Post-colonial struggles for a democratic Southern Africa: Legacies of Liberation
Carolyn Bassett, Marlea Clarke, "Post-colonial struggles for a democratic Southern Africa: Legacies of Liberation"
English | 2015 | ISBN: 1138913448 | EPUB | pages: 130 | 0.5 mb
English | 2015 | ISBN: 1138913448 | EPUB | pages: 130 | 0.5 mb
National liberation, one of the grand narratives of the twentieth century, has left a weighty legacy of unfulfilled dreams. This bookexplores the ongoing struggle for legitimate, accountable political leaders in postcolonial Southern Africa, focusing on dilemmas arising when ex-liberation movements form the governments. While the spread of multi-party democracy to most countries in the region is to be celebrated, democratic practice often has been superficial - a limited, elitist politics that relies on the symbols of the liberation struggle to legitimate de facto one-party rule and authoritarian practices. Using country cases from Tanzania, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia, the collection explores three subthemes relevant to postcolonial governance in Southern Africa: how the struggle for liberation shapes the character of political transformation, the nature of rule in one-party dominant states headed by former liberation movements, and the processes of governance and resistance in post-liberation contexts.
This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies.