The paper examines the United States of America’s foreign policy toward Africa in terms of promoting liberal democracy, as well as the challenges that African countries face in putting liberal democracy principles into practice, thereby impeding expected dividends and development. It is based on secondary data sources and descriptive data analysis methods. The findings revealed a gap between what the United States proposed for Africa in terms of good governance, anti-corruption, and social development and how liberal democracy actually works on the continent. The paper observed that, despite America’s celebration of liberal democracy, the effect in Africa is contextualized by the majority of African countries’ experiences of impressive governance, ineffective leadership, and endemic corruption. The various bilateral agreements between the United States of America and some African countries to promote liberal democracy have also been called into question due to deviations from expected outcomes. The paper suggests a philosophical approach to liberal democracy in Africa that incorporates pre-colonial African leadership traditions and governance cultures. African governments should invest adequately in youths and galvanize their energies for productivity through employment opportunities in order to uphold and protect liberal democracy. On the other hand, the United States should strengthen bilateral relations with each African country to ensure that they achieve good governance and economic development for mutual benefit.
This paper focuses on the international security concerns in relation to the disquiets in the tiny West African state, Guinea-Bissau since independence. The country famously known as “narco-state” faces formidable challenges with weak governance negatively impacting on intelligence services. Intelligence and security reform is a building block of democracy, but this has been habitually weakened in Guinea-Bissau during the last four decades. The state remains one of the most fragile nations in the world having had its security culture totally perturbed, occasioned by the military rule since independence from Portugal in 1974. With over nine coup d’états that have been staged with a number of state administrations toppled coupled with an avalanche of internal conflicts, and prevalence of transnational phenomena (cocaine trafficking), and other traditional state-based challenges, the African narco-state has been left with a very weak governance structure, security, and intelligence services. The study examines Guinea-Bissau’s intelligence culture drawing from secondary sources to understand how intelligence has been shaped and how intelligence has influenced the country in the context of poverty and authoritarianism. The study examines the various factors that have shaped the state’s intelligence, analyzing the transformation and reform in the state’s defense and security sector. It provides recommendations so the Bissau-Guinean intelligence community can be more effective. This study uses secondary sources and makes use of descriptive and content analyses techniques.
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