On Sunday former United Nations Secretary general Kofi Annan gave the fifth annual Nelson Mandela lecture at Madiba's foundation. In his talk Annan entreated African leaders to promote democracy and good governance and to disavow tyranny.
It turns out that throughout much of the continent, Africans are already heeding the call for democracy and away from kleptocracy and dictatorship. In the newest issue of The Journal of Democracy Daniel N. Posner and Daniel J. Young have an article posing the argument that peaceful transitions of power may well already be underway, with force having given way to a general trend toward the rule of law. In sum, that Africans are benefiting from the “institutionalization of political power.”
