Liberal Institutionalism And Global Development: The Question Of African Identity

Abstract

As the world seeks to settle in the heart of Peace and by implication development, away from the aggressive world of power struggle and violent domination, a liberal institutional path that eventually becomes a global norm for all actors within the international system was recommended not just as a solution for global peace but more importantly global development. Following this, questions yet to be properly addressed by literature abound on where the liberal developmental agenda has placed the third-world region like Africa on the continuum of global development tracing from the region's deplorable living conditions and poor standards. The paper observes that the liberal institutionalism's prescription for development is practically monolithic and technically skewed only to facilitate qualitative and quantitative improvement of those parts of the world whose values and sentiments are codified into liberal ideology while it consciously ignores the peculiarity of other regions such as Africa in its evaluation and assessment. The paper concludes that development for Africa will remain elusive and unattainable as long as Africa continues to navigate its developmental path through a liberal institutional model without due attention to its own background and distinctive identity