A Global Political Economy Of Democratisation: Beyond The Internal-external Divide (ripe Series In Global Political Economy)

The late-twentieth century is often portrayed as an 'Age of Democratisation', with democracy heralded as the best of all political systems. Yet democracy has multiple meanings, values and significances. The start of the twenty-first century has witnessed a massive revival of interest in the meaning and role of democracy, not least as democracy understood in one highly particular sense has been increasingly recognised to be in crisis. This book presents these deliberations in a new light by moving beyond the concept of the sovereign state as the dominant framework of enquiry and by rejecting the primacy of the state and the categorical separation of the 'domestic' and the 'international'. Instead, Ayers elaborates an account of democratisation through the global political economy, encompassing a trenchant critique of mainstream democracy promotion in theory and practice, and opening-up possibilities for different histories of democratisation autonomous of the Western liberal and neoliberal project. This innovative work will prove useful to scholars and students in the fields of Politics, Political Economy, International Relations, Development, African Studies, History, Geography and Sociology.-- Provided by Publisher

The late-twentieth century is often portrayed as an 'Age of Democratisation', with democracy heralded as the best of all political systems. Yet democracy has multiple meanings, values and significances. The start of the twenty-first century has witnessed a massive revival of interest in the meaning and role of democracy, not least as democracy understood in one highly particular sense has been increasingly recognised to be in crisis.

This book presents these deliberations in a new light by moving beyond the concept of the sovereign state as the dominant framework of enquiry and by rejecting the primacy of the state and the categorical separation of the 'domestic' and the 'international'. Instead, Ayers elaborates an account of democratisation through the global political economy, encompassing a trenchant critique of mainstream democracy promotion in theory and practice, and opening-up possibilities for different histories of democratisation autonomous of the Western liberal and neoliberal project.

This innovative work will prove useful to scholars and students in the fields of Politics, Political Economy, International Relations, Development, African Studies, History, Geography and Sociology.

Part I. Theoretical and methodological underpinnings : Beyond the state we're in: The mutual constitution of the domestic and international domains -- Part II. Democratisation revisited: The liberal project redux : Ideology of imperialism: Capitalism, liberalism and 'democracy' -- 'We all know a democracy when we see one': Promulgating the orthodox notion of democracy -- Imperial liberties: The global constitution of neoliberal democracy in Africa -- Encountering the orthodoxy: More on the limits and antinomies of (neo) liberal democracy -- Part III. Expropriating the expropriators: Reclaiming African political history : Peoples without democracy? Precolonial political communities and mindscapes -- Enter the (neo)colony: Anti-democracy and the (neo)colonial condition This book moves beyond the methodological nationalism of most comparative political analysis and creates an understanding of democracy linked to the global political economy by providing alternative narratives of struggles over democratization.