14.1: Introduction

In a provocative 1997 article entitled “The Rise of Illiberal Democracy,” Fareed Zakaria convincingly argued that, despite holding formal elections, liberal democratic practice in most of the world’s newly declared ‘democracies’ remained elusive (Zakaria, 1997). Zakaria was asking us all to think critically of the sudden rise of democratic elections taking place in the post-Cold War context for, in his view, they remained illiberal or ‘not free.’ For many, this kind of critique of a Cold War victory of liberalism over Marxist-oriented ideas was not especially welcome; after all, liberalism – as Francis Fukuyama had so famously declared – was the ‘right’ answer to all governance woes (Fukuyama, 1989). Wars had been fought and untold millions had died in the defence of freedom! Gradually, yet surely, a growing number of defenders of liberalism (of freedom) have been obliged to concede that illiberal conditions now prevail among many of the world’s newly declared ‘democracies’ (Kagan, 2019).

In the 21^st century, Africanists have been slow to respond to this new political reality. Stubbornly tied to state-centric norms within the field, the majority of Africanists have continued to speak of ‘democratization’ at the central government level and systematically ignore the challenges of governance at the local level. Ignoring local governance not only postpones potentially meaningful dialogues on democratization, it also detracts policymakers from developing “strategies that strengthen the protection and empowerment framework needed for the assurance of human security” as defined by the UN Generally Assembly (UNGA A/64/701). This chapter is written in response to both the 2009 UN Report on Human Security to the Secretary-General and to Zakaria’s academic challenge, for both human security and liberal democracy are inextricably intertwined. Moreover, the realization of both human security and liberal democracy in sub-Saharan Africa will require that policymakers at all levels place a renewed emphasis on local governance. Absent local governance, only the most superficial observations of SSA state democracy and human security can be expected.