Democratic theory and democratic rupture : resource curse and aid dependency perspectives on Africa

Across Africa political violence in Burkina Faso, eastern provinces of DR Congo, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauretania, Niger, Niger Delta of Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and South-Sudan, Togo, have sharpened our interrogative tools about the consolidation and habituation of democratic governance. At another level of observation elite power wrangling that took dramatic turn in Senegal, one of Africa's oldest democracies during the 2012 presidential elections, combined with general insecurity in the wider Pan-Sahel region and over dependence on foreign aid is threatening democratic consolidation and habituation. Recourse to violence has become difficult to decipher and cumbersome to predict. Attributable factors may range from competition for natural resources or lack of it and resort to alternative sources of survival, discord, lack of economic basis and opportunities, and deepening inequalities, pressures of globalization and lack of capacity to match-up. One outcome is that new political consciousness has emerged but thrives in new "embattled spaces" wheeled by unaccustomed "contested orders" (German Association for African Studies, Cologne, 2012) in the context of globalization that are difficult to predict given the multi-stakeholder nature of actors involved - national, transnational, public, private, social, identity, religious, 'lumpen youth' among others. Non state actors may retreat and ritualise their survival strategies real or surreal via Violence.