8 - Four Neighbours, Four Regimes

Summary

A striking feature of African politics is the variation that exists among countries, as evident notably in their readiness to embrace democratic norms and values. The lack of a democratic role model in the region is an indication that political leaders generally pursue other governance priorities. They are not just at the receiving end of a process of regime formation driven by the international donor community. They are themselves in the middle of shaping it. The fact that the leaders differ in their approach to governance is an acknowledgement that they consider local conditions. In the post-colonial context, their ambition is to anchor the regime in local soil, reflecting values that circulate in society and are part of the ongoing political discourse. This amounts, for example, to reinventing pre-colonial values in modern contexts, as Julius Nyerere’s ujamaa version of communalism illustrates. This chapter recounts the political experience of four countries in East Africa which are neighbours with a similar colonial experience and a common legacy of generous foreign aid from Western governments. Despite these significant commonalities, the countries have developed quite differently since independence. They are building the post-colonial state-nation in ways that reflect the respective political reality that they inherited from the colonial powers. This closer analysis of the four countries confirms the evolution of variable patterns of governance based on how they approach the issues of managing the state-nation. Each country has chosen its own development path and built a political system around the local challenges of transcending the structural limits inherent in their pre-agrarian society. The result is that governments tend to look inwards in their approach to what needs to be done, and in some cases engage in a Marxian critique of Western development ideas.