Alexis de Tocqueville was concerned with the meaning of democracy, as are many Africans and Africanists today. In this chapter I will discuss the difficulties of relating the realities of everyday politics to visions of a better society. First, I sketch out the notion of an early modern patrimonial administrative state. Such states are, with few exceptions, authoritarian in nature. Next I analyse a similar form of rule in nineteenth-century Latin America, as well as its most interesting democratic exception – Chile. I then apply the argument to Nigeria under both authoritarian and democratic rule, stressing the nature of politics, the role of the military, the tensions between liberty and equality, and the impact of what is characterised as the ‘ideology of development’. In conclusion, I discuss the interplay of politics and vision and the three-way tension between domination, equality, and liberty in contemporary Africa.

NOTE ON DEFINITION AND CAUSAL ANALYSIS

I employ a rather strict and orthodox definition of democracy to include most of the characteristics associated with ‘liberal democracy’ as it developed out of complex socioeconomic and political struggles in Western Europe.