Kwasi Wiredu’s consensual democracy: Prospects for practice in Africa

Introduction

I propose to do two things in this article. ¹ First, to examine and affirm Kwasi Wiredu’s theory of consensual democracy, particularly its thesis that consensual democracy—a democratic system inspired by communalism in the African cultural context in which decisions are characteristically reached by consensus—is preferable to ‘majoritarian’ democracy; and second, to assess its prospects for reforming the institutions and procedures of democratic practice in Africa. In doing these, I show, on the one hand, that because the conceptual underpinnings of consensual democracy continue to inhere in the traditional setting of contemporary African societies, their appropriation for the constitutional democratic practices of African nations is likely to be unproblematic. I shall begin in the next section with a critical exposition of Wiredu’s theory and its distinguishing features. I will then discuss, in the ‘Liberal democracy in Africa’ section, liberal democracy and the problems that attend to its current practice in Africa. The goal of this discussion is to show the failings of liberal democracy in Africa and the plausibility of Wiredu’s form of democracy to meeting the democratic challenges facing African societies. In the ‘Objections to Wiredu’ section, I discuss and show that objections to Wiredu’s theory are unsatisfactory; hence, these objections do not mar the theoretical and practical viability of Wiredu’s proposal. In the final section, I offer ways in which Wiredu’s ideas can be utilised and the ways in which they could be sustained to improve democratic politics in Africa.

Wiredu’s advocacy for consensual democracy is pivotal to the ongoing process of conceptually decolonising African thought and practice. It does this by two means: first, it reflects the relevance of indigenous African conceptual schemes for practices in contemporary societies; and second, it demonstrates the feasibility of jettisoning the unsuitable political concepts and democratic practices that African states ‘inherited’ from their colonial governments after they attained independence. Wiredu is rightly counted amongst the founders of contemporary African philosophy, and has since the 1980s been at the forefront of the scholarship on the relevance of traditional African thought to philosophical discourse and the quest for a progressive African future. Several authors have argued for the democratic character of traditional African polities (Campbell, 1922: 42; Gyekye, 1996: 110; Ramose, 2000: 43; Rattray, 1929: 406–407) and the consensual nature of the decisions reached in the deliberative forums of these polities (Bujo, 1998: 36; Ramose, 2002: 328; Teffo, 2004: 444–447; Wamala, 2004: 238–240). Wiredu’s novel contribution to these ideas is in how he combines philosophy with history to arrive at the thesis that the African past should be creatively appropriated in the quest for a suitable political theory and practice.

His theory of democracy by consensus can also be considered a pivotal strand in the campaign for the conceptual decolonisation of contemporary African systems of thought which, for him, involves two things: avoiding or reversing the unexamined assimilation of foreign philosophical conceptual frameworks by African philosophers, through a critical self-awareness; and developing the tenets of indigenous conceptual schemes in African philosophical work (Wiredu, 1996: 136–137). For, ‘it is only by such a reflective integration of the traditional and the modern that contemporary African philosophers can contribute to the flourishing of our peoples and, ultimately, all other peoples’ (Oladipo, 2002: 337).

To appreciate these two laudable features of Wiredu’s advocacy, it is pertinent to understand the sense of ‘tradition’ or traditional thought that Wiredu enjoins Africans to restore. The notion of tradition to which Wiredu alludes neither resists change nor opposes modernity, as Robin Horton does by characterising traditional African thought systems as ‘closed’ and Western scientific thought as ‘open’ (1967: 155). Undoubtedly, this view descends from the chorus of elaborate rationalisation of European ethnocentrism that philosophically justified the European colonial adventure, which matured into constructions by Western anthropologists, like Lucien Levy-Bruhl (1910), who theorised African indigenous knowledge traditions as exemplifying ‘primitive’ and ‘pre-logical’ mentality (Irele, 1983: 12–13).

Wiredu’s philosophical method and political theory strenuously reject these notions of traditional thought and the identification of colonial propaganda with modernity. For him, a tradition is neither resistant to change nor opposed to modernity. He considers aspects of traditional African philosophy ‘living and fit for resurrection’ for contemporary life, and prescribes conceptual clarification as a means to develop resources from indigenous conceptual schemes for meaningful contemporary application (Wiredu, 2004: 11). This reading of tradition is consonant with Humeira Iqtidar’s definition of it in this special issue ‘as a framework of knowledge production and consumption comprising a method – a particular way of organizing thought, and a sensibility – a philosophical approach that explicitly or implicitly underpins the organizing principles of the tradition’ (Iqtidar, 2016: 425). A tradition then, in Iqtidar’s view, ‘constrain[s] and inspire[s]’ its adherents (Iqtidar, 2016: 430). In my view, such constraints neither preclude methodological continuity after discontinuities, nor imply limits on theoretical alternatives or the ambit of debate. Its inspirational role includes license to develop the ideas and practices consisting the tradition by criticising them. Such a view of tradition aptly describes Wiredu’s understanding of it. It also represents the understanding of it that this paper will defend.

Consensual Democracy as espoused by Wiredu is both in reaction and in opposition to majoritarian democracy. According to him, a majoritarian democracy refers to

democratic systems based on the majority principle. The party that wins the majority of seats or the greatest proportion of the votes, if the system in force is one of proportional representation, is invested with governmental power. Parties under this scheme of politics are organizations of people with similar tendencies and aspirations with the sole aim of gaining power for the implementation of their policies. (Wiredu, 1997: 186–187)

The opposition between consensual democracy and liberal democracy (as instituted in a majoritarian type of democratic system) is rooted in their foundational presuppositions and principles, and reflected in their conceptions of government, of man and society, and the ways in which the relationships between individuals and states are negotiated. That is, at the fundamental level, consensual democracy and liberal democracy adopt different conceptions of the individual and of community, and the relationships that exist between the individual and the community. A consensual democratic system institutes consensus seeking as the aim of, and methodological guide to, decision-making. Such an institution of consensus is indispensable whether the system takes a direct or representative form. It also proceeds from a communitarian view of personhood that asserts that persons are by nature mutually dependent on each other. Liberal democracy, on the other hand, adopts different conceptions of the individual and of community, and the relationships that exist between the individual and the community. This variance in foundational presuppositions engenders a difference in kind between the two democratic systems. This implies that a liberal majoritarian system that employs deliberation and arrives at consensus in decision-making will not be characterised as a consensual democratic system, for the phenomenon of consensus in that system will not be constitutive or intrinsic to it. I clarify this distinction between the two forms of democracy further in the ‘Liberal democracy in Africa’ section.

In opposition to a majoritarian system then, Wiredu’s argument for consensual democracy is to elaborate a theoretical basis for a polity in which political power is not entirely exercised by a majority party to the exclusion of others. This sectional appropriation of power in the name of democracy, for Wiredu, reflects a colonial legacy and has been a source of many problems on the African continent since the demise of colonialism. My assessment and affirmation of Wiredu’s claims is premised on my belief that liberal democracy has failed in theory and practice in Africa. It has failed not only because of the violence it does to the meaning of the political community and subject in the African context but also because of its constrictions as a model for legitimising political power. I argue that these failures are of the nature and magnitude that would not admit of successful reform, for such success will require the rehabilitation, or even abandoning, of the foundational principles of liberalism. But if this should obtain, the resultant democratic framework can hardly be identified with liberalism. Accordingly, we are better off talking about an alternative to liberal democracy in Africa. And, I seek to show that Wiredu’s consensual democracy is an attractive theoretical option.

Wiredu’s theory: Thesis and arguments

A consensual democracy refers to a political system that sustains political pluralism without the need for multiple political parties (Wiredu, 2012: 1063). It is sustained by social and constitutional arrangements that affirm the continuity of state and community (Wiredu, 2012: 1059). ² The underlying philosophy of the system is cooperation, not confrontation; and its teleology is the participation in power but not its appropriation (Wiredu, 1997: 187). It is democratic ³ in the Lincolnian sense of democracy as government ‘of the people, by the people, for the people’. ⁴ I understand by this formulation that democracy as a system of government encourages popular participation in deliberations on policy for the common good. ⁵ And it is consensual in upholding consensus building as a guiding principle and aim of decision-making on policy. Wiredu arguably subscribes to Edmund Burke’s theory of representation, which conceives representatives as trustees of their constituents whose rational choices, in the deliberative forum, of the best action to pursue are guided by their belief that the preferences of their constituents are in tune with the common good. ⁶ Hence, for Wiredu, government in a consensual democratic system becomes ‘a coalition not, as in the common acceptation, of parties, but of citizens’ (1997: 189).

Deliberations in a consensual democratic forum aim at restoring goodwill through reconciliation and persuasive discourse among participants who acknowledge and respect the deliberative capacity of other participants by recognising that dialogue ‘presupposes not just two parties (at least) but also two conflicting positions’ (Wiredu, 1997: 186). Hence, given enough time to reappraise the significance of the initial disagreement, deliberators with dissenting opinions are likely to withdraw their dissent, ‘not merely to avoid further recriminations but because they are convinced that even rock bottom differences can be bridged in a way that is agreeable to all or, at least, not obnoxious to any’ (Wiredu, 1997: 183). The likelihood of this is contingent on the pre-existing value of cooperation underlying the political system, which upholds the alikeness of rock-bottom interests. Within the operation of this value system, participants in political decision-making would be apt to reason more objectively and listen more open-mindedly, and resort to adopting persuasion, compromise and accommodation towards consensus for the purpose of cooperation (Wiredu, 1997: 180).

This contrasts with the philosophy, systematic aims and practices of majoritarian democracy, as clarified in the previous section. The consensual democratic system, on the other hand, is a non-party system and so the aim of political parties winning power at all cost does not arise. However, individuals or their representatives are ‘party’ to the deliberations that ensue over the implementation of policies. His distinction of these two senses of ‘party’ is clarified in the following:

All the parties [parties₁] to any group deliberation that produces consensus are party [party₂] to the decision reached. This contrasts sharply with the majoritarian decision-making. Here the decision is the wish of one group as opposed to another. In politics this usually means the majority party [party₃]. They are the winners, and others are the losers. The notion of party has occurred three times in this paragraph. In its first occurrence it means an individual or group of individuals with an interest or concern in a given issue or project. In the second it is used adjectivally to mean being a participant in a decision, and in the third it is used in the well-known political sense in which a party is a group of people, basically of like mind, organized with the aim of winning governmental power. (Wiredu, 2001: 238)

Edward Wamala offers additional reasons why party₃ politics is inhospitable to the future political culture of Africa. In his view, the party system perverts the notion of representation by making those who are elected ‘representatives, not really of the people but of the party’ (Wamala, 2004: 440). This becomes highly problematic in a context where party3 members reserve their loyalty to the party (i.e. party1) but not to the people whom elected representatives are supposed to represent. The problematic nature of this is heightened by the fact that power is concentrated in the hands of those members at the top of the party hierarchy, who personalise power and thus pervert the notion of legitimate political power derived by democratic means. Furthermore, majoritarian democracy in Africa has tended to lead to a politics that is drained of ethical considerations (Wamala, 2004: 401). Party political elections in Africa and the employment of the power derived from their outcome violate democratic norms severely and systematically. All these combine to make very attractive Wiredu’s advocacy of a consensual democratic system that is designed to systematically validate the citizen’s substantive representation and include peripheral political actors in decision-making.

Wiredu’s theory proceeds from a few unstated assumptions, which are that it is untenable to organise political life in the absence of norms that one values, but which have been disconnected from one’s cultural experience; and that it is even worse to organise political life on the basis of norms that one lacks fundamental understanding of, for then one cannot justifiably claim to value them. These assumptions underlie his quest to ‘reactivate tendencies to consensus lying dormant in the communal unconscious’ (Wiredu, 1997: 180); and his prescription that the virtues of tradition and the values of African civilisation should inspire and characterise reflection on the concept of human and people's rights (Wiredu, 1997: 181). Striking similarities can be found between these assumptions and the grounds of John Rawls’ constructivist methodology notion of the Society of Peoples, as he also proceeds from the assumption that moral and political theories must proceed from contextually contingent assumptions (1980, 1995, 1999). I will pursue this in more detail in the next section.

In light of this, the theory of consensual democracy opposes liberal political theory in as much as it emphasises the communal dimensions of the political subject as fundamental to political culture and rejects moral individualism. It proceeds from a theory of personhood that considers persons as inherently relational beings that are necessarily oriented towards each other and towards community. Although he uses the culture of the Akan in Ghana as the empirical basis of his arguments, Wiredu asserts that the foundations of his theory are widespread in the conceptual apparatus of most African cultures (1997: 183–184). The version of African communalist thought, which Wiredu appropriates, asserts that human beings are by nature mutually dependent on one another; and that this mutual interdependence is a human mode of being. The reciprocal responsibility this theory of personhood solicits from everyone is based on a distinct fact of human life; that to be human in the social setting is to differ and be different, but not to be indifferent (Masolo, 2004: 495). The Akans succinctly express this essential interdependence of human life in the maxim ‘life is mutual aid’. This idea of interdependence substantiated by mutual aid underlies a theory of common goals, which holds that ultimately the interests of all members of society do converge, even though they may not immediately perceive them to do so. Hence, in Wiredu’s view, adherence to the principle of consensus is ‘based on the belief that ultimately the interests of all members of society are the same, although their immediate perceptions of those interests may be different’ (1997: 185). Thus, the theory of personhood and attendant norms that derive from African communitarian projects a particular view of political and moral rights of the community, which serves as the standard for adjustment of the rights of the individual and community in such a way as to defend the ethical and political primacy of the rights of community. This view underlies and pervades Wiredu’s conceptual democratic system. And in this way, it is antithetical to a liberal system that thrives on individualism.

Liberal democracy in Africa

In the exposition above, I have identified majoritarian democracy as a version of liberal democracy. It is time to clarify this, as well as the failings of liberal democracy in resolving the democratic challenges in Africa. Liberalism is a multifaceted concept, and its proponents – classical and modern – do not always agree on principles and views that can universally be accepted as liberal. This means that it is not implausible to talk about ‘liberalisms’ or varieties of liberalism (Ryan, 2012: 23). Nonetheless, one can identify certain underlying moral and political concerns that engage all forms of liberalism. This can be couched in terms of their commitment to remaining within the framework of a discourse on the grounds, scope and content of certain principal themes of ethics, political philosophy and ontology. For instance, in my view, the overwhelming majority of perspectives on individual rights and freedoms within liberal thought are sustained by moral individualism.

Similarly, it is difficult to offer a definition of liberal democracy, other than to say that it is a form of democracy sustained by liberal views. This leaves room for the particular forms of liberal views that makes a democracy liberal. In view of this, I refer to liberal democracy as a form of government in which representative democracy operates under the principles of liberalism. Liberalism itself does not entail or ‘dictate’ any particular form of government or democracy (Ryan, 2012: 39). It is probably more useful therefore to talk in terms of certain indicators that make a democracy or a form of government liberal. One way of thinking of the indicators of liberal democracy is to latch onto the terms ‘liberal’ and ‘democracy’ to show how a political system is both liberal and democratic. Bollen offers such an account. He defines liberal democracy as ‘the extent to which a political system allows political liberties and democratic rule’ (1993: 1208). The indicators of political liberties are manifested, according to him, ‘to the extent that people of a country have the freedom to express a variety of political opinions in any media and the freedom to form or to participate in any political group’ while the democratic aspect of the definition connotes ‘the extent that the national government is accountable to the general population, and each individual is entitled to participate in the government directly or through representatives’ (Bollen, 1993: 1209). Other writers like Huntington define the democratic indicators of liberal democracy as the extent to which ‘its most powerful collective decision-makers are selected through periodic elections in which candidates freely compete for votes and in which virtually all the adult population is eligible to vote’ (1984: 196). Here, Huntington is in agreement with Schumpeter (1976: 269) ⁸ and Dahl (1971: 3–9) that democracy of a liberal kind involves two dimensions: contestation and participation (1984: 196). These definitional components – contestation and participation – of liberal democracy are essential features of multi-party majoritarian democracies. Herein lies the relationship between liberalism, liberal democracy and majoritarian democracy: liberalism is a system that is committed to upholding individual freedoms and human rights; liberal democracy is a democratic system or system of government that subscribes to, respects or reflect liberal views in their being both liberal and democratic; while majoritarian democracy is a manifestation of liberal democracy that is marked by multi-party competition and participation. Majoritarian democracy is the most widely practised form of democracy in the Western world. It is practised by the United Kingdom and France, which together colonised over 90% of the countries in Africa in which constitutional democracies are currently instituted.

A widely held view of the history of pluralism and democracy in Africa is that the genesis of democracy in Africa is fixed in the colonial reforms that sought to contain the widespread struggles for independence after the Second World War. These reforms, which conditioned the transitional arrangements from colonialism, exhibit a characteristic feature of liberal democratic theory: the perception of multi-party elections as a necessary condition of democracy (Maindani, 2000: 224–229). The equation of multiparty elections with political pluralism in Africa has been so strongly emphasised that it has evolved into the view that a political system that excludes elections will ultimately decay (Joseph, 1990: 201–202). This perception, of the necessity and universal reach of liberal democracy, is succinctly echoed in the thesis that the advent of liberal democracy signals the end of the evolution of human culture and the final form of human government (Fukuyama, 1989: 304). Fukuyama’s thesis, affirmed by Joseph (1990) with particular reference to Africa, is that liberal democratic thought provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for satisfying the political ends of all people everywhere; hence, universalising it is morally defensible. Substantive forms of this quest for universalising liberal democracy have been defended by theorists like Thomas Christiano, who argues for a strong moral justification for a universal human right to democracy. The rights he refers to are the basic civil and political rights, or as he puts it ‘uncontroversial and very urgent human rights’ (2011: 32), which are also the rights that both Bollen and Huntington emphasise as indicators of liberal democracy. I admit that significant literature exists within the liberal tradition that disputes the claim that democracy should be considered a human right. The most prominent liberal political philosopher to argue that democracy is not a human right is Rawls, in The Law of Peoples (1999).

Still, these claims of the universal validity of liberal democracy dominate liberal perspectives on democracy, but I think enough justification can be found to dispute them, for empirical and theoretical reasons. The liberal democratic idea that regular ‘free and fair’ elections contested by multiple parties is the best means of legitimising political authority has been severely perverted and subverted since its arrival in Africa. Since the 1990s, some elections in Africa have exhibited a measure of toleration for genuine political pluralism and contest. But since 2000 until October 2015, the outcomes of 26 of the 103 presidential elections held on the continent have been disputed. Eleven of these disputed elections have provoked atrocious violence and the loss of life, property and human security. It is quite valid to judge the evidence as showing, on balance, that the process of conducting these elections and the employment of the power derived as their outcome violate democratic norms so severely and systematically that it hardly makes sense to classify the governments formed in consequence of them as democracies, however qualified (Schedler, 2002: 36), and that it makes better sense to conceive them rather as electoral autocracies (Schedler, 2002: 46). Rather than fostering genuine political pluralism, elections in Africa have become recurring sources of violence and deception (Adejumobi, 2000: 253–257). As such, multi-party elections merely serve to empower governments to keep from public debate a discussion of the full range of reforms that can enhance pluralism in public life. They thereby foster authoritarian enclaves within the liberal democratic polity (Adesina et al., 2006: 21). For these reasons, the idea of democracy as multi-party politics scuttles social and political pluralism, and thus perverts the idea of democracy.

The dismal record of the practice of constitutional democracy in Africa may also be attributed to the strains exerted on political systems by an entrenched trait in liberal political philosophy that emphasises the moral supremacy of the rights of the individual relative to those of her community, in a cultural context where the rights of the political subject have been conceptualised in other terms. Hence, Rawls, an egalitarian whose thoughts echo traits of communitarianism, could claim that ‘each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override’ (1995: 3). Human rights in liberal political thought then become essentially rights of individuals (Howard, 1990: 182) that are so esteemed that they cannot be ‘subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests’ (Rawls, 1995: 4); and are justifiably claimed ‘against the state and against society as a whole’ (Howard, 1990: 159). Thus, liberalism holds the dignity ⁹ of the individual to be of fundamental moral value, and the basis of rights which makes its holder ‘a small scale sovereign’ (Hart, 1982: 183), ¹⁰ and which functions to ‘trump’ wider social goals (Dworkin, 1984: 153). ¹¹ From this perspective, the moral force of rights inheres in the autonomy of the individual. This force confers on her the right to choose ends of her own, ‘not because such arrangement promotes overall human welfare, but because any arrangement that denied [the individual] that say would be a grave indignity’ (Quinn, 1993: 170). On this view, respect for the individual’s rights is foundational to human society as they constitute ‘the basic terms of human association’ (Quinn, 1993: 174). Hence, for Nozick, individual rights ‘raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do’ (Nozick, 1974: ix, 238) to infringe on them. The ethical primacy of the ends of individuals is so crucial to liberal rights theory that, for Mill, ‘if all of mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be in silencing mankind’ (Mill, 1987: 76). Such a perspective on the relationship between the individual and community is considered flawed in much African political thought.

The account that I have provided of liberalism may be disputed as being unjustifiably monolithic by failing to acknowledge the nuances and differences in the variety of liberal thought on individual rights and about what kind of state can be legitimised if one takes individual rights seriously. This is a fair point. One cannot justifiably ignore the important differences in the libertarian liberalism espoused by Nozick, the utilitarian liberalism of Mills and the communitarian liberalism of TH Green and Rawls. It is pertinent to remark I am aware of the numerous liberals who have profited from communitarian social theory. I therefore think that an assertion that liberals do not take the role of community seriously would be untenable (Ryan, 2012: 39). I have indicated elsewhere that Rawls’ liberal society, theorised in several works, demonstrates ample communitarian impulses and the elasticity of liberal political and rights theory (Ajei, 2015: 495–496). I also accept Ryan’s conclusion that key aspects of what passes as the liberal–communitarian debate cannot be considered a debate between liberals and communitarians at all, as ‘there are affinities stronger than merely accidental connection’ between the opposing sides (2012: 96).

In spite of this, I wish to stress the point that members of the community of liberals share a commitment to certain foundational principles and values, and that this renders differences among them on themes of common interest as differences in degree. Thus, the criticisms above apply to the various versions of liberalism primarily because it is the underlying principles that they share that are in dispute. On the other hand, I perceive the difference between these foundational liberal principles and the principles of Wiredu’s consensual democratic system as a difference in kind. Since I consider consensual democracy to be a more viable political system for Africa, the primary intention of my critique is to assert that the foundational values of liberalism are not necessary conditions for a viable political system in Africa.

The conveyance of the assumptions of liberal rights and political theory into Africa, and the insistence on their universal validity, hardly accords with the well-established thinking of dominant normative theorists in the liberal tradition. For instance, Rawls asserts a vital connection between a culture’s moral values and conceptions of personhood on the one hand, and the construction of moral theory relevant for that culture on the other. According to him in the construction of such theory, ‘the leading idea is to establish a suitable connection between a particular conception of the person and [the] first principles’ of the theory (Rawls, 1980: 516). Accordingly, in justifying such theory, one must be able to define principles that can be justified to all citizens, because they are reasonable to them by virtue of ‘how they conceive of their persons and construe the general features of social cooperation among persons so regarded’ (Rawls, 1980: 517). It is undoubtedly for this reason that in constructing his idea of justice as fairness, he sought not ‘to find a conception of justice suitable for all societies regardless of their particular social or historical circumstances’ but rather to articulate and make explicit shared values and principles which, for hundreds of years of the political history of Western Europe and America, have been ‘latent in common sense’ or congenial to the most essential convictions and traditions of that history (Rawls, 1980: 518). From these, we can draw the principle that the most foundational normative principles underpinning the structure and government of society must derive from philosophical beliefs and values embedded in the historical and cultural setting of that society. This principle gives weight to Wiredu’s advocacy for a consensual democratic system of governance, as it is derived from, and rooted in, the ethics of communalism and a view of personhood endemic in the conceptual traditions of African societies.

The aptness of Wiredu’s theory is further demonstrated in Rawls’ considerations regarding the ‘Society of Peoples’ (1999). Besides liberal democratic society, Rawls conceives non-liberal forms of political society that are decent enough to merit consideration as ‘equal participating members in good standing’ (1999: 59) in this Society of Peoples, a unit of political and legal organisation constituted by persons who exhibit the following features: subscribe to a common set of political and social values (1999: 24), seek ‘proper self-respect of themselves as a people, resting on their common awareness of their trials during their history and of their culture with its accomplishments’ (1999: 34), and share a bond of ‘common sympathies’ that make them cooperate with each other more willingly than with other people (1999: 23–24). Members of these societies also share ‘a moral nature’, which guides them to make choices in accordance with ‘considerations of reasonableness embedded in their public political culture’ (Beitz, 2000: 679). These claims about non-liberal decent democratic societies bear strong resemblance to Wiredu’s consensual democratic society.

Objections to Wiredu

The thesis of Wiredu’s theory and arguments in support of it has attracted several objections from African philosophers. In this section, I endeavour to engage those that are pertinent to my concerns in this essay. I also engage critiques of deliberative democracy and theories of consensus, as these theories provide the wider context in which Wiredu’s work is situated. Finally, I anticipate a few objections and discuss them. I will discuss how African philosophical commentary on Wiredu’s theory seeks to show that his claims about common interests are flawed (Ani, 2014; Eze, 1997; Matolino, 2013); that his characterisation of the nature of deliberation in the consensual setting is untenable (Ani, 2014; Eze, 1997; Matolino, 2013); that his conception of democracy (Eze, 1997) and party politics (Matolino, 2013) are unsound; that his theory is intolerant of opposition (Matolino, 2013), and that his claim that consensus is an immanent feature of the approach to political deliberation in Africa is philosophically perilous (Ani, 2014).

Matolino (2013) advances at least three objections to Wiredu’s theory. First, he rejects the meaning Wiredu ascribes to the term ‘party’ and his assertion that party₃ has no place in a consensual system. Second, he considers as impermissible Wiredu’s claims about the ultimate identity of interests of citizens; and third, he asserts that Wiredu fails to specify the process that leads parties to become party₂ to decisions. Indeed, Wiredu claims that all parties₁ who are party₂ to a decision will consent willingly, given sufficient deliberation, and that should this obtain, the distinction between government and opposition in a consensual setting withers away and leaves in its wake ‘nothing to oppose and no need for a party₃ to do the opposing’ (Wiredu, 2001: 238). Matolino thinks this is flawed, as the achievement of decisional consensus does not preclude the persistence of substantive normative differences in a consensual democratic setting (2013: 147). Further, he argues that Wiredu’s rejection of party₃ reduces to intolerance of authentic opposition (Matolino, 2013: 148, 150) that ‘does not live up to our ordinary expectations of the real nature of political parties’ (Matolino, 2013: 146). He considers such intolerance and its associated claim of a common good to which all deliberators subscribe to be potentially disastrous for democratic culture, as they ‘closely mirror the thinking of those behind undemocratic one-party states’ in the political history of Africa, who also based their autocratic tendencies on the notion of a shared common good (Matolino, 2013: 148, 149). In his view, Wiredu simply assumes that consensus works in a consensual dispensation, and that ‘an appeal to consensus on its own is sufficient both to explain and to secure consensus’ (Matolino, 2013: 139).

In response to Matolino’s charge of intolerance to opposition and comparison with one-party politics, it is pertinent to call attention to Wiredu’s explicit claim that his idea of consensus neither entails a complete identity of moral or cognitive opinions nor unanimous agreement (Wiredu, 1997: 183). Rather, it presupposes preceding diverse positions, and seeks to reconcile these ‘such that the decision reached will be agreeable to all or, at least, not obnoxious to any’ (Wiredu, 1997: 183). Concerning the appropriation of the notion of the common good, it is pertinent to state that a theoretical posit of an idea and an abuse of that idea belongs to distinct levels of analysis, and that these are best distinguished in discussions of this sort. Only then can an assessment of the question whether an abuse of the ideal discredits the ideal be reasonably answered. It appears to me that Matolino commits an error with regard to this point, as he conflates the history of the misapplication of the ideal of the common good with Wiredu’s projection of its prospective service to the political history of Africa. If this distinction is permissible, then Matolino’s judgement on Wiredu’s intolerance to opposition needs revision.

Matolino’s objection regarding the absence of an independent basis for Wiredu’s commitment to consensus is misplaced in view of Wiredu’s utterances. As indicated earlier, it is plausible to interpret Wiredu as meaning that the willingness to suspend disagreement is premised on at least two factors: first on the persuasiveness of the ideas advanced by deliberators and, second, on a communitarian theory of personhood and the ethics of communalism. Wiredu’s commitment derives from his perception of mutual and reciprocal dependence as a characteristic human mode of being in African culture. It is likewise based on the communalist ethical principle that practical altruism is a desirable social virtue. These are independent and antecedent justificatory criteria for his commitment to consensus.

In my view, the substantive difference between Matolino and Wiredu on the nature of parties and status of parties₃ boils down to assumptions about the underlying values of a social and political philosophy: of different visions of what constitutes human ends, and of different conceptions of the conditions and ends of social cohesion. In Wiredu’s view, the decisions that parties₁ endorse are conditioned by the principles of communalist ethics. A social system built in accord with such ethics is unlikely to produce parties₁ that consider their own interests to be diametrically opposed to other parties₁. In such a social setting, the institutions and processes of political practice, as vehicles to human good, are unlikely to be designed to encourage mutual exclusion of substantive positions but seek to reconcile them. Therefore, in such a setting it is conceivable, despite Matolino’s belief, that parties₁ can work with the aim of seeking consensus and cooperation, and to carry on the business of policy making without a need for parties₃. What is required to be able to imagine the possibility, or even likelihood, of this happening is to be able to envision a political system built on the ethic of cooperation, and to admit that a cultural tradition can condition a people to build a social system that encourages parties₁ to adjust their aims to this ethic.

Ani’s critique of Wiredu coincides with Matolino’s at various points and diverges on other points. He advances three objections that differ from Matolino’s, which I wish to consider. First, he contests Wiredu’s claim that consensus seeking is an immanent (inherent) feature of decision-making by Africans (Ani, 2014: 345). He believes this to be an unjustified particularisation of immanence and perceives danger in this particularisation, which is that it fails to ‘help us to dislodge other alleged (and more unhealthy) taxonomic particularisms and “inherent” differences like that of White superiority in intelligence’ (Ani, 2014: 346). Second, Ani questions the value of the ‘return to source’ character of Wiredu’s theory, which seeks ‘to (re) discover in the African colonial past resilient forms of social and political organization that, with proper re-working, would lead some African countries out of their current self-destructive patterns of social existence’ (2014: 346). Such an approach is objectionable because it evokes ‘presuppositions of not just cultural but human or biological dichotomies between races’ (Ani, 2014: 346). Third, Ani rejects Wiredu’s claim that decision-making in African deliberative forums proceeded on predominantly rational grounds (2014: 347). In his view,

if deliberation were purely rational and totally immune to extraneous factors, then it should not have been disrupted by extraneous factors like colonialism and the introduction of the democracy of aggregative voting, and there should be no need to strive to resuscitate it. (Ani, 2014: 347)

Ani’s objection regarding the immanence of consensus is refuted by Wiredu’s utterances and is refutable independently of those utterances on methodological grounds. Wiredu says ‘there is nothing peculiarly African about the idea [of a democratic tradition that prefers consensus building as a method of decision making] itself. If it is valid … it ought to be a concern for our whole species’ (1996: 190). This statement is self-explanatory. But quite apart from this, it is important to emphasise Ani’s failure to acknowledge the near-axiomatic African philosophical methodological perspective that holds that a claim of the African-ness of a thought need not entail the exclusivist claim that it is uniquely African. As stated in Note 2 in the ‘Wiredu’s theory: Thesis and arguments’ section, it is sufficient that such a claim can only reasonably mean that such a thought is more notably present in sub-Saharan Africa than in other geographical locations for it to be African. Finally, I evoke my earlier statements on the appropriateness of Wiredu’s constructivist method in response to Ani’s objection to Wiredu’s ‘return to the source’ approach, as I cannot profitably add more to those statements.

Criticisms of the ideal of the common good and of emphasis on rationality as a condition of deliberative democracy, which Wiredu espouses, have also been advanced outside African philosophical debates. Lynn Sanders questions deliberative democracy, on the grounds that deliberation harbours antidemocratic tendencies that may undermine democratic claims by virtue of its emphasis on rationality and moderation as conditions of discourse. Such an emphasis ‘implicitly excludes public talk that is impassioned, extreme and the product of particular interests’ (Sanders, 1997: 370). In this way, views that vary from those conditions may be discredited on democratic grounds. This may well foster a systematic disadvantage of citizens who do not stringently adhere to these conventional requirements of deliberation, regardless of how useful their contributions may be (Sanders, 1997: 348–349).

Sanders’s objection overlaps with those expressed by Ani and Matolino on the procedural value of rationality and also raised by Eze (1997: 316–317). It is difficult to say whether Wiredu’s arguments validate the view that the process of deliberation in a consensual democracy should exclusively be rational discourse and that the condition for participation should exclusively be rational ability. He certainly presumes the rationality of participants and admits that the quality and justifiability of their decisions rises with their adherence to critical deliberation (Wiredu, 1996: 143). However, critical deliberation need not exclude impassioned presentation of views. It does not require such exclusion. Therefore, Wiredu’s utterances can accommodate the view that sectional interests presented impassionately can be the starting point of the quest for consensus. What I think is required to bridge Wiredu’s position and the problem raised by Sanders is that a minimum observation of decorum is required that excludes the ethic of ‘deliberative activism’ espoused by Archon Fung, which commits deliberators to the use of force as a means to achieving political goals when persuasive and procedural norms of deliberation have been exhausted (2005: 399, 401–402, 416).

Undoubtedly, Wiredu’s theory of consensual democracy, like Rawls’ The Law of Peoples, is ideal theory. An objection could be made to my argument that uses ideal theory to criticise liberalism and majoritarian democracy in Africa, which occur at the level of practice. I think this objection can be met. The fact that Wiredu’s theory hasn’t undergone experiment does not imply that it is impracticable. This is consistent with Rawls’ view that his theory, which he refers to as a ‘realistic utopia’, is capable of extending ‘what are ordinarily thought to be the limits of practicable political possibility and, in so doing, reconciles us to our political and social condition’ (1999: 11). Such reconciliation is achieved by the connection of ideal theory ‘with the deep tendencies and inclinations of the social world’ (Rawls, 1999: 128). The practical merits of ideal political philosophical theories, then, are that they have the power to show the social world how it may realise features of a ‘realistic utopia’. In doing this, ideal theory charts’ a long-term goal of political endeavour, and in working towards it gives meaning to what we can do today (Rawls, 1999: 128). On this view, the appropriate question about Wiredu’s theory would be ‘whether it represents a sufficiently desirable form of human social organization to serve as the basic constituent element of a [future African] society, not whether it serves as a realistic proxy for any actually existing states’ (Beitz, 2000: 680).

Suggested refinements to Wiredu’s theory

In this section, I propose ways by which Wiredu’s theory can be improved. In line with my response to Matolino regarding levels of analysis, I endeavour to make suggestions at the theoretical level. A question that confronts a defender of Wiredu’s theory is how can it attain its democratic goals without surrendering the moral and political ideals that underlie it? In attempting to answer this, I return to that aspect of Sanders’ critique that calls attention to how formal norms of deliberation may distort the deliberative process. The gist of her point, let us recall, is that such distortion may result in excluding the substantial views of other deliberators. For this reason, she proposes that deliberative democratic theory should guarantee not only the formal equality of participants, but also their equality in ‘epistemological authority’, by which she meant the ‘capacity to evoke acknowledgement of one’s arguments’ (Sanders, 1997: 349). The architecture of Wiredu’s consensual democracy can profit from this idea of epistemological authority. To attain such profit, Wiredu’s theory should explicitly state the need for epistemological authority for deliberators, and devise a procedural tool that is independent of the formal standards of deliberation and capable of measuring the practical efficacy – in terms of their promotion of inclusiveness – of those standards.

Alfred Moore and Kieran O’Doherty’s notion of ‘partial deliberative acceptance’ may be explored as a possible foundation for devising such a tool. These authors refute the idea of consent in deliberative democracy ‘as rational consensus or fully normative unanimity, where all come to hold the same substantive position for the same reasons’ (Moore and O’Doherty, 2014: 302). It its place, they defend a partial form of normative unanimity that does not require sharing in the substantive values and beliefs advanced in the arguments offered in justifying the decision, but which obtains when individual members of the group openly affirm their agreement to let the decision stand as their common decision on the basis of the quality of their deliberations (Moore and O’Doherty, 2014: 302). The normative force of such consent obtains if two conditions are met: First, each participant must have the power to veto the common decision; and, second, the opportunity to question, object, scrutinise and oppose presentations must prevail unimpeded (Moore and O’Doherty, 2014: 305–308).

Wiredu certainly rejects the idea of consent as unfettered cognitive and normative unanimity. He states that consensus does not necessarily involve a complete identity of moral or cognitive opinions (1997: 183). Partial normative unanimity coincides with his position. However, Moore and O’Doherty’s second condition is only implicit in Wiredu’s theory. In my view, indicating explicitly how this condition can be obtained will substantially improve the democratic character of Wiredu’s theory and meet objections that point to its limitations in achieving inclusive deliberation.

Finally, I think for Wiredu’s theory to attain its democratic goals without surrendering its underlying moral and political ideals, his notion of community needs refinement. He draws on the political practices of pre-colonial Ashanti society to illustrate the viability of the principles underlying consensual democracy for contemporary life. The structure of this society was rooted in the kinship system, and although Wiredu, admits that for ‘good or ill that milieu is no more’ (1980: 29), he insists that the principles underlying those pre-colonial practices have contemporary relevance. In doing so, he leaves open-ended his responses to questions regarding how consensual democratic communities would look like in the contemporary setting, and what resources would be needed to build them. This exposes Wiredu to criticisms, such as Ani’s complaint that the society for whose application the theory is meant ‘is just too remote to be verified or examined’, and that the society from which Wiredu draws his theory ‘has been too disrupted by the twin disasters of colonialism and a lack of written tradition to be recovered in any significant way’. Hence, in Ani’s estimation, Wiredu’s assertions ‘records more nostalgic colourations than accurate descriptions’ (2014: 347).

Undoubtedly, Wiredu’s notion of community will benefit from adopting features of Julius Nyerere’s ideal community, which he considers to be inseparable from his principle of kujitegemea, the Swahili word for ‘self-reliance’. Nyerere’s community comprises a social unit that seeks the goal of self-reliance, and the equality and security of citizens, through cooperative living and working for the common good. Members of this community are socialised to live life-enriching relationships with themselves and other members of the society, and to participate actively in maintaining and developing the economy of their communities. Towards this, the goal of self-reliance dictates that ‘social change will be determined by our own needs as we see them, and in the direction that we feel to be appropriate for us at any particular time’ (Nyerere, 1968: 92). The socialisation of community members is geared towards equipping them to be able to judge what is good for them collectively and to effectively employ their democratic institutions to serve their goals. Nyerere’s community is based on assumptions of human equality and the belief that the purpose of all social, economic and political activity is the good of the whole community (1968: 92). As long as its members adhere to these principles, the constitution and size of the unit of the community would not matter and can be ‘large enough to take account of modern methods and the twentieth century needs of man’ (Nyerere, 1968: 124).

What this idea of community can profitably contribute to making Wiredu’s proposal practicable is kujitegemea, which provides the seeds of an economic model from which socio-economic development policies can be derived. This makes it a more rounded notion of community than Wiredu’s offers and enhances the feasibility of consensual democracy in contemporary life. Although Nyerere’s idea of community has not been realised in Africa, its realisation is not a condition for considering it as viable for current practice. This flows from my discussion of the relevance of ideal theory for practice in the ‘Objections to Wiredu’ section.

Conclusion

Several tenets of the debate on democracy in Africa reflect concerns that define the crisis of legitimacy faced by post-colonial African states. There is widespread consensus on assigning the causes of this crisis partly to the legacy of colonialism. The neglect of indigenous political theory, occasioned by assumptions underlying institutional arrangements devised for post-colonial government, combined with improper post-colonial political choices, have been held to be strong causes for numerous failures of the processes of the legitimation of democratic power in Africa.

Accordingly, the proposed solutions to the crisis of legitimate statehood in Africa range from the arguments for African unity (Diop, 1987; Muchie, 2002; Nkrumah, 1963) to those that advocate reconfiguring the current structures African states to bridge internal divisions and conflicts (Okafor, 2000), and calls for reforming their democratic institutions and processes (Bathily, 2000: 51–52). Wiredu’s theory can be identified with this last category of proposed solutions. His framework prescribes appropriating the experience and history of the continent for democratic accordingly, and is thus integral to his quest for conceptual decolonisation of the mind and institutions of Africa. The need for rethinking contemporary political theory and practice, through reappraisal of traditional culture to identify ideas that can contribute to a distinctive tradition of practicable African political philosophy, has important implications not only for the relevance of tradition for contemporary life but also for invoking appropriate ‘sensibilities’, ¹³ for the political reform of the African state. I have argued that, with appropriate modification, Wiredu’s theory of democracy by consensus would be a worthwhile instrument for such reform.