![]() ![]() This book documents many of those struggles during the post-1945 period in general, and those that took place in southern Africa in the 1990s and 2000s in particular. Africans have constantly struggled in difficult circumstances to improve their lot, using collective forms of action to challenge unjust and unaccountable systems of political and economic power. The book is thus designed as a corrective to the tendency to see Africa’s postcolonial half-century as one dominated by political repression, economic decline, and ethnic conflict. It is the aim of this study to place social movements at the center of the analysis of postcolonial African political change, capturing both their exciting diversity and their capacity to unite as temporary “coalitions of the discontent” in periods of rapid social change. Despite this extraordinary record, African social movements have not been the subject of systematic analysis. In the last two decades, social movements have critiqued and resisted the imposition of economic liberalization across the continent by the international financial institutions and their allies among African rulers. Similarly, they resisted dictatorial and military rule in postcolonial Africa, and in the late 1980s and early 1990s paved the way for the return of democracy to much of the continent. In the twentieth century, social movements were central to challenging the material exploitations of Western imperialism and bringing an end to formal European control of the continent. Its core argument is that social movements-popular movements of the working class, the poor, and other oppressed and marginalized sections of African society-have played a central role in shaping Africa’s contemporary history. This book is about the role of social movements in contemporary Africa. Key words: Illiberal democracy, local government, sub-Saharan Africa, Zambia. Emphasis is placed on the recent experience of Zambia, which demonstrates the kinds of internal and external policy challenges proponents of local governance have faced. Here it is argued that, if political liberalism is to be realized within these newly declared democracies of sub-Saharan Africa, a renewed emphasis on the role of local government institutions must take place. Largely due to the recent history of Cold War patronage that focused on central over local government relations, the newly declared democracies of sub-Saharan Africa consistently rank among the lowest in the world in the yearly indexes on freedom compiled by Freedom House. This simple fact has implications for today’s policymakers interested in the political liberalization of sub-Saharan Africa’s newly declared “democracies.” Yet, among the many debates taking place in developmental politics, local governance remains – at best – a niche area that is usually brought up within the context of decentralization policy. The developmental history of today’s liberal democratic states demonstrates a clear parallel between liberal state practice and functioning local government institutions. ![]()
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