The Mesomal State

A Community Liberal Democracy

The urgency of the democratic question in the struggle for the

advancement of humankind is at the heart of this study. To establish

and to develop a representative democracy, it is necessary to have

a rationale free from the State regulations sufficiently liberated to

place really at stake the cultural forces and spirits native to each

country. Now the history of the last forty years in Black Africa

proved fully that it is rather a counter-productive logic which was

adopted by the elites of independences. First of all, the more or less

totalitarian countries ignored the unavoidable cultural background

for anyone who wants to build on something to last. Afterwards, the

Colonial State model - liberal and individualistic - was reproduced

almost completely with the native rulers more or less designated or

« elected » from abroad (at 99%) not to say sprung violently from the

military fold. Yet, the community or communitarist nature of African

rural as well as urban State is undeniable. Not stopping there while

one is making a reflection on the « good governance » is simply a

counter intellectual economy. The burning question has proved the

necessity of building a new practice of political power supported by a

new theory of democracy, forged from both liberal Western political

philosophy and community political thought of traditional Africa.

Elie P. Ngoma-Binda is from the DR Congo. He teaches political philosophy,

African philosophy, political science and business ethics at the University of

Kinshasa and abroad. A former Dean of the Faculty of Letters and Human

Sciences, he studied and has brought research stays through postdoctoral

Scholarships of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (universities of

Witten-Herdecke, Hannover, Tübingen, in Germany), the International Human

Rights Institute (Strasbourg, in France), the Hoover Chair for Economic and

Social Ethics (University of Louvain-la-Neuve, in Belgium) and the Fulbright

- Hubert H. Humphrey Program (University of Colorado at Boulder, and

University of Maryland at College Park, in the USA). Founder and Director

of the Institute of Political Studies (Ifep), he has published intensively in

philosophy, political science and many other social sciences disciplines.