Closing the Circle: Democratization and Development in Africa

by Richard Sandbrook

We all know that many African countries face political tyranny, failed capitalist development, and violent domestic conflict. What is less clear is what relationship may exist between effective democratic institutions and the solution of the last two problems. Richard Sandbrook draws on the experience with democratisation of a carefully selected sample of countries: Ghana, Mali and Niger in West Africa; Zambia, Tanzania and Madagascar in East Africa; and Sudan. He illustrates the diversity of African experiences of the transition to democratic political forms and the complex relationships between democratic institutions and economic reform and social order. He concludes that the ultimate value of democratic institutions lies in whether they lead to economic progress and social justice and peace.

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 28, 2000

About the author

With both statist and market-based models of governance having failed at a time of enormous challenges, especially climate change, where do we turn? This is the central question that has animated my study and writing during the past 15 years. My focus has been the global south, though the old distinction between developed/less-developed, First World/Third World is increasingly irrelevant in this global age.

I am a Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Toronto who recently “retired” after 41 years of service. However, I remain active as a teacher and writer. I have focused my research since 2000 on three specific topics: the experience of the democratic left in the Global South, the relevance of social-democratic thinking to the reshaping of the neoliberal global order and the utility of a framework based on Karl Polanyi’s “double movement” for understanding counter-hegemonic struggles. I have conducted field work mainly in Africa, and have also travelled widely in Latin America and Asia. I have published about 60 scholarly articles and chapters and 12 books, most recently Reinventing the Left in the Global South: The Politics of the Possible (October 2014)and Civilizing Globalization: A Survival Guide: Revised and Expanded Edition (2014) with Ali Burak Guven.

Currently, I am returning to a topic that interested me in the 1980s: personal rule. I seek to understand the reciprocal relationship between neo-patrimonialism and mass poverty as part of a study group on the political economy of immiserizing growth.