Three Models of African Democratic Practices

Some African scholars have argued that contemporary African societies should embrace a form of democracy rooted in, and inspired by, indigenous African political practices, values, and ideals.

They have, therefore, proposed consensual democracy for contemporary African societies. The proponents of this system are invariably committed to at least four related claims: 1) the political practices of traditional African societies were a form of democracy by consensus; 2) consensus is the defining characteristic of these political practices; 3) democracy by consensus was a non-party, non-adversarial system of governance; and 4) these political practices are incompatible with contemporary multi-party, majoritarian forms of governance.

Are these claims plausibly inferred from indigenous African practices and conceptions of consensus? In this talk, I evaluate these claims by focusing on three traditional African practices: the palaver (Sub-Saharan Africa), the kgotla (Botswana), and the agyina (Ghana). I aim at harnessing the conceptual and practical resources in these three traditional African practices, and articulating the unique conceptualization of the notion of consensus that is appropriate for contemporary African societies.

SOAS World Philosophies Lecture 26.

Speaker 

Dr Richmond Kwesi is a Senior Lecturer and the current Head of the Department of Philosophy and Classics at the University of Ghana. He is also an Associate of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. His research interests are in analytic philosophy, the philosophy of language, and traditional African philosophical thought. He has published on consensual democracy, Kwasi Wiredu’s empiricalism and Kwame Nkrumah’s Consciencism. He held a Bechs-Africa Post-doctoral Fellowship at the American University in Cairo in 2020 and has participated in the Erasmus+ Staff Mobility programs at Utrecht University (2023) and the University of Valladolid (2024). He has recently been awarded the Global Minds Research Scholarship for a research stay at the University of Antwerp in 2025.

Contact

Email: cgcp@soas.ac.uk

This event is both in person, in room R301 (SOAS Main Building), and online via Zoom.

Organiser

Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophies