Review by Choice Review
This excellent analysis of the democratization process in Africa is a revised and expanded English edition of Monga's Anthropologie de la colere: societe civile et democratie en Afrique noire (Paris, 1994), which draws on his L'Afrique et la theorie democratique (Quebec, 1996). The author joins a growing group of African scholars who view African politics through the lens of their own experience, asserting their individuality and scholarship not by rejecting the mainstream political science of Western analysts but by mastering it and developing their own analyses of political development in Africa. Monga critiques various current conceptual theories about African politics, reviews the character and nature of public discourse in Africa, and highlights patterns of democratic behavior that are emerging from the disorder and dysfunction that followed independence. At the risk of oversimplifying his major thesis, he argues that "collective anger and anxieties" are being converted into political demands for new modes of accountability relevant to the traditions and culture of African life. Although it is unclear what those new modes will be, this book should be required reading for Africanists. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. M. E. Doro Connecticut College
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
