Liberation, Instability and Good Governance as Factors in the Democratic Consolidation of the States in Sub-Saharan Africa

Most states in sub-Saharan Africa are currently characterised by instability and an absence of democratic consolidation, compared with the developed states of the West. This article aims to add to the existing knowledge, using theoretical frameworks to explain the regional absence of democratic consolidation and continued political and economic instability. The central research objective is to provide pointers on how to overcome this trend. The methodology applied is an in-depth qualitative analysis of case studies and existing primary and secondary literature that have documented the democratic transition of sub-Saharan states over the past five decades. Hypothetically, it is argued that the prolonged emphasis on liberation policy objectives by most govern-ments in sub-Saharan Africa causes instability and the consequent absence of demo-cratic consolidation. To achieve the objective of democratic consolidation, individual states in sub-Saharan Africa could shift away from liberation policy towards more sub-stantive practices of good governance.