IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/idsxxx/v44y2013i1p87-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Democracy, Liberty and Montesquieu: Constructing Accountable Order in African Conflict States

Author

Listed:
  • David K. Leonard

Abstract

Without appropriate institutional checks multiparty democracy can rekindle violent conflicts rather than help to resolve them. The absolutism of ‘imperial presidents’ is at the root of many of Africa's civil wars and the restoration of this institution in post‐conflict states will not help them find security for their citizens. Following Montesquieu, I argue that ‘liberty’, in the form of checks on executive power, must accompany or precede multiparty democracy in post‐conflict reconstruction.

Suggested Citation

  • David K. Leonard, 2013. "Democracy, Liberty and Montesquieu: Constructing Accountable Order in African Conflict States," IDS Bulletin, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(1), pages 87-98, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:idsxxx:v:44:y:2013:i:1:p:87-98
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/idsb.2013.44.issue-1
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:idsxxx:v:44:y:2013:i:1:p:87-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0265-5012 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.