‘DEMOCRACY’: WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Even if we were to critique the African state in terms of its interest representation (it always represents the dominant interests anyway), its cultural phenomenology of representations of power, or its reflections of a social essence (‘neo-patrimonial’, ‘belly politics’, etc.), or in terms of identifying institutionally its mode of rule through its creation of ethnic identities, all of which may be said to describe and analyse some important aspects of state power, this would not be sufficient. The fact remains that our main project cannot be reduced to a deconstruction or critique of objective power and its subjective representations. Rather, we also need to comment on the state's own subjective character, in particular on the manner in which it names itself and especially on how it goes about ruling the population under its control and creating a consensus around its name. We also need to begin to develop concepts that help us to think alternatives, if the state's subjective hegemony is to be challenged from the perspective of emancipation.

This chapter argues that the main problems concerning the thinking of state power in Africa concern not only the deconstruction of the discourse of power but also the manner in which that power is deployed. We must insist on understanding state politics outside statist categories, on the need to think social provisioning, social security, welfare and a bureaucracy responsible to the people, and on the need to understand the character of a national politics today, given the increasing loss of popular sovereignty experienced worldwide.