BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: WHAT ARE THE MISSING LINKS?

BETWEEN DEMOCRACY AND DEVELOPMENT IN AFRICA: WHAT ARE THE MISSING LINKS?
 
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1       Background of the Study
This study argues democracy is correlated to development either exogenously or endogenously although this view is mainly Eurocentric its application in this  context might be instrumental to diffusing the problem of under development in the African continent, despite the rise in number of electoral democracies around the continent it continues to be marred by alarming rate of underdevelopment. Though elections can be argued to be a defining attribute of democracy but may not necessarily bring about economic development and social transformation, rather the content of democracy and the way it is constituted not just elections may usher in such developments and transformations in any democratic dispensation.  The assertion that development is correlated to democracy was derived from the tenants of modernization theory, which in simple terms argues development ushers in and ensures survival of democracy, while other contributors to this theory claim vice versa. The hypothesis put forward by modernization theorists can be summed up in simple terms as a theory that seeks to establish a positive correlation between economic development and democracy and its subsequent survival, democratization.  Lipset observation that democracy is related to economic development was first put forward in the 1950’s and can be argued to have generated a wide range of research in comparative politics. Przeworski et al (1997:156). The deteriorating social welfare, high unemployment rates, illiteracy, dilapidated states of public institutions, poor standard of living, legitimacy crisis, uneven distribution of wealth, inability of the state to legitimize the monopoly of use of force and most of all the laxity or failure in provision of public goods and services, in spite of the vote for democracy which is thought to be an inclusive system of governance, has further compounded the woes of a promising continent endowed with vast human and natural resources[1]. This in turn like chain reaction is gradually undermining the confidence of the populace in democracy as a citizen oriented system of governance. In lieu, what is the correlation between democracy and development in the African context? Why have states in Africa despite claiming to be democratic failed in their attempts, if any to alleviate social economic status of the citizenry? And what is or are the missing link(s) between democracy and development in Africa?