The Monologue on Liberal Democracy: Africa in a Neocolonialized World

The question of democracy and democratization in Africa has been debated most intensely since the early 1990s. This discourse has given focus to how institutions charged with building and consolidating democracy like political movements and governments have performed, concluding that African leaders, African governments, African political movements, and African cultures have failed the democracy ideal. The discourse cannot be adequately understood unless located in the analysis of Africa’s place in the world and the world system’s designs over Africa. This chapter seeks to unmask how coloniality of power manifest in the domination of the world by the U.S. on behalf of the west, imperial designs under the pretext of “democracy promotion” and coloniality of knowledge in the form of Eurocentric illusions have impacted how the African predicament after the end of the Cold War is understood and discussed.