Cultural Particularities and Democratic Discourse in Africa: A Pan-African Perspective

Democracy itself is a highly contested concept—its form, function, and legitimacy vary across jurisdictions, political cultures, and historical trajectories. This contestation arises because democracy is both a normative ideal and a practical governance system, leading to tensions between procedural minimalism and substantive ideals.Footnote ⁴ Yet despite these divergences, democracy has increasingly been framed as a pillar of good governance, and international law has emerged as a key site for articulating, promoting, and even policing democratic norms. While international law purports to be universal, Footnote ⁵ a critical engagement with both international law and democracy shows them to be modes of participation grounded in contextual legitimacy, cultural resonance, and bottom-up articulation.Footnote ⁶

That Africa is no monolith has prefaced many conversations on international law in and by Africa, and several entrenched norms on the continent reflect this reality. One such norm is Pan-Africanism. Broadly understood, Pan-Africanism represents both a political project and an intellectual tradition committed to the unity, self-determination, and liberation of African peoples. As scholars have argued, it simultaneously challenges global hierarchies while articulating a vision of African futures rooted in cultural difference and regional solidarity.Footnote ⁷ It is a framework for collective emancipation, and a normative orientation that embraces the diversity of cultures across African states as a source of strength. Rather than pursuing homogenization, Pan-African thought consistently affirms unity through diversity, recognizing that the continent’s varied ethnic, cultural, and linguistic communities can coexist within shared political institutions.Footnote ⁸ This reframing positions Pan-Africanism not merely as a geopolitical strategy but as a pluralistic ethos. In governance terms, it implies that democratic discourse in Africa be grounded in inclusivity: a pursuit of constitutional rule, human rights, and democratic legitimacy, that must also reckon with and accommodate the continent’s rich cultural particularities.Footnote ⁹

Historical Foundations of Pan-African Democratic Ideals

The roots of Pan-Africanism’s democratic commitments run deep. From its inception, early Pan-African Congresses linked political independence with economic democracy, demanding both self-rule and social justice, and thus embedded a holistic vision that advances the political, social, and economic betterment of African peoples “in all and every way we can,” extending beyond conventional democratic ideals.Footnote ¹⁰

Early Pan-African leaders, most notably Julius Nyerere, affirmed popular sovereignty by grounding democracy in African social norms.Footnote ¹¹ In Tanzania, Nyerere’s Ujamaa model prioritized communal consensus over multiparty contestation, arguing that Western-style party politics were “unnecessary” and “un-African” in societies valuing solidarity.Footnote ¹² Nyerere’s theory highlights an important point: early Pan-African leaders were grappling with how to marry Indigenous governance philosophies with modern state structures. Their experiments (for better or worse) were driven by a belief that democracy must be built on African social norms such as communalism and solidarity.

In this Pan-Africanist view, democracy in Africa flourishes by embracing the continent’s plural social fabric and allowing diverse cultural traditions to shape political processes. Pan-Africanism, as a political vision, thus positions culture as foundational to governance, advancing political structures rooted in local practices of solidarity, reciprocity, and collective decision making. It defines unity as a commitment to shared values that honor cultural particularity while advancing common goals of freedom, equality, and self-determination. Julius Nyerere captured this ethos in his assertion that democracy is “government by discussion,”Footnote ¹³ a principle embodied in African village life through inclusive dialogue and consensus-building. These commitments reflected the broader priorities of African independence movements, which often centered economics and cultural objectives as essential components of democratic governance.

Musings: Pan-African Governance as Normative and Institutional Praxis

The democratic ideals of Pan-Africanism—rooted in pre-colonial governance practices and amplified during anti-colonial struggles—have profoundly shaped African continental institutions such as the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and its successor, the African Union (AU). This normative framework offers a distinctive approach to democratic governance by mediating the binary of universal and particular values, treating them instead as mutually reinforcing sources of legitimacy. African contributions to international discourse then emerge from this synthesis, demonstrating how democratic governance can be both grounded in universal principles and responsive to local contexts. This dynamic interplay between global norms and local practices is captured in Gebeye’s notion of “jurisgenerative constitutionalism,”Footnote ¹⁴ which describes African constitutionalism as operating within a “biosphere” where customary and liberal legal frameworks continuously interact, shaping democratic norms grounded in community-based authority and inclusive decision making. This law of democracy—emerging through negotiated consensus and plural traditions, is then formally recognized, for example, in the integration of traditional authorities within local governance structures.

This approach, however, is not without critique. Some caution that appeals to cultural particularity can essentializeFootnote ¹⁵ tradition or enable authoritarianism,Footnote ¹⁶ while others warn that excessive legal pluralism may fragmentFootnote ¹⁷ authority and undermine consistent rights enforcement. Yet, it is precisely within this contested space that African constitutionalism reveals its adaptive potential. Pan-Africanism’s commitment to constitutional pluralism offers a model for rethinking international law: one that affirms universal democratic standardsFootnote ¹⁸ while enabling African societies to give expression to those standards in ways that reflect their own histories, governance practices, and evolving social realities.

African legal developments offer concrete examples of this jurisgenerative, and this is perhaps most evident in areas like women’s rights and religious law. In several African countries, constitutions and courts have sought to reconcile international human rights mandates with customary or religious practices.Footnote ¹⁹ Rather than simply nullifying customs as “undemocratic,” many systems adopt procedural and dialogic solutions—requiring community consultation in law-making or by gradually reforming harmful practices through public education and consensus.Footnote ²⁰ In this jurisgenerative process new norms are generated from within society through deliberation, rather than imposed externally—a clear example of the evolution of a the law on democracy. As such many African constitutions now formally recognize customary and traditional authorities alongside modern constitutional frameworks, reflecting a jurisgenerative blend of global democratic norms with local governance practices.Footnote ²¹

At the institutional level, Pan-Africanism’s values are embedded in continental frameworks that promote democracy, good governance, and human rights. Chris Landsberg calls this a “new wave of inter-African union” or “progressive continentalism,” Footnote ²² driven by an activist agenda where Africa’s leaders champion common values of development, peace and security, and democratic governance. In practice, this means that the AU and its organs can apply diplomatic pressure, sanctions, or even military intervention under Article 4(h) of the Constitutive ActFootnote ²³ against regimes that violate these principles. This normative agenda is further reinforced through instruments like the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG), which commits member states to democratic norms while recognizing Africa’s diversity.Footnote ²⁴ Complementing the ACDEG, the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) provides a voluntary governance monitoring system rooted in Pan-African ideals of mutual accountability and context-sensitive evaluation. Rather than focusing narrowly on elections, the APRM broadens assessment to include popular participation, socioeconomic equality, and policy responsiveness, reflecting Landsberg’s vision of “Afro-progressive governance.”Footnote ²⁵ based on unity-in-diversity.

Yet, as experience shows, frictions can arise between regional governance commitments and local or national resistance, as illustrated by the Alliance of Sahel States’ recent withdrawal from ECOWAS in protest against perceived external interference and rigid supranational dictates. Recognizing such friction requires that we consider whether supranational rules—such as those embodied in the ACDEG—function merely as top-down projects from dominant centers or whether they instead catalyze new, home-grown mechanisms of consensus-building through resistance and reinterpretation. This framing offers an implicit critique of the more homogenizing strains of democracy. The Alliance of Sahel States’ withdrawal highlights what can happen when that dialogical space breaks down: tensions that might otherwise be managed through inclusive negotiation instead escalate into rupture. Such moments reveal the fragile edge of a law on democracy projected through supranational mechanisms but disconnected from the participatory ethos of a law of democracy. Yet this also underscores why Pan-Africanism’s normative stance matters: it does not deny that frictions arise; rather, it pushes back against any suggestion that there must be a single, rigid model of governance to which all must conform. Instead, it embraces civilizational plurality—one where multiple cultural and legal orders coexist and dialogically shape common norms. In this vision, tension becomes a generative force rather than a threat: the experience of Africa’s jurisgenerative constitutionalism shows how global ideals can be reinterpreted in non-Western idioms without losing their democratic character. By making space for local reinterpretation, Pan-African pluralism provides pathways for reconciling supranational commitments with national or local contexts, helping prevent tensions from hardening into outright rejection. At the same time, it illustrates the dangers of rigid universalism: dismissing local values outright can provoke resistance or ring hollow, just as extreme cultural relativism can shelter authoritarian abuses under the guise of tradition.

Democracy Beyond Elections: Participatory Governance and Social Justice

Central to Pan-Africanism’s normative contribution is a conceptualization of democracy that incorporates, but extends beyond, the minimalist paradigm of electoral democracy. While periodic free and fair elections remain fundamental, African regional frameworks emphasize that genuine democracy must also include robust citizen participation, accountability, transparency, protection of fundamental rights, and socioeconomic justice.Footnote ²⁶ These wider commitments are reflected in the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG), which obligates member states not only to conduct credible elections but also to promote democratic governance, the rule of law, and human rights in all areas of governance.Footnote ²⁷ The Charter’s preamble and Article 2 frame democracy as a societal aspiration rooted in a democratic and peaceful culture—affirming that democracy is both a political and a social phenomenon.Footnote ²⁸ This philosophy justifies both continental intervention in rogue states and deeper political integration to collectively manage shared challenges such as trade, defense and environmental protection—as a form of collective sovereignty.

Although participatory democracy is not an African invention, the APRM illustrates how this broader democratic ethos is operationalized. Designed as a voluntary and cooperative process, the APRM fosters extensive civil society and stakeholder participation, encouraging states to strengthen decentralization and grassroots engagement.Footnote ²⁹ This approach brings governance closer to the people, echoing longstanding traditions of village councils and consensus-based decision making in many African communities. Landsberg highlights the emergence of a vibrant civil society as a key benchmark for democratic governance within APRM reviews, underscoring the principle that democracy must be participatory to be legitimate.Footnote ³⁰ In this way, mechanisms like the APRM show how top-down instruments can better reflect Africa’s law of democracy when they center local accountability, civic dialogue, and socioeconomic responsiveness.

Equally central to this expanded vision is the integration of social and economic rights. From the 1945 Pan-African Congress, which linked self-determination with economic emancipation, to contemporary frameworks like Agenda 2063 and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), African leaders have consistently recognized that democratic practice is incomplete without tackling poverty, inequality, and structural injustice.Footnote ³¹ Scholars such as Ebenezer Durojaye affirm that rights to education, healthcare, and livelihoods are essential for meaningful participation,Footnote ³² a perspective also reflected in the ACDEG’s acknowledgment that corruption undermines both democratic governance and equitable development.Footnote ³³

Citizen engagement and public deliberation are foundational democratic elements that underscore collective sovereignty, challenging the idea that sovereignty is vested solely in the nation-state and instead affirming that it ultimately belongs to the peoples and can be exercised at multiple levels. Pan-Africanism thus envisions democracy as both locally rooted and globally resonant, presenting a model of democratic governance that accommodates diversity, promotes socio-economic equity, and fosters extensive public participation. This vision not only enriches global democratic discourse but offers tangible institutional pathways through which democracy can be continually defined and redefined within Africa’s unique contexts.

Conclusion: Musings on Power, Pluralism, and the Promise of Pan-African Democracy

Pan-Africanism, as both a normative framework and institutional project, has cultivated a vision of democracy in Africa that is unapologetically pluralistic. It reframes Africa’s cultural diversity not as a challenge to democracy, but as its very condition of possibility.

Yet, this vision remains aspirational. Even within Pan-African institutional discourse, there are tensions between elite articulations of solidarity and the grassroots demands for genuine democratic transformation. While Pan-African rhetoric celebrates unity, the democratic backsliding seen in recent years—including military coups, constitutional manipulations, and weakened judicial independence—exposes a disjunction between ideals and practice. As Olabisi Akinkugbe reminds us, these ruptures are not aberrations but symptoms of enduring structural contradictions: colonial legacies, geopolitical contestations, and elite entrenchment.Footnote ³⁴ To remain a living democratic norm, Pan-Africanism requires engagement beyond symbolic expressions of unity. Its durability depends on institutional frameworks that are both responsive to continental aspirations and grounded in the lived experiences of African peoples.

As this essay has argued, the distinction between a law of democracy and a law on democracy provides a useful framework for analyzing Africa’s evolving legal-political landscape. The former centers normativity, legitimacy, and participation from below; the latter often universalizes models from above. Pan-Africanism, in both its historical legacy and contemporary institutional forms, exemplifies a law of democracy—a democratic ethos (whatever the actual practice) that is grounded in pluralism, cultural resonance, and collective self-determination. This framing not only reorients our understanding of Africa’s place in international law (including the international law of democracy) but also offers a template for more inclusive global norm-making. One of Africa’s signal contributions to international law lies in articulating a vision of democracy that harmonizes collective well-being, cultural particularity, and transnational solidarity within global normative frameworks, enriching and diversifying the understanding of democratic principles.