Angola: The challenges of democratic transition.
Date
1996
Authors
Malaquias, Assis Veiga.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Dalhousie University
Abstract
Description
Current emphasis on democratization, liberalization, governance, and civil society in Africa reflects the prevailing political, economic and cultural situations resulting from the international economic crisis of the 1980s, structural adjustment, the collapse of Soviet communism and the end of the Cold War.
Today, democratic transition is accepted as an indispensable stage in a more comprehensive process that will eventually liberate Africa from underdevelopment. However, democracy alone is not necessarily the cure-all solution to Africa's problems. Accepting unquestionably Western forms of liberal democracy without exploring alternatives of how to accommodate the losers can easily lead to further political and economic chaos and perhaps precipitate the onset of anarchy. How to make transitions to democracy both relevant and sustainable remains an important challenge. Since democratization in Africa reflects a popular demand for improved governance and economic conditions, the answer may lie in harmonizing or reconciling essentially Western ideas of political rights with more concrete and basic economic rights while taking into account the continent's socio-cultural realities. In other words, Africa must find a way to reconcile its tradition of consensus politics with the "winner-takes-all" model of Western politics.
Elections could not help solve Angola's multifaceted and mutilayered crises in the 1990s. The political settlement reached by the main opponents in the Angolan conflict was imposed upon them by changing international conditions. Civil society was unprepared and unable to play a significant role in the transition process as compared with other, more successful transitions. Thus, the field was left almost exclusively to the two political parties with their powerful military wings. Given a long history of personal animosity, ethnic divisions, and ideological differences, a transition to elected government in Angola could hardly be peaceful in the manner in which it was implemented. Such a peaceful transition in Angola could only have come about if civil society was strong enough to participate actively and decisively in laying the foundations for a new political system and hence a new and sustainable social and economic order.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1996.
Today, democratic transition is accepted as an indispensable stage in a more comprehensive process that will eventually liberate Africa from underdevelopment. However, democracy alone is not necessarily the cure-all solution to Africa's problems. Accepting unquestionably Western forms of liberal democracy without exploring alternatives of how to accommodate the losers can easily lead to further political and economic chaos and perhaps precipitate the onset of anarchy. How to make transitions to democracy both relevant and sustainable remains an important challenge. Since democratization in Africa reflects a popular demand for improved governance and economic conditions, the answer may lie in harmonizing or reconciling essentially Western ideas of political rights with more concrete and basic economic rights while taking into account the continent's socio-cultural realities. In other words, Africa must find a way to reconcile its tradition of consensus politics with the "winner-takes-all" model of Western politics.
Elections could not help solve Angola's multifaceted and mutilayered crises in the 1990s. The political settlement reached by the main opponents in the Angolan conflict was imposed upon them by changing international conditions. Civil society was unprepared and unable to play a significant role in the transition process as compared with other, more successful transitions. Thus, the field was left almost exclusively to the two political parties with their powerful military wings. Given a long history of personal animosity, ethnic divisions, and ideological differences, a transition to elected government in Angola could hardly be peaceful in the manner in which it was implemented. Such a peaceful transition in Angola could only have come about if civil society was strong enough to participate actively and decisively in laying the foundations for a new political system and hence a new and sustainable social and economic order.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Dalhousie University (Canada), 1996.
Keywords
Political Science, International Law and Relations.