In the sphere of comparative politics, and more specifically, African politics, many notable changes have taken place over the last two decades. In this time, considerable research on African politics has centered on democracy and its implementation is different African nations. It was the collapse of the Soviet Block in 1989 that ushered in a new democratic era in Africa, thus beginning Africa's democratic experiment. Fukuyama (1989:4) argued that the demise of the Cold War brought with in "the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human development." Since this time, local and international actors have been calling for the advent of democracy because of the value it has. It allows for the pursuit of development in conjunction with the benefit of an environment that respects civil liberties. According to Dumas (2004: 79-80), "a fully functional democracy provides greater security in the sense of protection against widespread and arbitrary violations of civil liberties. Under such a government, individuals are freed from the insecurity that arises from having to consider the potentially severe consequences of publicly expressing their political, social and religious views."
[...] Modern corruption in South Africa is primarily a carry-over from the past. A large number of the corruption cases that are reported in South Africa are reflections of behavioral problems inherited from old regimes. A good example of this is pension fraud, as this is one of the worst times of waste that government mismanagement is responsible for. Vast sums of money was paid out to ‘ghosts', and as a result many of the other facets of government were weakened from this mismanagement of resources along with other cases of corruption in government. [...]
[...] The problem with democracy in South Africa though is that the political will to punish corruption at the high levels remains inconsistent. As of 2002, not a single member of the ANC party had been charged or convicted of corruption, despite the fact that it is widely believed corruption has been going on to some extent in these ranks. (Calland, 2006). With the South African democratic experiment, one thing has become clear, that is that democratic consolidation is a more complicated process than just setting up the framework for honest elections and the enactment of human rights. [...]
[...] revealed that the quality of democracy in many African nations is suspect. Democratizing Africa has been no small task, as it has meant the transfer of vast amounts of power from the state to the people. It was brought about as a way of enhancing accountability and transparency. There is no doubt that in the last two decades Africa has made considerable progress in their political structures, but how well have they democratized their continent? The answer to this is that different nations have experienced different levels of success in this department. [...]
[...] Reference List: Bjorshol, E. (2006). Parties matter: explaining political corruption in democratic regimes. Department of Comparative Politics: University of Bergen. Bryan, S. & Baer, D. (2005). Money in Politics: a study of party financing practices in 22 countries. Washington, DC: National Democratic Institute. Calland, R. (2006). Anatomy of South Africa. Cape Town: New Holland Publishing. Dumas, J (2004) “Building Security by Building Democracy and [...]
[...] The reality in Algerian society is that democracy has no taken the ideal form, as lots of people are still prevented from participating. There have also been cases where those who have tried to assert themselves on the political scene have been the victim of politically charged violence. An example is Turkman, an engineer by training; he was a past leader in the Islamic Salvation Front. The party was very close to taking power 15 years ago, but the military had other ideas, as it declared martial law and banned the front. [...]
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