Scholars overlooked postcolonial Africa’s democratic leadership and imported foreign models

Evidence

Because of the predominance of this type of political leadership on the continent, many scholars and practitioners have assumed that postcolonial Africa lacked democratic culture and governance experience that was worthy of emulation. This assumption led them to prefer importation of governance models and practices from outside the continent. This book provides a unique African fable of democratic leadership and practice during the first two decades of African independence that remains untold. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 79

Categorization

• SEED: An essay on how scholarly assumptions about a region’s incapacity for democracy become self-fulfilling, using Africa’s overlooked democratic decades as the case.