Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T14:20:06.191Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Majority Rule and Minority Rights: American Federalism and African Experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Barbara Thomas-Woolley  and
Edmond J. Keller
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of many authoritarian régimes, some observers suggest that we are in the midst of what can be called a worldwide democratic revolution. Although questions remain as to the durability of these changes, particularly in Africa, it is clear that we are at a cross-roads. Nations are considering what kinds of political institutions they want to replace those they are trying to dismantle. What, at this historical moment, is the special appeal of democracy in the non-Western world? Is it the promise of individual freedom? or popular elections designed to give all citizens a say in who governs? or the prospect of guaranteed individual and group rights?

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , September 1994 , pp. 411 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Meyns, Peter and Nabudere, Dani Wadada (eds.), Democracy and the One-Party State in Africa (Hamburg, 1989).Google Scholar

2 Duchacek, Ivo, ‘Antagonistic Cooperation: territorial and ethnic communities’, in Publius (Denton, TX), 7, 4, Fall 1977, p. 23.Google Scholar

3 Buchanan, Allen, Secession: the morality of political divorce from Fort Sumter to Lithuania and Quebec (Boulder, CO, 1991), p. 77.Google Scholar

4 Ibid.

5 Kymlicka, Will, Liberalism, Community and Culture (Oxford and New York, 1989), p. 215.Google Scholar

6 Rothchild, Donald and Olorunsola, Victor, ‘Managing Competing State and Ethnic Claims’, in , Rothchild and , Olorunsola (eds.), State versus Ethnic Claims: African policy dilemmas (Boulder, CO, 1982), p. 19.Google Scholar

7 J. Isawa Elaigwu and Victor Olorunsola, ‘Federalism and Politics of Compromise’, in ibid. p. 282.

8 Madison, James, ‘Federalist Papers No. 10’, in Held, David (ed.), Models of Democracy (Stanford, 1987), p. 187.Google Scholar

9 Cf. Schattschneider, E. E., The Semi-Sovereign People (New York, 1960),Google Scholar and Parenti, Michael, Democracy for the Few (New York, 1983).Google Scholar

10 Elaigwu and Olorunsola, loc. cit. p. 282.

11 See Deng, Francis Mading and Gifford, Prosser (eds.), The Search for Peace and Unity in the Sudan (Washington, DC, 1987), especially ch. 12, ‘A New Political Structure for the Sudan’, by Ahmed Ibrahim Diraige.Google Scholar

12 See Iyob, Ruth, ‘Regional Hegemony: domination and resistance in the Horn of Africa’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), 31, 2, 06 1993, pp. 257–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Jeurgensmeyer, Mark, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley, 1993), p. 179.Google Scholar

14 Elaigwu and Olorunsola, loc. cit. p. 296.

15 Buchanan, op. cit. p. 2.

16 Quoted by Keller, Edmond J., ‘The State, Public Policy and the Mediation of Ethnic Conflict in Africa’, in Rothchild and Olorunsola (eds.), op. cit. p. 251.Google Scholar

17 Buchanan, op. cit. p. 49.

18 Held (ed.), op. cit. p. 194.

19 Lofchie, Michael F., ‘Political Theory and African Politics’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, 6, 1, 05 1968, p. 15.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Ibid. p. 13. See also Kuper, Leo and Smith, M. G. (eds.), Pluralism in Africa (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969).Google Scholar

21 Held (ed.), op. cit. p. 195.

22 Bayart, Jean-François, ‘Civil Society in Africa’, in Chabal, Patrick (ed.), Political Domination in Africa: reflections on the limits of power (Cambridge, 1986), p. 116.Google Scholar

23 Abrams, Elliott, ‘Pluralism and Democracy’, in Ronen, Dov (ed.), Democracy and Pluralism in Africa (Boulder, CO, and Sevenoaks, Kent, 1986), p. 63.Google Scholar

24 Bayart, loc. cit. p. 116.

25 See Jackson, Robert H. and Rosberg, Carl G., Personal Rule in Black Africa: prince, autocrat, prophet, tyrant (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London, 1982).Google Scholar

26 Callaghy, Thomas M., ‘The State and the Development of Capitalism in Africa: theoretical, historical, and comparative reflections’, in Rothchild, Donald and Chazan, Naomi (eds.), The Precarious Balance: state and society in Africa (Boulder and London, 1988), pp. 80–8.Google Scholar

27 Joseph, Richard A., Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria: the rise and fall of the Second Republic (Cambridge, 1987).Google Scholar

28 Hyden, Goran, ‘Problems and Prospects of State Coherence’, in Rothchild and Olorunsola (eds.), op. cit. p. 73.Google Scholar

29 Rothchild and Olorunsola, loc. cit. p. 17.

30 Diamond, Martin, quoted by Schechter, Stephen L., ‘The Present State of Federalism’, in Publius, 8, 1, Winter 1978, p. 6.Google Scholar

31 See Woodward, Peter, Sudan: threats to stability (London, 1985)Google Scholar and/or Voll, John O. (ed.), Sudan: state and society in crisis (Bloomington, 1991) for further information.Google Scholar

32 Ungar, Sanford, Africa: the people and politics of an emerging continent (New York, 1989), pp. 126–9.Google Scholar

33 Ibid. p. 142.

34 Ibid. p. 147.