Historical imperatives for the emergence of development and democracy: a perspective for the analysis of poor governance quality and state collapse in Africa

Abstract

"Bad governance has often been identified as the explanans for the weakness and subsequent collapse of the African state. Derivatively, African rulers have been advised and admonished to govern their societies well. But these analyses, advices and admonitions have been undertaken with little recourse to material conditions that have influenced the emergence ofgood governance and economic development in modern societies with a view to addressing the issue of whether these conditions ar available in Africa. The following analysis tries to identify these conditions which are political-economic in nature and posits that they are lacking in Africa. Employing the method of process tracing in a narrative manner, it draws attention to the historical development of the lack of such conditions within the structures instituted by colonialis and maintained through neo-colonial policies. The paper concludes by advising the donor community and international agencies that without the creation of those or similar iperatives, all efforts at socio-economic development and state capacity building may come to nought." (author's abstract)