Africa and the prospects of deliberative democracy

• Published in: South African journal of philosophy Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 207 - 219
• Main Author: Ani, Emmanuel Ifeanyi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pretoria Routledge 01.01.2013; Taylor & Francis; Foundation for Education, Science and Technology; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Citizen participation; Democracy; Epistemology. Philosophy of science. Theory of knowledge; Philosophy; Politics; South Africa; Knowledge theory
• ISSN: 0258-0136; 2073-4867
• DOI: 10.1080/02580136.2013.837650

Preoccupation with multiparty aggregative democracy in Africa has produced superficial forms of political/electoral choice-making by subjects that deepen pre-existing ethnic and primordial cleavages. This is because the principles of the multiparty system presuppose that decision-making through voting should be the result of a mere aggregation of pre-existing, fixed preferences. To this kind of decision-making, I propose deliberative democracy as a supplementary approach. My reason is that deliberation, beyond mere voting, should be central to decision- making and that, for a decision to be legitimate, it must be preceded by deliberation, not merely the aggregation of pre-existing fixed preferences. I agree with arguments that when adequate justifications are made for claims/demands/conclusions, deliber- ation has the potential to have a salutary effect on people's opinions, transform/ evolve preferences, better inform judgments/voting, lead to increasingly 'common good' decisions, have moral educative power, place more burden of account-giving on public officers, and furnish subjects/losers/outvoted with justifications for collec- tively binding decisions. I argue that a deliberative turn in politics in Africa will have a mitigating effect on tribal and money politics.