Description
Conceptually and programmatically, there is no clear connection between the concepts of
democracy, culture and development. However, the influences of Western European countries in
the implementation of democratic ideals and development models, plans and programs on the
African continent, has created vast fields of play between them, in so doing informing and
blending into one another. It is in the context of this that this book comes to the fore. First, to
assess the question of whether development undergirds democracy or promotes democratic
impulses. Second, to scrutinize the causal link between democracy and development, which is
taken for granted in our times. Third and finally, to assess the claims of whether culture is dynamic
and fluid as it is in the era of increased global flows or as an entity to be compartmentalized or
understood in fixed terms. The book takes the concept of culture as its point of departure to
explore political, economic and social phenomena, on the grounds that, whenever one defines
the concept of development or democracy, the notion of culture assumes a deterministic and
influential role in it, and that the precepts of democracy or models of development are usually
marked by tangible signs or sets of ideas, visions and claims, which ultimately determine the
contours of culture. It is on these grounds that, not only does each of these three concepts
support or denote group or institutional practices, but also contains conceptual claims with
ideological power.
Alexius Amtaika is a Research Professor at University of Limpopo in South Africa. He holds a PhD
in Political Science from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa,
specializing in Political Theory and Governance of Local States. He is the author and editor of four
books. He is a former recipient of the University of Michigan African Presidential Research
Fellowship (2008-2009). He is also the founding Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African and Asian
Local Government Studies.
ISBN: 978-1-943533-19-0 Ι Published 2017 Ι Pan-African University Press
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