Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa. Rita Abrahamsen. London: Zed Books, 2000. Pp. 168.

Several works have been published on systems of government and development models to be adopted by states. Taking a refreshingly different approach, however, Abrahamsen primarily seeks to reflect and comment "on contemporary development discourse and practice, not a detailed account of transitions to democracies in African countries (p. x)."

Divided into seven chapters, the book first emphasizes causes influencing democratization, which she sees as an interplay of internal and external factors (pp. 8-11). Abrahamsen posits that development discourse produces "a form of knowledge about the third world that has facilitated and legitimized certain forms of administration and intervention (p. 22)." This discourse emphasizes the backwardness of third world states and seeks to justify intervention and assistance as necessary in order for them to become as developed as the West. The author suggests that the South maintains power through development discourse (pp. 14-15; 22-23).

Previous development models, Chapter 2 argues, focused on problems of development without respect to the system of government (even authoritarianism) in place. Democracy has become the most desirable form of government, in conventional wisdom. It is, therefore, a necessary component of sustainable development (p. 25). For Abrahamsen, the new development discourse and world order are means of undermining the governments and peoples of the south.

Chapter 3 explores the good governance discourse and its claim that capitalism is an inherent part of African traditional values (p. 49). This discourse seeks to restrict state control of resources, leaving economic investments to private entrepreneurs. This encourages civil society participation without actually defining "civil society" (pp. 47-53), even though civil society may be undemocratic (p. 54). She continues that the cost recovery effort that the good governance agenda valorises places a bigger burden on the local populace (pp. 58-59).

In the fourth chapter, Abrahamsen gives a critical assessment of democracy as electoral procedure (p. 70) and democracy in purely descriptive terms. For Abrahamsen, democracy is also prescriptive and must seek to promote political and economic equality, for without this, "democracy is likely to become a vehicle for the maintenance of elite dominance (p. 76)." However, Abrahamsen should also address democracy as a value concept.

Tracing the relationship between Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) and democratisation, Chapter 5 explains that democratisation processes in the South did not come from the economic prosperity of SAP. Instead, it developed from the economic woes of states and the concomitant negative effects on the populace. This led to strife in the state and a call for democracy (pp. 97-98). She notes "bread-and-butter issues were at the very heart of the wave of protest that swept the African continent in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Gradually, economic demands came to be linked to more explicitly political demands for constitutional change… (p. 98)."

The author explores the dilemma of African states that are "caught between a rock and a hard place (p. 121)" in Chapter 6. She concludes that economic liberalization creates problem for the majority - who democracy seeks to serve. Leaders therefore are confused about whether to satisfy external donors or to satisfy the aspirations of its people for both are irreconcilable constituencies.

Demands of economic liberalization by donor institutions have eroded democratic standards because they bring poverty to the people through SAP. SAP denies the masses benefits from the government, thereby threatening "the consolidation of democracy by exacerbating social conflict and differentiation, while at the same time undermining the state's capacity to respond to domestic demands (p. 136)."

In the last chapter (7), Abrahamsen criticises the hierarchical differentiation between North and South as a negation of "some neutral or accurate transcription of reality (p. 139)," noting that the good governance discourse promotes procedural or minimalist conceptions of democracy (p. 140). This produces "democracies that are exclusionary" because the poor cannot be included in any meaningful way because external power and influence is "extraordinarily high (p. 145)."

While advocating democracy at the domestic level, the good governance discourse leaves the international terrain unscratched, causing Abrahamsen to conclude that "one of the main effects of the good governance discourse, despite all its proclamations in favour of democracy, is to help reproduce and maintain a world order that is essentially undemocratic (p. 147)."

Though beautifully schemed in a plot-like write-up in which the central ideas unfold as the reader explores the work, there appears to be an assumption by the author that the public is familiar with the term "development discourse." In other words, there is no conscious effort made at defining its meaning.

Reading the book, one gets the impression that the economic woes of the South are the fault of the North. What, we wonder, has the South done to improve its lot? Though touching on the theme of corruption, Abrahamsen might also address issues of internal indiscipline, which are problems for all developing states.

These criticisms notwithstanding, Abrahamsen's work is particularly interesting for her incisive decoding of the operations of the West (especially through the Bretton Wood institutions) in the South, which aim to continue to dominate it through its under-development. The book is also a welcome addition to the volume of literature on democracy and development in Africa.

Muyiwa Falaiye and Eric Usifoh
University of Lagos