Introduction

Across Africa, Burkina Faso is believed to be undergoing a gradual turnaround in the country’s development outcomes despite the regime type. Between 2020 and 2023, four successful coups took place across the Sahelian region and their recent collective withdrawal from the ECOWAS reveals a stark but growing reality across Africa in general – a despondency toward the liberal experiment. In 2023, Freedom House reported a decade of decline in freedom in Africa, citing electoral irregularities, coups, and civil conflicts as weighing heavily on the continent. In a similar report, Afrobarometer reveals unsurprising findings in both the waning support for democracy and opposition to military rule.

Indeed, the two crucial foundations of liberal democracy; freedom and good governance seem to be appearing at a critical juncture in African statecraft. In this article, I argue that democratic backsliding and the decline of liberty are underpinned by a growing illiberal ideology. I assert that the spread of illiberalism in Africa is largely predicated on the reappearance of the nation-state in a post-liberal world. I draw on different cases across the continent to explain the two faces of postcolonialism in the post-liberal world order, contending that Africa’s illiberal turn is inconsistent with the underlying logic of postcolonialism. I conclude that emerging alliances with alternative blocs of power solidify Africa’s illiberal turn which consequently shifts the machinations of imperialism that reproduces neocolonialism.  

Postliberalism and the Reappearance of the Nation-state

            Postliberalism is an attempt to revise the errors of liberalism by rationalizing society as a covenant as opposed to a contract, liberty as freedom for mutual prosperity and harmony, and individual fulfillment in collective flourishing (Pabst, 2024). As far as African states are concerned, the balance of power in the global order presents a unique opportunity to reassert the developmental state. However, this reassertion is taking place against the backdrop of an illiberal ideology, usually confused with the ability to self-determine. Thus, illiberalism directly opposes the liberal values of individual freedoms and pluralism, mainly manifesting in authoritarian regimes or political movements. Indeed, the much-debated end of history which anticipated liberal democracy and its concomitant market-based economies as the ultimate form of government reassured a global system underpinned by market forces rather than states. While the state may be making a comeback, it is doing so under pragmatic measures that sustain the balance of power. But in the meantime, alternative ideologies to liberal democracy are appealing retorts for authoritarian and military regimes. 

As noted by Mark Scrafton, liberal democracy is just one option among many, and in relatively young democracies such as those found across Africa, democratic backsliding is being ushered in under the supremacy of the nation-state. Indeed, Africa’s nation-states have remained painfully static in a changing global order as others evolve. According to Robert Muggah, nation-states are likely to encounter four threats. These threats concern the redistribution, deconcentration, devolution, and decentralization of power. Interestingly, Fisher and Anderson have suggested that “for many African governments securitization of the relationship with Western donors is neither unwelcome nor problematic”. This premise explains why these four threats only materialize within an encumbered political atmosphere but not as part of a broader consensus for political development.

A genuine pragmatic politics in which the nation-state is placed at the center of external and domestic relations would prioritize empowering institutions at home and strengthening sovereignty abroad. On the contrary, for decades, African states have integrated into the international community via liberal norms while exacting illiberal outcomes at home. This view is tied to the primacy of the nation-state as the bulwark of development, hence the developmental state, irrespective of the regime type is an acceptable political outcome in today’s multipolar world.  

The Two Faces of Postcolonialism

As far as postcolonialism is concerned, there are two faces; the external face extolling the African primal instinct to self-govern, and the internal face which subjectifies governance against the backdrop of self-deterministic rule. Indeed, to reify postcolonialism, for instance, Ghana declared the decision to move beyond aid and instead sought partnerships to finance its development. This coincided with China’s Belt and Road Initiative and positioned Ghana as China’s largest trading partner. This not only diversified the country’s investment attraction strategies but has also created a political condition in which a new scramble is taking shape. Against this background, Chinese influence in the country’s artisanal mining sector is reshaping the dynamics of social and environmental sustainability, transforming the country into one of Africa’s emerging illiberal democracies by way of recent domestic political trends.   

Similar instances of postcolonial scramble are occurring in Angola evidenced by Biden’s recent visit to the country amidst American competition with China. Initiatives such as the Lobito Corridor reflect Luanda’s strategic importance to the West in recent times particularly as the country assumes a truly non-aligned posturing post Dos Santos. However, Luanda is strategically taking advantage of the geopolitical contest between the US and China by advancing a foreign trade policy entrenched in a growing multipolar world. Despite its relatively progressive foreign policy strategies, the government is centralizing authority through legislation to curtail civil liberties. In the main, while Luanda pursues an external policy that indicates its instinct to self-govern, it is being emboldened by a postliberal world order to enact illiberal policies at home.

Meanwhile, the Sahel region remains a hotbed for illiberal democracies and a general backslide into military interventionism. The Western liberal idealism and the French stranglehold have been supplanted by Moscow’s footprint in the region as democracy manifested only through periodic elections has further been attenuated by inequalities, multidimensional poverty, structural violence, and resource-based conflicts. The search for a politically stable regime that prioritizes development has resulted in constant military interventions. However, Moscow’s popularity in the region means any Russian-backed revolution described in postcolonial terms is a welcome political development.

Conclusion

Over the years, Africans seem to have come to appreciate the return of developmentalism. The preponderance of the state over market forces is appearing at the vanishing point of neoclassical economics and economic neoliberalism. At the same time, a postliberal world order fashioned on a growing multipolarity is hastening an illiberal turn across Africa as nation-states mutate depending on the outcomes promised by different power blocs. While this shapeshifting can be seen as pragmatic and evidence of non-alignment, its postcolonial claims are merely a means to reassure Africans of their ability to challenge the negative legacies of late colonialism. On the contrary, the disunity on the continent betrays every postcolonial logic and shows Africa’s continuous entanglements in an East-West postliberal contest as neocolonialism.   

image: DW Africa (2025) "Mozambique deployed soldiers after the ruling party was accused of manipulating October's election" https://www.dw.com/en/africa-in-2025-strengthening-democracy-key-to-growth/a-70945864