Democracy and Governance in Neoliberal Africa

Since the late 1980s, issues of democratic governance have been high on the African agenda. The situation that unfolded thence contrasts sharply with the authoritarian systems that had been so characteristic of Africa. This book discusses not only the background to the democratic spurt that became a commonplace on the continent but identifies that the political transition was actually preceded by an unacknowledged economic one that the neoliberal structural adjustment programs (SAPs) brought into being. With a focus on Ghana, it is demonstrated how the SAPs helped in re-engineering a social contract that accepted the primacy of the state in social provisioning, to one that privileges the market logic. It is argued that the period 1982-2000 exhibits this economic and political transformation in Ghana that led to the removal of ideological obstacles to democratic institutionalization. The relative success of democracy in Ghana since 1993, it is posited, is due to the ideological convergence among the key political actors and parties in the country.