say that the crises of democracy theory like Kuhn's normal science is connected to changing socio-economic patterns while the dominant one in each epoch reflects the dominant mode of production. Accordingly, the minimalist thesis fails to capture the substantive sense of, but satisfies the hegemonic project of the dominant socio-economic system. The result is contradictions in democracy theory which manifest in restored elective rules in Africa. With emphasis on the formalistic components of democracy, most former dictatorships in Africa have adjusted it to their convenience leading to certain broad patterns in political succession that fall short of the substantive elements.

Illegitimate/unpopular self-succession

This relates to the manipulation of the extant laws and institutions on political succession especially those dealing with term limits to enable the incumbent to continue in power. Beginning with Cameroon, the ruling People's Democratic Movement (RDPC) has been under Paul Biya's dictatorship since 1982 (Ngoh 2004). His present term in office was achieved by manipulating the legislature to remove term limits to enable him to run for the presidency in the last election. Through a series of fraudulent elections, Biya has consistently succeeded despite doubts about the popularity of his leadership. Similarly, Congo-Brazzaville has been ruled since 1979 by Denis Sassou Nguesso. Following an election held in 1992, he lost to Pascal Lissouba. Political disagreements with the new leader led him to mobilise a militia and start a war against the elected government of Pascal Lissouba in 1997. His forces overwhelmed the government forces and overthrew the Lissouba government leading to Nguesso's return to power. He quickly conducted an election to give formal effect to his rule. The election would have been calculated to serve the purpose of staving off international pressure on him to democratise. He therefore played along the line of the dominant democracy template that emphasises elections. This justifies Daremas (2009) who sees that in the contested terrain of democracy theory, certain notions of it could create a window for authoritarian politics to mask itself as democratic.

Another instance is Egypt which was ruled by Mubarak from 1981 to February 2011. His mandate was renewed four times through a series of referendums. While activists had been demanding political reforms, it was not just demands for these reforms that occasioned the revolt which ended Mubarak's regime. The events which were identified as forming the background of the crisis are:

Uganda is another typical self-succession instance. President Yoweri Museveni has been ruling the country since 1986 after winning the guerrilla war against the regime of Milton Obote. The National Resistance Movement (NRM) which he led to victory in that war has since been the ruling political platform. Internal cracks within the movement which were occasioned by the demand for democracy, and pressures from international development partners, compelled the regime to adopt a multi-party system in 2003. However, Museveni has retained an unremitting hold on power even after the so-called opening up. In a meeting of the ruling party's National Executive Committee in March 2002, the president and his supporters, amidst opposition within the ruling party, removed Article 105(2) of the constitution, which placed term limits on the presidency. Thereafter, the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee passed a bill in May 2005 which amended the clause relating to term limits for the presidency. Evidently, this was to pave the way for Museveni's continued qualification for contesting the presidency. The incumbent is practically in control of the entire electoral process as well as all relevant institutions including the media, the judiciary, police and military, all of whom are usually deployed in favour of the sitting government during elections (Makara, Rakner and Svansand 2009).

Other cases that typify self-succession in Africa are Sudan, the Gambia (where President Jammeh is described as an ‘elected’ autocrat) (Saine 2008) and Zimbabwe, in which the 2008 elections created major tensions. Amidst the massive economic destitution of recent years (Mills 2011) the personalist regime of Robert Mugabe finds it expedient to satisfy the procedural conditions of democracy by staging elections.

Proxy succession

This variety arises out of the exertion of undue influence by the past incumbent on the choice of who succeeds him/her. The mechanisms for this range from vote rigging in general elections, to the manipulation of party selection or parliamentary processes. Usually the outgoing leader seeks to use this approach to retain influence in the government or create a regime that would lack firmness in making him accountable for past misrule. Following Malawi's transition to multi-party rule for instance, Bakili Muluzi became the head of state in 1994. After serving two terms, which is the constitutional limit, he tried in vain to change the constitution to contest the presidency again. Muluzi selected Bingu wa Mutharika, who was an outsider to the ruling party, as his successor. To foreclose challenge to this affront on party internal democracy, he dismissed his entire cabinet after announcing that it was the cabinet and the United Democratic Front (the ruling party's politburo) that chose Mutharika (Agyeman-Duah 2003). Mutharika eventually became his successor, though Muluzi's intent to use him as a stooge never did materialise.

The late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua of Nigeria became the presidential flag-bearer for the ruling party through the undisguised partisanship of his predecessor Olusegun Obasanjo (Posner and Young 2007). When Obasanjo failed in his ambition to change the constitution to allow him to run for a third term – contrary to the constitutional limit of two terms – he manipulated the emergence of Yar'Adua as the flag-bearer of the ruling party in the following presidential election. The 2007 presidential elections in which Yar'Adua was declared winner were extensively rigged (Suberu 2007). The aim of Obasanjo was to achieve proxy succession and remain politically influential.

An account of related events in Zambia goes back to the year 2000 when the late Frederick Chiluba tried to exceed his constitutionally mandated two terms as president. He actually received the nomination of his ruling party despite massive internal opposition, including his own vice-president and several of his ministers and parliamentarians. In May 2001, he decided to respect the constitution and not to seek a third term. This came only after violence and a rare and courageous threat of impeachment by the parliament. Chiluba then engineered the victory of his hand-picked successor, the late Levy Mwanawasa, in the December 2001 elections (Agyeman-Duah 2003).Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Hereditary trends

Joseph Kabila became the twenty-first century's precedent for hereditary succession in a republic when on 16 January 2001 his father, Laurent-Désiré Kabila was assassinated by his bodyguard. The military leadership thought it wise to replace Kabila with his son, who is to date President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It must be noted here that the DRC was not an elective regime at the time. In a controversial election held in 2006, Joseph Kabila emerged the winner amidst allegations of electoral malpractices. Similarly President Omar Bongo has maintained personalist political rule in Gabon since 1967 when he took over power as military leader. He later transmuted into a civilian head of state and ‘won’ all presidential elections conducted during his rule. Bongo's death in 2009 transformed Gabon's succession pattern from self-succession to hereditary presidency. His son Ben Bongo became Omar's successor. Omar Bongo dominated Gabonese politics for over four decades. In the process, he strategically positioned his son in politics by making him the defence minister. Besides, Bongo's dominance of the political space did not allow the opposition to build popular support (France 24 2009). In the end, the emergence of Ben Bongo as his father's successor, which in principle complied with the constitution, could be accounted for by long years of subtle closure of the political space by his father, Omar Bongo.

In the case of Togo, the death of President Eyadéma in February 2005 created room for the crude politics and manipulation of the constitution that characterised the process which led to the emergence of his 39-year-old son Faure Gnassingbé as his successor (Banjo 2008). Eyadéma's death was followed by swift action by Togo's military high command to announce Faure as his father's successor to the presidency. The military elite suspended the constitution and swore allegiance to Faure as president. This contravenes Article 65 of the Togolese constitution, which provided that ‘in case of vacancy in the presidency of the republic by death, the president's function is exerted temporarily by the president of the National Assembly…’ (Banjo 2008, p. 152).

The parliament was implicated in this conspiracy against the constitutional rule of succession because they quickly met to legitimise the succession blunder. Composed of 81 members, 72 of whom belonged to Eyadéma's political party, Parliament passed an extraordinary resolution that dismissed the Speaker on 7 February 2005 and then amended Article 65 of the constitution. This breaches a constitutional provision that ‘no revision procedure shall be initiated or continued during an interim period’ (Banjo 2008, p. 152). International pressures compelled Faure to hold presidential elections within 60 days, as stipulated by the constitution. To give a sense of transparency to the elections, he stepped aside and appointed the vice-president of the National Assembly as the interim president. The opposition contested that the return of the ex-Speaker was relevant to the process of restoration of constitutional order fearing that the refusal to reinstate him and the appointment of another person as an interim president was orchestrated to manipulate the process in favour of Eyadéma's son (Banjo 2008). The ballot which was programmed to deliver Faure as president ultimately did so. The point of elections in the first place is because of overwhelming international pressure requiring states to identify with the formalities of liberal democracy.

Emerging regimes of free and fair elections

Ghana is one case which is claimed to be democratising. Whitfield (2009, p. 621) praised it as ‘the shining democratic star on the African continent’. In light of Ghana's 2008 general elections, he argues that the country has developed stabilising characteristics typified by an independent electoral commission, transparent electoral processes, integration of the political elite, creation of norms and institutions that structure elite behaviour, and the institutionalisation of political parties. No doubt these are essential components of democracy, but are portrayed as sufficient from Whitfield's procedural minimalist viewpoint. But even on the basis of the minimalist view Jockers, Kohnert and Nugent (2010) contest that although Ghana may be more advanced in electoral practices than most countries of sub-Saharan Africa, there are persistent concerns of inflated voters registers and electoral fraud perpetrated by the two major political parties, as well as reluctance on the part of responsible authorities to investigate what appears to be a long history of fraudulent voting. To be sure, Ghana shows some promise, but it is still racing to catch up with the requirements of procedural democracy. Most of the complimentary discourses on its success hardly refer to the substantive elements of democracy. Reports on the economic conditions in Ghana tends towards emphasising general improvement. However, an Afrobarometer (2008, p. 4) survey reveals that 31% of Ghanaians suffer food shortages, 36% are without water, 36% are without medicine, 27% are without cooking fuel, and 53% are without a source of income. The report also shows that more than 60% of the survey respondents are dissatisfied with government performance in narrowing income gaps and keeping the prices of commodities down. This is not surprising because the framework of economic reform is neoliberalism (See Republic of Ghana 2005). Given this ideological focus, the emphasis of political rule is on how to grow capital, which hardly goes hand in hand with state responsibility towards the welfare of its citizens.

Conclusion

In tracing the various tracks which third-wave regimes have taken in Africa, this study reviewed the epistemology which underpins the dominant discourse. This review shows that the epistemology is part of the hegemonic project that reifies capitalist modernisation and conflates it with democracy. It has a strong effect on the democratisation discourse with confinement of the meaning of democracy to only the easily measurable procedural referents. These referents, such as elections and regime of rights, fail to integrate the substantive elements that are related to socio-economic conditions which create social citizenship. Social citizenship is created when political rule is based on practices which create democratic spaces for the development of both institutions and members of a political community. The maximalist perspective that addresses both the form and substance of democracy is subordinated to the procedural minimalist perspective. The latter perspective is the common measure of the so-called democratisation in Africa. It leads to the establishment of regimes that mimic the procedural stipulations of minimalist democracy. In the end, elite collaboration and integration increases, while the political and socio-economic alienation of the large mass of the citizens continues. Ultimately, democracy remains in abeyance.

Note on contributor

Bernard (Ben) Ugochukwu Nwosu is a doctoral candidate in political science and public policy at the University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand. He researches on the theme of state, civil society and political change within the broad area of political theory. He also holds a teaching position in the Department of Political Science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.