Decolonization and Democratization in African Countries: The Impact of Liberal Democracy on Political Stability

Since the 1990s, the African continent has experienced dramatic changes in the political sphere. Specifically, as mentioned by Samuel Huntington in The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century, many Sub-Saharan African countries have undergone democratic transitions, marked by reforms from one-party systems or military rule to multiparty systems with regular elections, a process that prominently features characteristics of Western-style liberal democracy. Despite the fact that African countries employing Western-style democracy have made certain progress in political development and social governance, many African countries that have undergone this political transformation exhibit a lack of political stability. As such, this article studies the development of liberal democracy and political stability in Kenya against the backdrop of the third wave of democratization. Through analyzing the historical and socio-economic contexts of African countries, it argues that the winner-take-all logic of the western representative democracy contradicts with the cultural tradition in African countries, which emphasizes social consensus and consultation. Considering the historical problems left since the colonial era, it adds to the difficulty of applying the western democracy in contemporary African countries, and thus results in the incompatibility between the liberal democracy model and the reality of African social contexts. Consequently, it is argued that the democratization process in Africa requires further exploration and more appropriate combination of advanced political institutions and the local contexts.