Deciding in Unison: Themes in Consensual Democracy in Africa

Deciding in Unison: Themes in Consensual Democracy in Africa is an edited volume that both scholars and students of African philosophy and politics will find interesting. The chapters trace the current state of the debate as well as the idea that the advancement of consensus democracy as unanimity democracy is no longer valid, and a democracy of compromise is suggested as an alternative for advancing consensus democracy. The collection also contains chapters dealing with Wiredu’s consensual proposal for the building of resistance movements as well as his views about the relativity of truth and the way we should handle it. However, there are also chapters that explore the non-party system Wiredu proposes as not applicable in practice. Furthermore, the issues related to transferring consensus-supporting values like communism into the contemporary Africa setting are also examined. Also discussed in the book is how current presentations of African epistemology cannot pass for epistemology, and how we could begin to think of fashioning an African epistemology from deliberation aimed at consensus.

Foreword
Barry Hallen, Southern Crossroads Academic

Introduction
Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani, University of Ghana, Prof. Edwin Etieyibo, University of Witwatersrand

1. The Consensus Project: The Debate so Far
Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani, University of Ghana, and Edwin Etieyibo, University of the Witwatersrand

2. Consensus as Model for Re-conceptualizing African Epistemology
Husein Inusah, University of Cape Coast

3. Deliberative Theory of Truth: An Epistemological Approach to Kwasi Wiredu’s Theory of Democracy and Consensus
Martin Asiegbu, University of Nigeria, and Victor Nweke, University of Koblenz-Landau

4. Towards a Multiparty Cosnensual Democracy in Africa
Dennis Masaka, Great Zimbabwe University

5. Conceptualizing Traditional Consensus in Modern Africa
Bernard Matolino, University of Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

6. The Problem of Elections in Wiredu’s Consensus Democracy
Vitumbiko Nyirenda, University of the Witwatersrand

7. Consensus and Compromise
Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani, University of Ghana

8. Afro-consensual Democracy for Twenty-First Century Africa: In Pursuit of an Indigenous Maximalist African Democratic Paradigm
Munamato Chemhuru, Great Zimbabwe University

9. African Consensual Democracy, Dissensus and Resistance
Edwin Etieyibo, University of the Witwatersrand

10. Is Party Extremism Inherent in MultiParty Democracy?
Alexander Kwakye, Ghana Education Service

11. Wiredu and Eze on Good Governance
Helen Lauer, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Notes on Contributors

Index

Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer and has taught philosophy for several years at the University of Ghana. He holds a BA in Philosophy from the University of Ibadan, a B.Phil. in Philosophy from the Urban Pontifical University, Italy, and an MA and a PhD in Philosophy from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Nigeria. He is the University of Ghana external assessor for affiliate institutions on Logic and Critical Thinking. He was the Chair of Long Essay, Library and Graduate Studies, at the Department of Philosophy and Classics at the University of Ghana. He is also a Visiting Scholar at the University of Canberra, Australia, and an Associate Editor of the Journal of Public Deliberation. He has published in many high-impact journals and presses, including Cambridge and Oxford University Presses, and is a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Deliberative Democracy. He is the winner of the 2018 University of Ghana Humanities Provost Publication Award in the Mid-Career Category.

Edwin E. Etieyibo (PhD) is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, where he has been since 2012. Previously, he taught at the University of Alberta and Athabasca University, Canada before moving to the University of the Witwatersrand in 2012. His PhD dissertation was on “David Gauthier’s Moral Contractarianism and the Problem of Secession,” which presents a critical examination of Gauthier’s account of morality that links rationality with preferences explained by expected utility. He specializes and have interest in ethics, social and political philosophy, African philosophy, social contract theories/and history of, history of philosophy, epistemology, early modern philosophy, Descartes, philosophy of law, applied ethics, African socio-political economy, philosophy of education and with children. He is the co-author of Disabilities in Nigeria: Attitudes, Reactions, and Remediation (2017, Hamilton Books), guest editor of the South African Journal of Philosophy special issue on “Africanising the Philosophy Curriculum in Universities in Africa,” and editor of several books: Perspectives in Social Contract Theory (2018, CRVP); Decolonisation, Africanisation and the Philosophy Curriculum (2018, Routledge); and Methods, Substance and the Future of African Philosophy (2018, Palgrave Macmillan). He is presently the Editor-in-Chief of the South African Journal of Philosophy.

Deliberative Democracy, Consensual Democracy, Political Philosophy, Philosophy