Threats to Democracy. Examples from Africa

Lecture by Prof. Gordon Crawford (University of Coventry, GB
Former editor of ‘Democratization’)

Donnerstag, 13.10.2016, 20:00 Uhr c.t. HS 1015, KG I, Universität Freiburg

This presentation will examine democratization trends in Africa a quarter of a century after the ‘wave’ of democratization rolled across sub-Saharan Africa in the early 1990s. It will focus on perceived democratic backsliding in the past decade and examine the challenges posed by hybridity, that is those ‘illiberal democracies’ stuck in the grey zone between democracy and autocracy. It will take this analysis further, however, by relating the limits to liberal democracy to the nature of the state in Africa, in particular the neo-patrimonial state under neo-liberal state transformation. It will illustrate the argument partly through the example of Ghana, often regarded as a democratic model for Africa, but where informality and corruption continue to limit democratic progress.

Prof. Dr. Gordon Crawford is Research Professor of Global Development at the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University, UK. He has written extensively on issues of democracy and democratization in Africa generally and Ghana in particular.

This lecture is part of the Lecture Series Democracies in Distress:Current developments, trends and implications. >>>