Came across a story on CNN that is very relevant to the aims of this seminar. Mbaku gives an overview of the tumultuous road Africa has been on in the past two decades in their transition to democratic governance, which has resulted in successful overthrows of authoritarian regimes, but some major reversals as well. His overview is largely a positive one; despite briefly remunerating the instances where transitions have not been successful and setbacks have occurred, Mbaku is much more focused on the “significant and spectacular achievements in the continent’s struggle to deepen and institutionalize democracy.”

What I find most memorable about his piece are his evaluation of and prescriptions for the Arab Spring countries, most specifically Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt. He views the problems there as “symptomatic of what needs to be done throughout Africa to deepen and institutionalize democracy.” The only real solution, he says, is to engage each stakeholder group in the nation (i.e. Morsy and his Freedom and Justice Party in Egypt) to work together in a democratic fashion to create a system wherein all population groups can coexist peacefully. How is this supposed to be carried out? That he is not so clear about. Mbaku’s solution is oversimplified, and, altogether, too optimistic. What he fails to recognize is the possibility that the traditional (Western) approach to democracy may be inapplicable in the case of the Arab Spring; fixing the problems there now would require measures that extend far beyond peace talks he envisages.