State structuring, international law and interventions of the international community: the African paradigm

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	State structuring, international law and interventions of the international community: the African paradigm
Author:	Livas, Sotirios S.
Year:	2014
Periodical:	Journal of Oriental and African Studies
Volume:	23
Pages:	185-189
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Africa
Subjects:	democratization international politics legitimacy responsibility governance
Abstract:	The results of the pressure of the international community (IC) for 'more' democracy in Africa are critically examined. The author argues that democracy as a mode of state operation ought to go hand in hand with economic and cultural development, with accountability, with the legitimization of a democratically elected government, and with a feeling of security of civil society and of the government. Any intervention of the IC that does not take into account the peculiarities of these societies (lack of national legitimacy of state power, poor state of homogeneity) is doomed to fail. In any case, the external forms of democracy (meaning elections) cannot, by themselves, guarantee the self-assertion of a social class that is capable of controlling the inner workings of a national government. The IC's understanding of the ineffectiveness of the external forms of democracy as a means to empower and solidify the state structures in an African context could, in combination with a true will to change these countries' predicaments, lead to conceiving new methods to avert new humanitarian crises. Ref., sum. [ASC Leiden Abstract]