AFRICA POLITICS: Chapt.Six

DOMINANT THEMES IN THE STUDY OF POLITICAL CHANGE.

The main contextual factors Which have shaped the content and practice of politics in contemporary Africa also provide pointers to the themes that have preoccupied students of the process of change on the continent over the last decade and half.

These themes vary in their details but they can be summarized as including the following broad issues:

1. Transition and electoral politics, including party and electoral systems, programmes promoted by political parties, the process of electioneering, the quality of access to the media enjoyed by the competing parties, the legislative structure adopted. Voter education and turn out, and judicial independence.

2. The problems and prospects of democratic consolidation on the basis of various competing frameworks for assessing and measuring the African transition.

3. Constitutionalism and constitutional reform, encompassing the basic rights of the citizenry, the separation of powers, administrative decentralization, and political succession.

4. The emergence, significance and role of an African civil society in the process of democratization

5. The he nature of state politics, the dynamics of state-society relations, and the challenges of governance facing African countries.

6. The causes, dimensions and consequences of contemporary African conflicts.

7. The political economy of reform in Africa, with particular emphasis on the interface between market reforms and political liberalization, «good» governance, and public sector reforms.

8. Easily, the bulk of the literature that has been produced on African politics over the last decade and half is focused on these broad themes. While the commonality of issues covered might suggest a convergence on the critical markers of change in African political systems, in reality, there is a diversity in the interpretative frames employed for reaching conclusions about the direction of politics. It is to these competing interpretations to which we now turn attention.