“In this chapter, I discuss the limits of liberal democracy as well as the assumptions and methods used for measuring democracy and good governance in Africa by international donors and western analysts. I undertake a critique of liberal democracy. I argue that many of the findings and conclusions in the donor-funded assessment reports on democracy and good governance in Africa are concerned essentially with regime type rather than the nature of the state and its relationship to the processes and outcomes of democratisation. Also, most of the reports fail to appreciate structural contradictions as major constraints inhibiting the actualisation of democracy in Africa.”
