ON THE POLITICAL TRANSITIONS IN AFRICA
Name:Zhao Zhongjie Student ID：b07054
Research paper supervisor:Dr.Seku Conde
Minzu University of China
2007-2008 Academic Year
Abstract:
To the intermediate of 60's, because of the influences from some Eastern Europe and the Eastern Asia socialist countries at that time, African countries began to transit their political forms. Some countries chose the socialist road. But the majority of the countries had had frequent coups, having the military-managed governments. To the end of 80's, by all sorts of impacts from inside and outside, in particular "democratization" being under tide, many countries began to follow the western multi-party pattern, no matter having chosen the socialism pattern, or military-managed political pattern. But after transition many countries are still in the disturbance of conflicts, civil wars and coups. In this paper the author has definite the forms of the political transition and analyzed the impacts and successes and failures of the transitions. And at the end of this paper the author has given some implications.
Key Words: Political transition; ethnic conflicts;
INTRODUCTION
At the beginning of the independence in the 60's, the major countries in Africa have carried on an original west colonial set of civil official system. To the intermediate of 60's, many countries had the economical difficulties, and the political situation had come to turbulent chaos. Because of the influences from some Eastern Europe and the Eastern Asia socialist countries at that time, some countries chose the socialist road. But the majority of the countries had had frequent coups, having the military-managed governments. To the end of 80's, by all sorts of impacts from inside and outside, in particular "democratization" being under tide, many countries began to follow the western multi-party pattern, no matter having chosen the socialism pattern, or military-managed political pattern. But after transition many countries are still in the disturbance of conflicts, civil wars and coups.
In their unraveling, political transitions are complex processes. First, as reality-creating and reality-changing processes, they introduce new beginnings and differentiate the past from the present and future in rather definitive ways. This is manifest in the new ground rules (constitutions, pacts, negotiated settlements, and agreements), regime-institutional erosion and change, emergence of new actors and coalitions, new forms of political competition, and so on, that accompany transitions. Second, transitions are periods of turbulence and crisis that generate tensions and uncertainties through the opening up of new opportunities, all of which encourage more intense and desperate political action. Depending on the extent to which the political system is able to cope with the stresses and challenges to the point of ultimately domesticating them, transitions have a way of overheating the system, raising the stakes of cohesion and survival, and creating or exacerbating a crisis of legitimacy. This is the more so that transitions tend to defy the "rules" of manageability and predictability that are usually associated with processes of social engineering and planned change.
FORMS OF POLITICAL TRANSITIONS
Political transitions present a variety of forms, depending on duration, whether they are forced, planned or programmed, and mode of transition. Following these criteria, transitions can be short to medium to long term, or perennial and permanent, as Young characterized Nigeria's endless military-managed transitions of the 1980s and 1990s. Or they may be programmed, as a voluntary act, by a transformation-seeking incumbent/departing government (cf. the several military-guided transitions in Nigeria and Ghana) or forced, in which case, it is power challengers and opposition elements that force the incumbent government to transit, usually with the objective of overthrowing or replacing the latter (transition from colonial rule and from the authoritarian one party and military regimes that proliferated the post-colonial political landscape). Or, as is quite often the sequence, the transition could be both forced and programmed. Finally, political transitions may be elite-driven or populist, and closed or open, depending on the mode of transition.
The modes include competitive electoral process, which usually involves the opening of political competition to previously excluded opposition parties and minority elements (elite-driven and partially open, as in Kenya, Zambia, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire); transition through negotiated settlement and pacting (elite-driven and partially open, as in most decolonization and independence deals and, more recently, the post-apartheid transition in South Africa and Nigeria post-1993); transition through the National Conference, which was widespread in Francophone African countries following its initial, albeit limited success in Benin (populist and open); phased and programmed transition by interest-begotten military governments (elite-driven and closed as in Nigeria, Ghana, Niger, Mali); and revolutionary or violent overthrow of incumbent governments by warlords, ethnic militias, and rebel forces, which has become somewhat widespread in recent times (populist and open, as in Ethiopia, Congo DR, Uganda, Liberia). But, notwithstanding differences in form and character, political transitions in general, are dynamic processes of change, which constitute the difference between the antecedent and current (and hopefully future) regimes. In this paper, we are interested in what has arguably been the most critical political transition in post-colonial Africa, namely, democratization, which Garreton5 defines as a process of "establishing, strengthening, or extending the principles, mechanisms and institutions that define a democratic regime". By democratic regime we mean a system (institutions, structure and process) of governance hinged on constitutionalism, participation, transparency, accountability, responsiveness and rule of law, and in which those who govern are popularly chosen in regular, competitive, free and fair elections. There have been two waves of democratic transition in Africa. The first was decolonization, which has only recently come to be seen as the first wave of democratization. Although decolonization was primarily about freedom from colonial rule and domination, it involved struggles to install democratic structures notwithstanding that this process was truncated by the emergence of authoritarian regimes in most countries. The second wave, which is more generally accepted to be democratization because it occurred within the context of the so-called global democratic revolution, took place in the 1980s and 1990s, and involved transition from authoritarian rule to democratic rule through erosion of the past and establishment of new institutions and processes.
Two points stand out from these definitions. First is the essentially positivist conception of transition, or more specifically democratic transition, as goal-oriented and path to a desirable state of being, one characterized by democracy, development and stability. Apart from the unstated Western context of experiences and expectations in which mainstream development theory in general is almost entirely rooted, and which was more clearly to be seen in the second wave when (formal) democracy became a non-negotiable condition for foreign donor-assisted development efforts in Africa, this raises the question of whether or not the course and outcomes of transitions can be programmed and controlled. While most transitions, especially the transfers of power that hallmarked decolonization and military-managed transitions, assume that they can be, the point cannot be denied that even when the means and ends are clearly articulated-as they were in General Babangida's "methodical" transition program in Nigeria-the courses and outcomes of transition remain highly unpredictable and multivalent.
It is precisely because most analysts of transitions in Africa fail to come to terms with this reality and the fact that conflicts are critical shapers of democracy, that the various crises that accompany transitions, including the intensification of ethnic conflicts, which are integral parts of the pangs of change and ought to be analyzed as such, are seen as pathologies, aberrations and irritants by scholars and state power holders alike. Thus, ostensibly to get rid of the demon of ethnicity and the instability it supposedly brings, it has been pointed out that even within the context of the democratization process, most African states ban the formation of ethnically based political parties and associations. But what would transitions be if they divorced from the cataclysms that in fact shape them, and if the extant and emergent conflicts and crises that find greater expression within the very process itself cannot be managed and ultimately domesticated?
The views of Lipset are quite illuminating. He asserts that group conflicts are democracy's life-blood and that the existence of a moderate state of conflict is in fact another way of defining a legitimate democracy. It is not surprising then that democratic transitions, which entail a large dosage of contested legitimacy, tend to engender and aggravate conflict. As Lipset11 argues.
A crisis of legitimacy is a crisis of change. Therefore, its roots must be sought in the character of change ...Crises of legitimacy occur during a transition to a new social structure, if (1) the status of major conservative institutions is threatened during a period of structural change; (2) all the major groups in the society do not have access to the political system in the transitional period, or at least as soon as they develop political demands. After a new social structure is established, if the new system is unable to sustain the expectations of major groups...for a long period to develop legitimacy upon the new basis, a new crisis may develop.
Lipset's insight makes it very clear that aggravated conflicts are a normal concomitant of political transition, and therefore, that establishment of appropriate conflict regulation and management strategies that are capable of legitimizing the new system in the long-run [...]
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