It is widely agreed that science, technology, and innovation are indispensable for African development. Universities are generally expected to play a critical role in the development of national and regional STI capabilities. The challenge is in the meaning of these axiomatic assumptions and aspirations, the modalities of synergising them into a virtuous cycle of continuous reinforcement to create knowledge, capacities, opportunities, and mentalities for innovative, integrated, inclusive and sustainable economies, societies, and polities.

STI is integral to Africa’s enduring drive for self-determination, development, and democratisation, for the continent’s transformation, and the restructuring and reimagining of its engagement with the world. Ultimately, it represents a search for African modernities in a world dominated by “instrumental reason” and characterised by the growing importance of “knowledge economies” and “knowledge societies”. It is a project that poses challenges that are simultaneously political and philosophical, concrete and conceptual, about the social and structural conditions and imperatives of Africa’s development in a world that rewards scientific and technological progress and punishes those lagging behind.

Knowledge including science and its applied products—technology—is driven and conditioned by powerful epistemic, economic, political and historical forces. Science is as much a scholarly venture spawned by intellectual curiosities and opportunities, as it is a social enterprise sustained by ideological interests, institutional dynamics, and the demands of society for solutions to pressing challenges and the market for profitable products and services. Science and scholarship thrive as much through the motivations, inspirations, and aspirations of the practitioners themselves as it requires structured support provided by universities, governments, businesses and other actors.

STI operates under national and transnational epistemological and regulatory regimes that transcend internal disciplinary proclivities and the agency and ambitions of their experts. The pressures and opportunities for strengthening STI in Africa have risen since 2000 as prospects for economic growth, political liberalisation, and struggles for social inclusion have accelerated, and as the imperatives of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have become more evident. COVID-19 has cast its own frightful demands for scientific and innovative mitigations.

Across the continent there has been a proliferation of national, regional, and continental STI policies and plans. African governments and universities are more aware, and even seem more committed than ever, of the need for their countries and institutions to invest and become producers of scientific knowledges and not just consumers of technological products. While science and technology are of course not a panacea for all the challenges of human and social development, and by themselves will not solve Africa’s stubborn legacies of underdevelopment, without them, those legacies cannot be overcome.

My presentation is divided into five parts. First, I will briefly discuss the conundrum of development as part of my argument that universities are essential for STI. Second, I will explore Africa’s standing in the global STI landscape. Third, I will examine various efforts undertaken by African states to engineer the development of STI. Fourth, I will suggest the ways in which universities can facilitate Africa’s drive for STI. Finally, I will draw some lessons for Malawi.

The development conundrum

Development remains an enigma despite massive intellectual and financial investments by the huge development industry that emerged after World War II. Governments and international and intergovernmental institutions, often supported by research in universities, have sought to decipher and deliver development. Academics in various fields especially in the social sciences and humanities have tried to answer some of these questions: Why do some nations develop and others remain underdeveloped? Why are some nations wealthy and others poor? Why do some nations grow and others stagnate?

In the days of unabashed Eurocentric conceit, race and ethnicity were put forward as explanations, that some races and ethnic groups were endowed with the innate attributes for civilisation. You still hear these naturalistic fallacies even among Africans, in which some ethnic groups are deemed superior in intellect and entrepreneurship. As Eurocentric and ethnocentric rationales lost currency, the determinisms of geography, culture, and history rose to prominence.

According to the geographical hypothesis, a country’s development is determined by its environment, terrain, and natural resources. Its advocates point to the fact that many poor countries are in the tropics and rich ones in the temperate regions. The cultural thesis posits that development emanates from a society’s cultural norms, social conventions, and even religious beliefs. There is the famous thesis that attributes the development of the Anglo-Saxon countries to the Protestant work ethic, and some attribute the rise of Southeast Asian countries to Confucianism. The historicist perspective comes in many guises: some applaud the genius of European civilisation for the West’s wealth, while others blame the poverty in the global South on European colonialism and imperialism.

Undoubtedly, geography, culture, and history affect the processes and patterns of development. But they only offer partial explanations at best. Abundance of natural resources doesn’t guarantee sustainable development. In fact, it may be a curse as it fosters the growth of corrupt rentier states and extractive economies that are structurally anti-development. The rapid growth of some tropical countries such as Singapore in Asia and Botswana in Africa undermines geographical determinism. Culture is equally insufficient as an explanation. The same Confucianism held as the secret to Southeast Asia’s recent economic miracle, was blamed for the region’s grinding poverty decades ago. History is a more compelling explanation. But formerly colonised countries have had different trajectories of development, even those colonised by the same imperial power. Moreover, the historic shift of global power from the West to Asia punctures the narrative of eternal Euroamerican superiority.

Some put analytical faith in vague and ideological notions of market freedom or democracy as the driver of growth and development. But the spectacular rise of a politically authoritarian China rebuts such arguments. Other scholars provide an assortment of explanations focusing on the levels of conflict and stability, patterns of corruption and investment, the presence of capable and committed leadership, and a nation’s geopolitical affiliation to hegemonic powers.

More sophisticated and compelling analyses show that historically, development prospects (not just rates of economic growth) have depended on the emergence and expansion of inclusive economic, political, and social institutions. Countries with extractive and weak institutions have not fared as well in achieving sustained growth and development. To the quality of institutions, I would add two other powerful factors: the quality of human capital and the quality of the social capital of trust. There is a growing body of research that shows a positive correlation between social trust and economic development, including the accumulation of physical capital, total factor productivity, income, and human capital formation and effectiveness.

Since the first Industrial Revolution in the mid-eighteenth century, to the unfolding Fourth Industrial Revolution, all the subsequent revolutions have been dependent on the indestructible link between intellectual inquiry, research, and innovation. This is the hallowed province of the university as society’s premier knowledge producing institution. The university is also the primary engine for producing high quality and innovative human capital. There are of course strong connections between university education and the production and reproduction of social capital, and intriguing linkages between university learning and the generation of civic attitudes and engagement. At best, university education goes beyond the provision of vocational, technical, and occupational training. It imparts flexible and lifelong values, skills, and competencies

Africa in the global STI landscape 

The modern world is unimaginable without science, technology and the innumerable innovations that have revolutionised all aspects of socioeconomic life, politics and international relations, transport and communication, and the formation and performance of identities. Ever since the industrial revolution in the 19th century, the links between science and technology have become tighter — there has hardly been any significant technological advancement since the beginning of the 20th century that has not been the byproduct of scientific research. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is STI on steroids.

The relationship between science and technology is of course not unilinear; there are multiple feedback loops between the two and between them and markets and national economic and social wellbeing. Investment in research and development has become an increasingly critical factor and measure of national competitiveness in a globalised economy compressed and interconnected by informational and communication technologies.

Four key trends are evident in the global knowledge economy. First, a global reshuffling in scientific production is taking place. Asia, led by China, has or is poised to overtake Europe and North America in several key STI indicators such as research and development expenditures, scholarly publications, number and proportion of researchers, and patents. Second, research has become increasingly internationalised, which is evident in the exponential growth of collaborative research, citations to international work, and international co-authorship. Third, the landscape of research and development (R&D) funding is changing as new players enter the scene. In addition to governments, investments by business firms, philanthropic foundations, and intergovernmental agencies have risen. Finally, the growth of digital technologies has accelerated international collaborations and provided developing countries with almost unprecedented technological leapfrogging opportunities.

The exponential ascent of Asia in STI indicators reflects and reinforces that continent’s repositioning as the world’s economic powerhouse. In contrast, despite Africa’s much-vaunted rise, the continent remains at the bottom of global research indicators. According to data from UNESCO, in 2013, gross domestic expenditure on R&D as a percentage of GDP in Africa was 0.5 per cent compared to a world average of 1.7 per cent and 2.7 per cent for North America, 1.8 per cent for Europe and 1.6 per cent for Asia. Africa accounted for a mere 1.3 per cent of global R&D. In 2018, global R&D expenditure reached US$1.7 trillion, 80 per cent of which was accounted for by only ten countries. In first place, in terms of R&D expenditure as a share of GDP, was South Korea with 4.3 per cent, and in tenth place was the United States with 2.7 per cent. In terms of total expenditure, the United States led with US$476 billion followed by China with US$371 billion. What was remarkable was that, among the top fifteen R&D spenders, expenditure by the business sector was the most important source, ranging from 56 per cent in the Netherlands to 71.5 per cent in the United States.

In contrast, for the 14 African countries for which UNESCO had data, business as a source of R&D was more than 30 per cent in three countries, led by South Africa with 38.90 per cent, and was less than 1 per cent in four countries. In most countries, the biggest contributor to R&D was either government or the outside world. The former contributed more than 85 per cent in Egypt, Lesotho and Senegal and more than 70 per cent in another two countries, while the latter contributed a third or more in four countries. Higher education and private non-profit organisations hardly featured.

Not surprisingly, other research indicators were no less troubling. In 2013, Africa as a whole accounted for 2.4 per cent of world researchers, compared to 42.8 per cent for Asia, 31 per cent for Europe, 22.2 per cent for the Americas and 1.6 per cent for Oceania. Equally low was the continent’s share of scientific publications, which stood at 2.6 per cent in 2014, compared to 39.5 per cent for Asia, 39.3 per cent for Europe, 32.9 per cent for the Americas and 4.2 per cent for Oceania. The only area in which Africa led was in the proportion of publications with international authors. While the world average was 24.9 per cent, for Africa it was 64.6 per cent, compared to 26.1 per cent for Asia, 42.1 per cent for Europe, 38.2 per cent for the Americas and 55.7 per cent for Oceania. Thus, African scholarship suffers from epistemic extraversion and limited regional integration, much as is the case with our economies.

In terms of patents, according to data from the World Intellectual Property Organization, Africa accounted for 17,000 patent applications in 2018, while Asia led globally with 2,221,800 applications, followed by North America with 663,300, Europe with 362,000, Latin America and the Caribbean with 56,000, and Oceania with 36,200. For industrial design applications, Africa claimed 17,400. Again, Asia led with 914,900, followed by Europe with 301,300, North America with 54,000, Latin America and the Caribbean with 15,300 and Oceania with 9,700. Africa’s share of trademark applications was 245,500, while Asia had 10,000,000, Europe 2,252,200, North America 827,800, Latin America and Caribbean 751,000, and Oceania 199,600. The data for utility model applications (a cheaper and shorter patent-like intellectual property model to protect inventions, which is not available in the US, Canada and Britain) is equally revealing. Africa had 1,050, Asia 2,097,500, Europe 40,773, Latin America and Caribbean 4,391, and Oceania 2,246. In sum, in 2018, Africa accounted for 0.5 per cent, 1.3 per cent, 1.7 per cent, and 0.04 per cent of global applications for patents, industrial design, trademarks and utility models, respectively.

Engineering Africa’s STI futures 

African countries have become increasingly committed to strengthening their STI capacities as a critical driver for sustainable development, democratisation, and self-determination. They understand that STI is essential for the public good, private enterprise development, and building productive capacity for sustainable development. However, translating aspirations into reality is often fraught and frustrated by bureaucratic inertia, lack of political will and resources.

By 2010, more than forty countries had established ministries responsible for national S&T policies. In addition, several regional agencies were created to promote the development and coordination of science and technology (S&T) policies, such as the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC) formed in 2001 that by 2020 had 28 members. It “aspires to make the ‘voice of science’ heard by policy and decision makers within Africa and worldwide”. It seeks to build the capacities of national “academies in Africa to improve their roles as independent expert advisors to governments and to strengthen their national, regional and international functions”. In recent years, NASAC has focused its attention on research and providing policy advice to governments on the implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

At the continental level, several ambitious initiatives were advanced by the major intergovernmental agencies, from the African Union Commission (AUC) to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA). In 2005, Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action (CPA) was created. The CPA merged the science and technology programmes of the AUC and the New Partnership for Africa’s Development. It sought to promote the integration of Africa into the global economy and the eradication of poverty through five priority clusters: biodiversity, biotechnology and indigenous knowledge; energy, water and desertification; materials sciences, manufacturing, laser and post-harvest technologies; information and communication technologies; and mathematical sciences.

The plan outlined strategies for improving policy conditions and building innovation mechanisms through the creation of the African Science, Technology and Innovation Initiative to establish common STI indicators and an STI observatory. It also sought to strengthen regional cooperation in science and technology, build public understanding of science and technology, a common strategy for biotechnology, and science and technology policy capacity as well as promote the creation of technology parks. The plan concluded with a list of institutional and funding arrangements as well as overall governance structures needed to ensure its effective and efficient implementation.

The CPA received vigorous support from UNESCO, which selected areas for assistance and proceeded to help a number of countries to review and reformulate their science policies. Notwithstanding all the fanfare that greeted the adoption of CPA, progress in implementing its programmes proved slow, hobbled by insufficient funding, weak organisational capacity, and inadequate infrastructure and expertise in STI policy development. Nevertheless, the CPA helped raise awareness about the importance of STI and foster bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

In 2014, the AUC adopted the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy for Africa 2024 (STISA-2024), which sought to place “science, technology and innovation at the epicenter of Africa’s socio-economic development and growth”. Six priority areas and four mutually reinforcing pillars were identified. The priorities were: eradication of hunger and achieving food security; prevention and control of diseases; communication (physical and intellectual mobility); protection of our space; live together—build the society; and wealth creation. The pillars were: building and/or upgrading research infrastructures; enhancing professional and technical competencies; promoting entrepreneurship and innovation; and providing an enabling environment for STI development in the African continent.

It was envisaged that STISA-24 would be implemented by incorporating the strategy in national development plans at the national level, through the regional economic communities and research institutions and networks at the regional level, and the AUC at the continental level. Targets would be established at each level, monitoring and evaluation undertaken, and domestic and external resources mobilised. Flagship and research programmes would be established. Investment in universities as centers of excellence in research and training was emphasised, as was the engagement of the private sector, civil society, and the diaspora. STISA-24 was touted as a powerful tool to achieve the AU’s Agenda 2063 by accelerating “Africa’s transition to an innovation-led, Knowledge-based Economy”.

In 2018, UNECA produced a lengthy report on the STI profiles of African countries. It noted that Africa’s economic growth since 2000 did not result in significant socioeconomic transformation because it was not knowledge-based and technology-driven. Africa needed to establish “economies with sustained investments in science, technology and innovation (STI), and that have the capacity to transform inventions into innovations in order to drive national competitiveness and improve social welfare. Such countries have economic and STI policies integrated as coherent national policies and strategies; their decisions on STI are guided by carefully drafted country STI readiness and assessment reports”.

The report outlined key indicators for measuring STI. It identified four pillars of country STI readiness and their input and output indicators. First, STI actors’ competences and capacity to innovate. Under this pillar, input indicators include R&D intensity, R&D intensity of industry, number of researchers in R&D, public sector investment in R&D, private sector investment in R&D, education expenditure as a percentage of GDP, and science and engineering enrollment ratio. Among the output indicators is the proportion of the population with secondary and tertiary level education, share of low, medium and high tech products in total manufacturing output, share of low, medium and high tech exports in total exports, and patents, trademarks and designs registered.

Second, STI actors’ interactions. Inputs for this pillar comprise fixed electric power consumption per capita, telephone main lines in operation per 100 inhabitants, fixed broadband Internet subscribers per 100 people, and mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 people. Outputs encompass number of new products and services introduced, number of firms introducing new production processes, and level of FDI inflows.

Third, human resources for innovation. Its inputs consist of education expenditures as a percentage of GDP, sciences and engineering enrollment ratio, number of universities and other institutions of higher education, number of specialised universities in science and technology fields, and number of institutes providing technical vocational education. Its outputs are evident in the number of researchers in R&D, number of graduates in STI fields (sciences, engineering and mathematics), proportion of population with secondary and tertiary level education, and share of employment in manufacturing and services sectors.

Fourth, STI policy governance whose inputs are the existence of an STI policy derived from a participatory approach that ensures widespread stakeholders’ ownership and commitment, existence of an STI policy implementation framework that enjoys the support of the political leadership at the highest level, while its outputs are the number of STI initiatives completed and scaled up per year, proportion of planned STI investments achieved, FDI inflows, and the number of STI initiatives by nationals from the diaspora.

Each of the regional economic communities also promulgated their own STI initiatives and programs. In 2008, the Southern African Development Community issued its Protocol on Science, Technology and Innovation “to foster cooperation and promote, the development, transfer, and mastery of science, technology and innovation in Member States”. In its Vision 2050, the East African Community noted that “STI, whether embodied in human skills, capital goods, practices and organizations, is one of the key drivers of economic growth and sustainable development”. It bemoaned that “The weak development of science, technology and innovation has delayed the emergence of African countries as knowledge economies”, and outlined a series of STI initiatives including the formation of the East African Science and Technology Commission.

Similarly, in the treaty of the Economic Community of West African States, member states agreed to “strengthen their national scientific and technological capabilities in order to bring about the socio economic transformation”, by ensuring “the proper application of science and technology to the development of agriculture, transport and communications, industry, health and hygiene, energy, education and manpower and the conservation of the environment”, and reducing “their dependence on foreign technology and promote their individual and collective technological self-reliance”. They undertook to harmonise their science and technology policies, plans, and programs.

Despite these commitments, African countries have faced capacity challenges and constraints in building robust STI systems. In the literature four key issues have been identified. First, at the policy level, STI is often poorly grounded in the prevailing needs of the society and the national development plans, and lacks coordination. Second, there is lack of adequate and stable funding for STI infrastructures and poor implementation. Third, the private sector invests too little in research and development both for itself and in collaboration with higher education institutions. Fourth, scientific literacy as a critical means of popularising science, technology and innovation in society, and among students at all levels of the educational system tends to be weak.

It stands to reasons that developing and executing effective S&T policies entails the mobilisation of key stakeholders including public institutions, the private sector, universities and research networks, international agencies, non-governmental and civil society organisations, and the media. The latter is indispensable for translating science to the public and building popular support for it. In short, if the goal is to promote STI for sustainable development, the processes of policy formation and implementation require democratic engagement. This calls for political will and bold and visionary leadership, strong institutions, and strategic planning and coordination of programmmes and activities into a single, strong and sustainable national STI system. Without providing adequate resources to build research infrastructures and capacities, national plans become nothing more than ritualistic and rhetorical gestures to fantasy.

Universities as incubators of STI  

Clearly, building collective, creative and transformative STI systems is exceedingly demanding. As noted in a report by UNESCO on co-designing sustainability science, it entails, first, building robust capacities that promote strong training and research infrastructures, intersectoral linkages, and multisectoral plans, and ensuring implementation and impact. Second, it is requires strengthening the interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary generation of basic and applied knowledge and integrating different knowledge systems including indigenous and local knowledges and third, fortifying the science-policy-society interface through the incorporation of various stakeholders and mainstreaming the participation of women, the private sector, and civil society.

Universities are crucial for Africa’s drive to build effective transdisciplinary, collaborative and participatory STI capacities and systems that address the pressing needs and the development challenges and opportunities facing the continent. The package of prescriptions for this agenda is predictable. It is imperative to raise the number of tertiary institutions and enrollment ratios, levels of research productivity, and institutional commitments to public service and engagement and innovation and entrepreneurship.

In 2018, Africa had 1,682 universities, 8.9 per cent of the world’s total (18,772) compared to 37 per cent for Asia, 21.9 per cent for Europe, 20.4 per cent for North America, and 12 per cent for Latin America and the Caribbean. The tertiary enrollment ratio for sub-Saharan Africa was 9.08 per cent and for the Arab states, some of which are in Africa 33.36 per cent. In comparison, the world average was 38.04 per cent, for North America 86.26 per cent, for Europe 71.56 per cent, for Latin America and the Caribbean 51.76 per cent, East Asia and the Pacific 45.77 per cent, Central Asia 27.64 per cent, and South and West Asia 25.76 per cent.

Comparative global data on the enrollment ratio by programme is hard to come by. For the few African countries for which UNESCO had data covering 2013-2018 enrollments were highest in business, administration and law programmes, social sciences, journalism and information programmes, and arts and humanities programmes, in that order. In many countries, these three program clusters often registered more than two-thirds of students. Enrollments in the STEM and heath programmes tended to be much lower.

Enrollment in the natural sciences, mathematics and statistics programmes actually fell in Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Cape Verde, Lesotho, Madagascar, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, and South Africa. It only rose in Côte d’Ivoire and Seychelles. During the same period enrollment in engineering, manufacturing and construction programmes fell in Benin, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Lesotho, Mauritius, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria and South Africa, while it rose in Algeria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Egypt, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, and Tunisia.

Enrollment in agriculture, forestry, fisheries and veterinary programs fell in ten countries (Algeria, Burundi, Cape Verde, Egypt, Mali, Morocco, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles and South Africa), and increased in eleven (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Eritrea, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, and Niger). Enrollment in health and welfare programs rose in more countries—fourteen (Algeria, Burundi, Eritrea, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Seychelles, South Africa, and Tunisia)—and fell in seven (Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, and Mauritius).

STEM disciplines increasingly benefited from the establishment of universities of science and technology, the growth of these programmes in other universities, and the expansion of national and international research institutions. Africa’s leading economies, Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, launched ambitious programmes and initiatives to promote science and technology, which benefitted universities. Nigeria’s Vision 2020 embraced science and technology as “key to global competitiveness” and turning the country into one of the top 20 economies in the world. It identified twelve priority areas for systematic intervention and development including biotechnology, nanotechnology, renewable energy, space research, knowledge-intensive new and advanced materials, ICT, and traditional medicine and indigenous knowledge.

In South Africa, the government adopted the National Research and Development Strategy in 2002, which rested on three pillars: innovation, human capital and transformation, and alignment and delivery. It sought to promote a coordinated science system, increase investment in R&D to 1 per cent of GDP, and enhance the country’s innovation and competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. Universities benefitted through the establishment of a Research Chairs initiative, Centers of Excellence Programme and a Postdoctoral Fellows Programme. In 2010, the Department of Science and Technology adopted a ten-year innovation plan building on the 2002 plan that placed emphasis on South Africa becoming a world leader in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, space science and technology, energy security, global climate change science, and human and social dynamics. An innovation fund was established to promote these activities.

In Egypt, the STI system was shaped by the Academy of Scientific Research and Technology. Founded in 1972, the Academy controlled the budget for R&D in universities and research centers until 2007 when it ceased to be a financing body but continued to play a central role in coordinating the country’s research programmes. New organs were created to strengthen STI capacities and collaboration. Universities stood to benefit from investments to increase the number and remuneration of researchers, large government research institutes from 18 to 28 and smaller ones from 180 to 230, and make governmental sources of research funding available to private universities for the first time.

Egypt’s new constitution adopted in 2014 “sets a goal of allocating 1 percent of the country’s gross domestic product to scientific research, up from 0.4 percent in 2010-11”. In 2019, the country issued its National Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation 2030. The plan envisaged enhancing the system of STI management, human resources and infrastructure, quality of scientific research, investment in scientific research and linking it to industry and development plans, international collaboration, and developing a scientific mindset in society. Thirteen priority areas were identified: energy, water, health and population, agriculture and food, environment and natural resources protection, technological application and future sciences, strategic industries, information, communication and space technology, education, mass media and social values, investment, trade and transportation, tourism, and social sciences and humanities.

The inclusion of the social sciences and humanities in the Egyptian STI 2030 strategy goes against the grain. All too often, African policy makers and educators create a Chinese wall between STEM and the humanities and social sciences, celebrating the former and disparaging the latter. In reality, what is needed is what some call STEAM—science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. As I have argued extensively elsewhere, the Fourth Industrial Revolution—a term that refers to the emergence of quantum computing, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, machine learning, data analytics, Big Data, robotics, biotechnology, nanotechnology and the convergence of the digital, biological and physical domains of life—makes it more imperative than ever to provide students with an integrated and holistic education that equips them with both essential employability skills and life-long learning skills.

The extraordinary changes in the nature and future of work, as well as living in a world that is increasingly digitalised and interconnected — processes that are being accelerated by COVID-19 — require the merging of hard skills and soft skills; training students in both the liberal arts and STEM; linking content knowledges and mindsets acquired in the classroom, campus (co-curricula activities), community (experiential learning), and in terms of career preparedness (work-based learning); offering an education that promotes interdisciplinary literacy, information literacy, intercultural literacy, international literacy, and inter-professional literacy; and providing teaching and learning using multiple platforms — face-to-face, online and blended.

We need to prepare our students for the next forty years of their lives, not the last forty of some of us. Their world will be characterised by extraordinarily complex and rapid changes, and by challenges and opportunities that are hard to predict. The best we can give these students, then, are the skills, competencies, literacies, and mindsets for flexibility, adaptability, versatility, and resilience. In short, the economies, societies, polities, and worlds of the twenty-first century will require lifelong and life-wide learning skills, which entails continuous reskilling and upskilling.

Education for lifelong learning has to transcend the narrow disciplinary silos many of us were trained in and to which we are so often passionately attached. Such an education must be inclusive, innovative, intersectional and interdisciplinary. That, I submit, is at the heart of science, technology, and innovation as a project and process for sustainable development.

Shortly after the contested November 3rd 2020 US elections, a video of Paula White, President Donald Trump’s spiritual advisor, making an impassioned prayer summoning African and Latin American angels to intercede for President Trump so that he would win the election caused quite a stir throughout Africa, generating not just hilarious memes but also significant debate on social media and in other forums about African evangelicals’ support for Trump. The video that was widely circulated on social media platforms came on the heels of media reports that a section of African evangelicals and Pentecostals and their leaders support Trump and have been holding prayer vigils for his re-election, ostensibly because Trump is viewed as a defender of their faith against the deep state.

The chairperson of the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya (EAK), Bishop Mark Kariuki, argued that Trump’s victory would be a victory for “good morals” and that Evangelical and Pentecostal churches in Kenya are “thinking about values”. He said that when former President Barrack Obama came to Kenya in 2016, “We told him not to bring his ‘democratic agenda’ in Kenya, an agenda that advocates for abortion and gay relationships. It is against this background that we are praying that the right person wins the USA election.”

It is not just Kenyan evangelicals who support Donald Trump. Similar trends are also evident in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Uganda and many other parts of the African continent where Evangelical and Pentecostal churches have been proliferating since the 1970s. Scholars, social commentators, the media and researchers are baffled by the evangelicals’ support for Trump regardless of his moral and ethical lapses, his divisive, bullish, combative, crude and brash character, his disrespect for women—especially women of colour—his hate for immigrants and Muslims and his inability to condemn white supremacists.

While many people cannot make sense of African Evangelical support for Trump, many scholars and social commentators have tried to rationalise and make sense of this phenomenon. Here I try to make sense of why African and Kenyan evangelicals and Pentecostals in particular, support a man so vile, a man who lacks empathy, compassion, morals, decorum, respect and human decency, values that are at the heart of African Christianity.

But first, let us understand why Trump aligns himself with American evangelicals, particularly white evangelicals. According to a 2019 Pew Research report, 81 per cent of white evangelicals and 62 per cent of white voters without a college degree voted for Trump. While not all American evangelicals support Trump, a significant majority of white evangelicals do.

In her best-selling and influential book, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals corrupted Faith and Fractured a Nation, Historian and Gender Professor Kristin Kobes Du Mez argues that President Donald Trump weaponised both Christianity and masculinities to win the support of American evangelicals. Trump projects himself as a strongman, a characteristic that has increasingly defined his presidency since 2016. His machismo, patriarchal ideals and aggressive brand of masculinity are interwoven not just with his politics but also with his relationship with white evangelicals who form a big part of his political base.

Trump—who has cozied up to world dictators, praising authoritarian leaders like Russia’s strongman and dictator Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—appears to have dictatorial tendencies. According to Professor Du Mez, Christian male evangelicals exude the same machismo and masculine strength that Trump projects. His combative style is also apparently evident in evangelical literature and popular culture, mainly books and films teeming with masculine heroes that shape evangelical beliefs about men and women for millions of evangelicals. This evangelical popular culture and literature is heavily promoted in Africa and elsewhere and also shapes African evangelical conceptualisations of manhood and masculinities.

The values at the heart of American evangelicalism today are authoritarianism, patriarchy, masculinity, aggressive foreign policy, the fear of Islam and immigrants, ambivalence towards the #metoomovemnt, opposition to Black Lives Matter and abortion and LGBTIQ issues. Trump has hijacked these issues and appropriated and weaponised evangelical Christianity and its symbols and language for his own political agenda, aligning himself with social and moral issues that are at the heart of American evangelicalism such as abortion, family values and other conservative agendas.

First, he has surrounded himself with a retinue of spiritual advisors led by Paula White, Jerry Falwell Jr. and others who prop up the legend of a God-fearing man who loves God and has the interest of their faith at heart. In September 2020, Trump tear-gassed his citizens so that he could pose for a photo op outside St John’s Episcopal Church in Washington DC in a way that weaponised the Bible in order to get the support of American evangelicals.

Evangelicals also believe Trump has their interests at heart because he has projected himself as the only protector of family and Christian values that are under serious threat from an increasingly liberal left. Similarly, he promised evangelicals protection and power, and brought them and their concerns to the centre of American public life.

African evangelicals align themselves with the American right because of their conservative positions around family issues including divorce, same-sex relationships, abortion and many others. There are many parallels between American evangelicals and African evangelicals and this may explain why African evangelicals support President Trump.

African masculine and patriarchal evangelical Christianity  

First, African big men of the booming evangelical movement promote a masculine, authoritative and patriarchal gospel similar to that of American evangelicalism. Many male African bishops, archbishops, pastors, evangelists and self-styled prophets exhibit machismo and a masculine strength and character that mirror Trump’s. At the same time, they are beholden to power, influence, and money. They see or desire to see themselves in Trump as well as in American evangelical leaders. African evangelicals also admire aggressive leaders and many are friends to African dictators. Kenyan evangelicals cozied up to the late President Daniel Arap Moi, providing his autocratic and corrupt KANU regime with legitimacy and justifying this with the tired argument that leaders are appointed by God.

Another reason why African evangelicals support Trump is a practical one. It is about money, power and religious influence. The American evangelical right supports humanitarian and non-humanitarian causes across the African continent, from healthcare to education, water and solar projects as well as agriculture and food security.

American evangelical televangelists are not only extremely popular in Africa but their literature and popular culture are also heavily consumed by the African evangelical marketplace. Their books, films, videos, church magazines and motivational books line the bookshelves of Africa’s leading Pentecostal and Charismatic clergy’s personal and office libraries, fill the shelves of Africa’s churches and church and secular bookshops, and are to be found displayed on the second-hand bookstands in the streets.

Their televised programmes are also popular in Africa’s television stations. American televangelists such as Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Jack Van Impe, Benny Hinn, John C. Maxwell, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, the late Morris Cerrulo, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar and many others are celebrities in Kenyan and African evangelical circles. In fact, Kenyans have their favourite American televangelists and many receive daily inspirational quotes and prayers from these televangelists. Leading African televangelists in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Ghana and many other African countries say they have been mentored by American televangelists.

American televangelists are regular guests in Africa, criss-crossing the continent to hold prayer rallies and crusades. African televangelists offer American televangelists platforms to speak in their churches while African evangelicals get invited to travel to North America on preaching holidays to raise funds for church projects. So there is a relationship that has been cultivated between American evangelical televangelists and their African counterparts. African evangelicals’ support for Trump can thus be understood as support for their brethren across the Atlantic, a kind of solidarity between brethren.

Prosperity Gospel and the money trail

But there is also the influence of the American prosperity gospel in Africa where leading African televangelists espouse the theology of wealth and health or the gospel of money. The gospel of prosperity—also variously and derogatorily referred to as the “health and wealth” gospel, “the faith gospel”, “the gospel of riches”, “the gospel of materialism and consumerism”,  the “gospel of selective abundance”, the “name it and claim it” gospel, the “blab it and grab it” gospel, “the gospel of ‘Panda Mbegu’” or gospel of “planting seeds” — is a direct importation from North America that has exploded in both popularity and prominence in the African continent in the last nearly three and a half decades. It has also  stirred up huge debates and created controversies globally. African evangelical televangelists have increasingly been influenced by American proponents of the prosperity gospel, creating bonds with their brethren in the US and mirroring each other.

But there is also the money trail. American evangelicals support a wide range of causes in Africa, including HIV/AIDs prevention strategies in scores of African nations including Kenya and Uganda and promoting the sexual purity and abstinence theology among many others. At the same time, the American evangelical right has poured in money to promote conservative positions with respect to women’s reproductive health rights including abortion and same-sex relationships.

During contestations over the promulgation of the new constitution, Kenyan Christian churches led by a group of powerful evangelical, Pentecostal and Catholic lobbies vehemently opposed the adoption of the 2010 constitution because they opposed clauses that they viewed as too liberal, in particular clauses concerning abortion and same-sex relationships.

During the Population Conference that took place in Nairobi in 2019, Christian churches held big demonstrations to oppose women’s reproductive health rights and during the debates on the reproductive health bill held in May 2020, Christian churches caused a stir when they opposed the passage of the bill, labelling it the “abortion bill”. Christian churches in Kenya were also instrumental in the closing of Marie Stopes clinics across the country because they claimed that they were abortion centres.

Christian churches and the clergy have also mobilised against same-sex relationships across the continent and especially in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. Christian opposition to these issues is linked to American dollars that have been poured in to fight liberal causes.

Thus American evangelicals have strongly influenced the rise of Africa’s evangelicals, not just in the public sphere but also in their quest to influence public policy with respect to hot-button issues like abortion, gay rights, gender rights and a wide array of liberties and rights. The sexual purity culture is also directly borrowed from the script of the American right and is often preached in evangelical churches.

The fear of liberalism and democratic ideals which are considered anti-family by religious conservatives is one of the other reasons African evangelicals support Trump. He is seen as a protector of family morality through not just his alignment with American evangelicals but also through his recent and contested appointment of conservative judges to the Supreme Court, especially that of Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

 Christian Zionism and eschatological concerns

Among the many other reasons why American and African evangelicals support President  Trump is because of his policies and support for Israel. When Trump moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem there were jubilant celebrations not just in the US but also across scores of African countries that have large evangelical Christian majorities. In announcing the move, Trump said he did it for evangelicals. In many parts of the world but especially in the USA and Africa, evangelicals have a special affinity to Israel.

Many Christians also view the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 as the fulfilment of biblical prophecy. The promise of the Holy Land is therefore intricately tied to evangelical beliefs. This sort of Christian Zionism has been emerging for a long time and is tied to the Christian belief that God’s promise of the land to the Jews is eternal.

American and African evangelical support for Israel can be seen in light of an emerging Christian Zionism inspired by theological concerns and is connected to Christian eschatological concerns rather than to the larger politics including the Palestinian question. Interestingly, African Christians who support Israel couldn’t care less about Palestinian struggles.

As one pastor said to me in an interview that, “I align myself with God’s special people and Nation. When I need my prayers answered, I pray for Israel. I tell my flock that when they pray for Israel, God answers their prayers.” The emergence of Christian Zionism can thus be understood through eschatological beliefs.

For many evangelical Christians, Jerusalem is the linchpin of their eschatological beliefs. Evangelical Christians, a majority of whom make a literal reading of the bible, believe that Jesus Christ will return to Jerusalem, specifically a Jerusalem controlled by the Jewish people. Israel is therefore intricately tied to evangelical Christians who see it as an important nation in Gods’ larger plan for Christians, especially born-again Christians. Beyond eschatological beliefs, evangelicals also believe that Jerusalem will be the scene of the final battle between good and evil. It is the place where God will finally obliterate his enemies and usher in the millennial reign of Christ.

Such Christian eschatological beliefs are tied to what is generally referred to as pre-millennial dispensationalist theology or end-time eschatological beliefs. The millennial in pre-millennialism, theologians argue, refers to Jesus Christ’s prophesied 1000-year reign of peace on earth. Christians believe that those who are born-again will be raptured to heaven at the end of time.

A majority of African Pentecostal and evangelical clergy are proponents of this pre-millennialism or end-time eschatological beliefs. Consequently, many align with Trump who is seen as a friend of Israel, Gods own “special people and nation”.

When Trump named Jerusalem the capital of Israel, he said that there was more enthusiasm and excitement amongst American evangelicals than there was in Israel itself. This is also true of Africa where there were significant celebrations in scores of African countries that view Israel as a nation with a special place in God’s end-time plans.

Besides, Israel is believed by many Christians to be home to many sacred sites including the Ark of the Covenant and many other sacred objects and artefacts. There is also the prevailing belief that God’s presence resided inside the temple built by King Solomon and later destroyed by the Babylonians. Evangelicals believe that God’s presence still resides in Israel which will play a critical role in Christian end-time beliefs.

Similarly, Christians believe that Jesus Christ was born, lived, walked, died and rose again in Jerusalem. The city of Jerusalem therefore conjures up memories of the history of Jesus Christ, a central figure in their personal lives and faith. Thus, for many evangelicals, Jerusalem is a special place and Israel is a holy land which is important in God’s larger eschatological plan.

The importance of Israel for many evangelical Christians as well as for other denominations has spawned a thriving religion-inspired tourism and pilgrimage to the Holy land. Every year, thousands of African Christian pilgrims travel to the Holy Land to renew their faith and walk where Jesus walked.

Patriarchy, misogyny and the weaponisation of masculinities

While Trump is viewed as an increasingly divisive and polarising figure the world over, he remains popular among evangelicals in Africa, especially in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda. Trump’s support is evident in countries with a significant evangelical and Pentecostal majority, which is pretty much most of sub-Saharan Africa where Pentecostal and evangelical Christianity has exploded since at least the 1970s, or earlier in some countries. Evangelical and Pentecostal churches dot much of the African landscape. According to a 2019 Pew Research poll, Trump has more support in Kenya and Nigeria where supporters appear unbothered that he referred to African countries as shithole countries in 2018.

Both Nigeria and Kenya are highly religious countries with large numbers of evangelicals. Pastor Chris, a prominent Nigerian televangelist, has argued that people are angry at Trump for supporting Christians. He argues that people who hate Trump hate Christians. Bishop Mark Kariuki in Kenya said that Kenyan evangelicals are praying for President Trump’s re-election because Kenyan evangelicals are thinking about values. A majority of Christian groups in Africa hold conservative views about marriage, abortion, gay rights and scores of other issues.

Trump is seen by African evangelicals as a promoter of family values unlike President Obama who has been pushing a liberal agenda in Africa, a move that drew significant anger and concern from evangelicals in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda in particular. When President Obama came to Kenya in 2016, he publicly but civilly clashed with President Uhuru Kenyatta over the issue of gay rights. Evangelicals had held demonstrations before Obama’s arrival telling him to keep off gay issues.

African and American evangelical support for Trump is not only baffling but it is also very paradoxical given that he is hardly a paragon of morality. Nigerian Pentecostal philosopher and theologian, Professor Nimi Wariboko of Boston University, argues that Pentecostals and evangelicals support Trump because they are doing God’s will and because of the prevailing theology amongst evangelicals that God uses sinners to accomplish his divine purpose. According to Wariboko, for many of these groups Trump is not just their hero but he is also a sort of a messianic figure who will not only lead his followers to Godly redemption, but is also uniquely placed to do this for them and for the whole of America.

Scholars like Wariboko have tried to make sense of this both philosophically and theologically, especially given that Trump does not by any means conjure up any messianic ideals yet he is largely viewed by his evangelical supporters as a sort of a messiah, one who will protect America from liberalism and socialism.

Evangelicals and suspicions about science

Trump denies science, climate change and a wide array of environmental issues. While many evangelicals are not necessarily averse to science, they are also not very enthusiastic about it. Many evangelicals are beholden to the miraculous, spawning an entire faith healing and miracle industry that is at odds with science. For many evangelical clergy, science, climate change and environmental issues are not top of their agenda. They would rather pray for healing for ailments such as cancer, COVID-19, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, asthma and many others. Belief in science and medicine could seriously threaten their booming faith healing miracle industry, rendering many jobless.

With the collapse of healthcare in Africa following the structural adjustment programmes of the 1970s and 80s, the religious industry boomed while faith healers moved into the public sphere, spawning a thriving faith healing ministry that has captured the imaginations of many African Christians leading to the emergence of thousands of faith healing charlatans that have led many people astray. Prophet David Owuor, a scientist-cum-faith healer, has claimed to heal cancers, hypertension, diabetes, HIV/AIDs and various other disabilities. Trump is admired by these types of clergy because he legitimises their trade and gives them the language to oppose science.

Support for dictators: Leaders are appointed by God

Another reason why African evangelicals support Trump is that he appears to admire dictators and has dictatorial tendencies. African evangelicals have a long tradition of not just supporting populist politicians but also providing tacit approval to Africa’s dictators. Kenyan evangelicals supported and provided legitimacy to the late President Daniel Arap Moi. In Nigeria, evangelicals aligned themselves with corrupt leaders who looted the country. Pentecostal clergy have also provided legitimacy to leaders in Zambia, Uganda and Tanzania.

There are also many similarities between Trump and African evangelical leaders many of whom are authoritarian and entertain no criticism from their members or from members of the public. While Trump fires his critics, some evangelical leaders threaten their critics with the famous dictum, “touch not my anointed”, a biblical verse that is often used to silence critics. Others threaten their critics with death and curses. Prophet Owuor has maintained a grip on his thousands of followers using the threat of curses and deaths from cancers and road accidents against anyone who speaks ill about him. This has led to vicious infighting within a ministry that is run by fear to stifle criticism.

At the same time, many African evangelical leaders lack both the theological and philosophical tools of analysis with which to engage the state unlike their Catholic and other mainstream church clergy who have theologically-grounded and philosophical tools of analysis to engage on social and political issues. Many African evangelical clergy frown upon theological education and go into ministry by simply calling themselves to the ministry and relying on the Holy Spirit to interpret the bible.

Islam and evangelicals

There is also the Muslim factor in the evangelicals’ support for Trump. There is enough evidence in his rhetoric against Muslims—many of whom he has banned from entering the US—that Trump hates Muslims and regards them as terrorists who hate America. Evangelicals are suspicious of Muslims and the increase in Islamophobia in Africa, America and elsewhere is directly related to the emergence of Christian nationalism.

In Africa, especially in countries with significant numbers of Muslims, increased islamophobia and emerging and simmering tensions between Christians and Muslim is blamed on the emergence of evangelicals and Pentecostals in public life. We saw this in Kenya during contestations over the Kadhi Courts during the constitution review process. This has also been documented in Nigeria and other countries. Evangelicals feel threatened by increasing numbers of Muslims and Trump’s rhetoric about Islam has emboldened African evangelicals who are suspicious of Islam. Terrorism has also complicated this relationship.

Trump is a tragic hero in African evangelicalism, where many still believe that even though polls show that he lost to Joe Biden, many are still praying for a miracle while evangelical prophets and prophetesses have cast this election between the forces of evil (democrats) and good (Trump and the evangelicals). African evangelicals have cast Trump as a less than perfect person who is being used by God to fulfil his will. In their way of understanding, God uses the weak to accomplish his purpose. Evangelicals have appropriated biblical characters such as Cyrus to save God’s people from their enemies. Trump is therefore seen as a modern day Cyrus who will lead God’s people to peace and prosperity.

Donald Trump will be remembered as one of the worst presidents in American history, a man who brutally and blithely exposed the failings and fragilities of American democracy, the enduring polarisations of its body politic, and the deformities of its institutions. Many commentators have bemoaned how the Trump presidency severely damaged American society and the United States’ global standing.

Trump’s transgressions are aptly captured by leading columnists in the New York Times in the series, “What Have We Lost”. They variously claim that Trump’s shocking election led to the loss of naivety as the country was dragged to the brink of ruin; America was robbed of its innocence and optimism as he extravagantly exposed some of its hideous history and attributes. The perpetual state of emergency impoverished the national imagination, culture, creativity, and thinking; his boorish behaviour smashed the decency floor of society; he emboldened moral cynicism that eroded the spirit of generosity as selfishness was normalised and turned into a national credo; his incendiary populist partisanship systematically undermined the social capital of trust, connectivity and community; his perpetual and pervasive outrage, lies, scandals, and incivility sapped national pride and discourse; his corrosive nationalism and belligerence dimmed America’s aura and standing in the world and accelerated the demise of Pax-Americana, he tarnished democracy,  emboldened autocracies and facilitated China’s great leap past America.

The roots of Trump’s loss lie in the incompatibility of his 2016 electoral promises of authoritarian nationalism and economic populism, and in the Republican Party’s fiercely anti-populist economic agenda by which he actually governed. So instead of enacting a popular infrastructure bill, he supported a massive tax cut that benefitted the rich. His trade war with China did not revive domestic manufacturing; instead it ravaged farmers, and did little to cut the trade deficit.

Trump inherited a growing economy from the Obama administration, which improved little under his tenure. The United States grew at an average annual rate of 2.5 per cent during Trump’s first three years, which is almost identical to the 2.4 per cent rate during President Barack Obama’s final 36 months. This made it difficult to distinguish the Trump economy from the Obama economy, notwithstanding Trump’s promises and boasts of his business prowess, which was fake, given his history of serial bankruptcies, staggering business incompetence, and tax avoidance, as revealed in a sensational expose by the New York Times in late September and early October. Not surprisingly, voters showed increasing faith in Joe Biden’s ability to rebuild a pandemic-ravaged economy.

Joe Biden. Photo. Flickr/ jlhervàs

As the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic surged across the country, the Republican Senate balked at passing a new stimulus bill that would have helped millions of people and bolstered Trump’s populist economic agenda. To the delight of Republicans, the Trump administration ended up redistributing “wealth upward even more aggressively than Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush did. But for Trump, the political consequences have been dire”

All too often, condemnation of the Trump presidency becomes a deflection when he is depicted as an aberration rather than an embodiment of the profound and long-standing disabilities and deficits of American society and democracy. The fact that about 40 per cent of the population consistently supported him throughout his presidency, and that he won 70 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, shows he represented a large swathe of American society and embraced their values of intolerance, bigotry, and racism.  But he also made more inroads than any Republican president among non-white voters, especially Hispanics and Black men gesturing to the appeal of his strutting conservative machismo.

In the New York Times series noted above, some acknowledge the ugly truths of the Trump phenomenon. Jamelle Bouie puts it well:

For many millions of Americans, the presidency of Donald Trump has been a kind of transgression, an endless assault on dignity, decency and decorum…But his transgressions are less a novel assault on American institutions than they are a stark recapitulation of past failure and catastrophe…What is terrible about Trump is also terrible about the United States. Everything we’ve seen in the last four years – the nativism, the racism, the corruption, the wanton exploitation of the weak and unconcealed contempt for the vulnerable – is as much a part of the American story as our highest ideals and aspirations. The line to Trump runs through the whole of American history…

But instead of generating a serious reckoning with the uncomfortable realities laid bare by the Trump presidency, another commentator laments that there “has been widespread retreat from revelation, let alone from any subsequent conversion, and a rush back to the comforts of one’s preconceptions and one’s tribe”. The right, the left, and centreof American politics responded to these revelations “sometimes with recognition and adaptation, but more often with denial”.

The backlash and the rise of the Democratic Party 

However, it is also true that the breadth and depth of Trump’s perverse omnipresence and invasion of the fractious nation’s political space and discourse shook Americans out of their complacency; it provoked a massive backlash among women, minorities, aggrieved independents and livid liberals who promised to revitalise American democracy.

In the vanguard of the democratic resistance were Black women, the unshakeable bedrock of the Democratic Party, and the conscience of the beleaguered nation. They marched and mobilised, volunteered and voted overwhelmingly for the Biden-Harris ticket to rescue the country that had oppressed, exploited and marginalised them for centuries.

The fact that about 40 per cent of the population consistently supported him throughout his presidency, and that he won 70 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, shows he represented a large swathe of American society and embraced their values of intolerance, bigotry, and racism.

Trump’s train wreck was brought to a halt by facts he failed to bend to his will, to banish to the fantasies of fake news, to denigrate and deny. He was mauled by the deadly facts of the coronavirus pandemic, the undeniable facts of economic collapse, the haunting facts of tens of millions of lives and livelihoods destroyed, the hideous facts of a country coming apart at the seams, and the humbling fact of a superpower surging towards decline in compressed time before the gaze of an incredulous world.

The election represented the repudiation of Trump by a majority of Americans who had never voted for him in the first place. He has lost to Biden by more than 4 million votes. However, the election of Trump in 2016 and the nail-biting finish in 2020 showed the inherent flaws of American democracy. The election also represented a resounding affirmation of the Biden-Harris ticket.

Six dynamics propelled Biden to victory. First, he captured the mood of the country by campaigning for the “soul of America”. He sold himself as the sober and decent pragmatist who would bring back civility and compromise, pursue national unity and public service, and rescue the country from the abyss of political partisanship, greed, corruption, and moral nihilism. He successfully made the election a referendum against Trump.

Second, like Obama before him, Biden’s was a crisis candidacy, forged in the burning inferno of the worst health and economic crisis in a century that the Trump presidency squandered through staggering ineptitude. Biden seized the moment as he exuded empathy and competence steeled by personal tragedy and a long political career. He said he believed in science, facts, collective action, and government capability and intervention as part of the solution to resolving crises and promoting national well-being. Unlike Hillary Clinton after her bruising 2016 campaign, he managed to unite the party behind him, including the restive left. He also revived the Obama coalition.

Third, he chose an inspiring running mate – Senator Kamala Harris. As a Black and Asian woman, Harris carried the historical weight of struggles against racism and white supremacy and women’s marginalisation in a charged moment of unprecedented national and global protests under the banner of the Black Lives Matter Movement following the murder of George Floyd. Trump’s misogyny had also revitalised the American women’s movement. As a daughter of immigrant parents from India and Jamaica, Harris recreated Obama’s multiracial and migrant appeal and attracted the new African and Asian diasporas at a time of draconian anti-immigration rhetoric and policies.

Kamala Harris. Photo. Flickr/Gage Skidmore

As a graduate of Howard University, she affirmed the intellectual prowess and transformative power of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and mobilised the Black middle class produced by HBCUs. The stature of her sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, soared “and people began to understand precisely what a Black sisterhood is – the strength and support of those bonds. These women, 300,000 strong, organised for the Biden-Harris ticket. And their wondrous blend of accomplishment and poise was writ large”.

Harris has become the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first woman of colour to ascend to the second highest political office in the United States – a monumental achievement that has electrified women across the country and around the world.

Fourth, Biden’s campaign skillfully reinstated the blue wall around the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and looked poised to flip the red and rapidly diversifying states of Arizona and Georgia. He was saved by the cities without alienating the suburbs by his reassuring balancing appeals to the anxieties and aspirations of African Americans and other minorities, as well as white workers and white women, who gravitated towards him in larger numbers than they did towards Hillary Clinton. Particularly challenging was how to address issues of police brutality, law and order, and racial equality and justice.

Fifth, Democrats have progressively won the battle of ideas, so that ideas espoused by the Democratic Party platform in 2020, which would have seemed radical when Barack Obama ran for office, suddenly appeared moderate. Over the last century, four major ideological battles have been fought in American politics and society: on the role of the state and the market; social mores and policy; racial equality and justice; and America’s international relations with its allies, rivals and developing countries.

Following the demise of Keynesian economics and the rise of neoliberalism in the 1980s, Republicans unapologetically favoured small government and free markets, while Democrats stuck to their preference for larger government and regulated markets. To quote David Brooks, “That debate ebbed and flowed over the years, but 2020 has turned out to be a pivotal year in the struggle, and it looks now as if we can declare a winner. The Democrats won the big argument of the 20th century. It’s not that everybody has become a Democrat, but even many Republicans are now embracing basic Democratic assumptions. Americans across the board fear economic and physical insecurity more than an overweening state. The era of big government is here.”

Harris has become the first woman, the first Black woman, and the first woman of colour to ascend to the second highest political office in the United States – a monumental achievement that has electrified women across the country and around the world.

If the Great Recession dented the neoliberal hegemony of limited government and unfettered markets, COVID-19 has buried it. To quote Brooks again, “Covid-19 has pushed voters to the left. It’s made Americans feel vulnerable and more likely to support government efforts to reduce that vulnerability…This greater support for social safety net programs transcends political ideology.”

About 60 per cent of Americans now believe that the government should do more to solve national problems, and two-thirds believe that it should fight the effects of climate change.

American society has also been moving to the left on contentious social policies, such as gender equality, abortion, and sexuality. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2020, 57 per cent of adult Americans say that the US hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving women equal rights with men; the figure is 64 per cent among women and 49 per cent among men, and 76 per cent among Democrats compared to 33 per cent among Republicans. Seventy-seven per cent say that sexual harassment is a major obstacle to gender equality. 

On abortion, the majority of Americans (61 per cent) continue to support legal abortion and 70 per cent oppose overturning Roe vs. Wade. Sixty-one per cent support same sex marriage while 31 per cent oppose it – the reverse of attitudes in 2004 when 60 per cent were opposed and 31 per cent were in favour. There are, of course, variations by political party, religious affiliation, and demographic group.

As for foreign policy, 73 per cent say that good diplomacy is the best way to ensure peace, while 26 per cent say that military strength is the best way to do this. By a similar margin, more Americans say the US should take the interests of its allies into account, even if it means making compromises, than those who think the US should follow its own national interests when allies disagree (68 per cent vs. 31 per cent). Democrats and Independents score highest, at 90 per cent and 83 per cent, respectively, on the two questions, while Republicans are more evenly split, with 53 per cent and 51 per cent, respectively. Those under the age of 50 are more likely to favour diplomacy and compromise with allies.

On the US’s involvement in the global economy, 73 per cent say it is a good thing, an opinion that is highest among those with a college education (86 per cent) and lowest (64 per cent) among those with a high school education or less.

Clearly, notwithstanding the loud fulminations of America’s right wing that was inflated by the Trump presidency, the United States of 2020 is more liberal than the United States of 2016, or 2000, let alone the United States of 1950 when conservatives sought to restore in their plaintive cry, “Make America Great Again”.

Progressives need to deconstruct the narrative that sees the United States as a naturally conservative country whose authentic overlords are Republicans and in which Democrats come to power only as periodic interlopers. This often leads Republicans playing hardball and Democrats playing softball; the former are always ready for combat and the latter for compromise.

Sixth, America is becoming more diverse and is destined to become a majority-minority nation in the mid-2040s. The demographic shifts are evident even in the electorate in 2016 and 2020. Demography is of course not destiny. The country changes, and so do political parties. At one time African Americans largely voted Republican, the party of Lincoln, then drifted to the Democrats, the party of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that propelled the Republicans to adopt their Southern Strategy of racist appeals to white voters.

However, trends point to what Fessenden and Gamio call “the relentless shrinking of Trump’s base”.  From 1976 to 2018, white voters without college degrees declined from 71 per cent to 39 per cent, while white voters with college degrees doubled from 17 per cent to 34 per cent, and minority voters more than doubled from 11 per cent to 27 per cent. The shifts in age are no less telling. Between 2016 and 2020, voters among the silent and older generations fell from 30 per cent to 9 per cent, baby boomers from 38 per cent to 29 per cent, Gen X from 26 per cent to 23 per cent, while millennials increased from 6 per cent to 25 per cent, and Gen Z from 0 per cent to 13 per cent.

Young people campaigning for the Biden-Harris ticket. Photo. Flickr/ Geoff Livingston

Notwithstanding the cultural and demographic advantages enjoyed by the Democrats, predictions of a blue wave failed to materialise. In the immediate aftermath of the elections, panic and cheeriness gripped both the Democrats and the Republicans as Trump bagged Florida and Texas, took an early lead in the polls in the battleground states, and Republicans held on to Senate races that had been expected to flip and won House seats from Democrats. Some feared or hoped for a repeat of 2016, and questioned the accuracy of the polls that had shown Biden and Democrats in a commanding lead. But as an editorial in the Washington Post reminded its readers, “Surprise! The election is unfolding as predicted.” As the vote counting continued from hours to days, and Biden’s prospects brightened, the narrative and expectations shifted.

The dysfunctions of American democracy  

Americans are used to getting their projected election results instantly on election night. I teased my African American wife to exercise patience as is common in African and many other countries where election results are often announced several days, even weeks, after the elections. The apparent slowness in declaring the winner of the US presidential election revealed a lot more than American impatience; it reflected the enduring dysfunctions of American democracy. As a member of the new African diaspora in the United States, and a student of international political economy and comparative politics, I have always been struck by the following four structural deficits of the American democratic system.

First, the electoral college is an instrument of minority rule that has primarily benefitted Republicans over the last twenty years, first, George W. Bush in 2000 in which Al Gore won the popular vote by 500,000 while losing Florida’s electoral college by 537 votes, and second, Donald Trump in 2016 who lost to Hillary Clinton by nearly 3 million votes but clinched the electoral college by a whisker in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Altogether, in American history, five presidents – three in the 19th century (John Quincy Adams in 1824, Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876, and Benjamin Harrison in 1888) – won the presidency while losing the popular vote.

Over the past 30 years, only once, in 2004, did a Republican president win the popular vote, but they have been elected three times. Republican minority rule by the presidency and Senate are baked into the system. The US Senate “gives disproportionate power to older, whiter, more rural and more conservative interests”. Right now, states representing just 17 per cent of the nation’s population could elect a majority of senators. By 2040, the 15 most populous states will be home to 67 per cent of Americans yet will be represented by just 30 per centof the Senate. Add up the actual votes received in the winning election of every sitting US senator, and you will see that Republicans haven’t won a senate majority since the mid-1990s. Yet they’ve controlled the Senate for 10 of the last 20 years, and used that advantage to shape the ideological balance on the federal courts.

The electoral college system, writes Bob Carr in the Guardian, represents an unenviable form of American exceptionalism. “It confirms the proposition that the US is simply not a democracy, not in the sense Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada are democracies.” If America’s systematic voter suppression and rigged elections “were practised against, say, Caribbean or Asian communities in the UK or Sicilians in Italy or Māori in New Zealand, its peculiarity would be a subject of domestic scandal and international embarrassment. The American electoral system is a shambles defying democratic norms.”

Second, American democracy is haunted by the spectre of voter suppression, which goes back to the nation’s founding. In the US constitution, enslaved Africans were not only deemed three-fifths of a human being, they could not vote, nor could women of any race. After the right to vote was extended in the Fifteenth Amendment that enfranchised all men (but not women), culminating in the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, new voter suppression strategies were devised, which were especially targeted at African Americans.

During Jim Crow, poll taxes and literacy tests were used to disenfranchise African Americans in the South. In the post-Civil Rights era, voter suppression encompassed the disenfranchisement of ex-felons in some states, the purging of voter rolls, the placing of limitations on early and absentee voting, disinformation, and the imposition of discriminatory voting identification requirements. Trump’s angry denunciations against absentee voting is rooted in the tattered undemocratic playbook of voter suppression.

Voter suppression makes a mockery of America’s self-image as the world’s leading democracy. Sam Levin laments:

To understand how voter suppression is shaping the 2020 election, just look at Texas. While many states do not require voters to have a reason to vote by mail, Texas only allows voters to do so if they are 65 or older or meet other conditions. The state does not allow people to register to vote online. Even with a flood of Covid cases, Texas has successfully fought tooth and nail in federal and state courts to uphold those restrictions. Last month, Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, a Republican, abruptly issued an order that limited each county in the state to offer one ballot drop box. The move meant that Democratic-friendly Harris county, which covers more than 1,700 square miles and is home to 2.4 million registered voters, could only offer one place for voters to return their ballots. The state of Rhode Island, which is smaller than Harris county, will have more drop-off locations this year…The battle playing across America is in some ways a continuation of a centuries-long fight over access to the franchise.

Third, the establishment of electoral boundaries and constituencies through gerrymandering is deployed as a powerful weapon to dilute the voting power of an opposition party and concentrate that of the ruling party in a district. In America’s first-past-the-post electoral system, gerrymandering has been used by the two main political parties to reduce competition by maximising the voting power of supporters and minimising that of opponents often segmented on the basis of race, class, religion, or ideology.

In effect, in the absence of a neutral or cross-party agency, the party in power draws the electoral boundaries and chooses its voters. It does so by spreading groups of known or likely opposition voters among several districts or concentrates them in one district to dilute their votes across the state – what political scientists call the wasted vote effect. Gerrymandering is designed to bolster the electoral prospects of incumbents and undermines descriptive or proportional representation.

American democracy is haunted by the spectre of voter suppression, which goes back to the nation’s founding. In the US constitution, enslaved Africans were not only deemed three-fifths of a human being, they could not vote, nor could women of any race.

Fourth, the American judicial system is highly politicised. At the federal level, the president makes judicial appointments, which are reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee before a vote is taken by the Senate. Presidents nominate individuals who fit and are likely to promote their party’s ideology and interests, while the balance of power in the Senate among the two parties often determines who is appointed. Fights over the appointment of Supreme Court justices are fierce because of the court’s extensive powers of judicial review. In 2000, the electoral contest between Bush and Gore was decided by the Supreme Court.

Trump hopes that the Supreme Court will also save him, especially now that it is packed with three of his appointees, and conservatives enjoy a 6-3 advantage. The last appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, was nominated by Trump on September 26, 2020, six days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a revered liberal icon, and confirmed by the Republican-dominated Senate of October 26. The same Republicans suddenly forgot their injunction against considering a nominee in a president’s last year that was directed at President Obama who sought to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died eight months before the 2016 elections, with Merrick Garland.

No resounding rejection of Trumpism 

The renowned economist, Paul Krugman wonders, “Is America becoming a failed state?” His answer is not reassuring. Even with a Biden victory, “it seems likely that the Senate — which is wildly unrepresentative of the American people — will remain in the hands of an extremist party that will sabotage Biden in every way it can…Every state, of course, has two senators — which means that Wyoming’s 579,000 residents have as much weight as California’s 39 million…An analysis by the website FiveThirtyEight.com found that the Senate in effect represents an electorate almost seven percentage points more Republican than the average voter”.

Larry Diamond, a theorist of democracy, warns in Foreign Affairs that “a new administration won’t heal American democracy” because the “rot in U.S. political institutions runs deeper than Trump”. He argues:

The broad signs of political decay are familiar – and alarming – to comparative scholars of democracy: the growing polarization, distrust, and intolerance among supporters of the main opposing parties; the increasing tendency to view partisan attachments as a kind of tribal identity; the intertwining of partisan affiliations with racial, ethnic, or religious identities; and the inability to forge political compromises across partisan divides – and hence to mount effective policy responses to national issues.

Baskar Sunkara concludes ruefully:

America is a failing state…In 2020, America has shown itself to be exceptional in the worst possible ways…Winning mass support for a program of Medicare for All, green jobs, affordable housing, and more seems within reach. But the left must find a way to not just popularize our goals, but secure the means – institutional reform – to achieve them… But we can’t just stop at the abolition of the electoral college and the Senate filibuster, or even full Congressional representation for Washington DC residents. We must more fundamentally fight to transform the pre-modern political system that we’ve grafted on to our modern economy and society. For progressives, that’s a battle far more daunting than just getting Trump out of the White House – but it’s just as necessary.

Trump will, of course, do everything to subvert the will of the people, including inciting his tens of millions of supporters. As one columnist in the Washington Post put it, there was no “resounding rejection of Trump and Trumpism”  Even with Trump evicted from the White House, “Trumpism will not have been swept into the dustbin of history; it will remain all over the furniture. It’s part of the furniture. Unsweepable.” Another commentator in The Atlantic reminds us, “A large portion of the electorate chose the sociopath. America will have to contend with that fact.”

Zeynep Tufecki warns that compared to Trump, who was ineffective and easily beaten because of his incompetence, “America’s next authoritarian will be much more competent”, like the current politically talented autocratic populists of India, Brazil, Russia, Hungary, Poland, Turkey and elsewhere who have mastered winning elections.

Donald J. Trump. Photo. Flickr/Gage Skidmore

Trumpism – a reincarnation of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy that has been reconfigured to incorporate digitalised angry populism and the laager of white supremacy and racial capitalism – is likely to survive and to cast a shadow over the Biden presidency.

Others are more hopeful that American democracy has survived “its brush with death”. Nell Irvin Painter, the distinguished African American scholar, concedes that the election shouldn’t have been this close, but she sees hope “in the long lines of voters”, and in the indelible images of “Americans in 2020 re-enacting the South African voters of 1994” as they voted the ghost of apartheid into the dustbin of history.

Jonathan Freedland sadly notes:

It’s a form of progressive masochism to search for the defeat contained in a victory… Yes, in a high-turnout election, Trump got more votes than he did in 2016 – but Biden got more votes than any presidential candidate in history, more even than the once-in-a-generation phenomenon that was Barack Obama. What’s more, Biden looks to have done something extremely difficult and vanishingly rare, taking on and defeating a first-term president. That would ensure that Donald Trump becomes only the third elected president since Herbert Hoover in 1932 to try and fail to win re-election. Trump would take his place alongside Jimmy Carter and George Bush the elder in the small club of rejected, one-term presidents.

America’s return to the world

Joe Biden’s victory has been greeted with great relief by many democracies around the world, and with some consternation by authoritarian populists and autocratic rivals who reveled in America’s democratic recession and descent under Trump. “U.S. allies stressed the need to rebuild ties and multilateral cooperation after President Trump’s ‘America First’ approach upended decades of U.S. foreign policy. For traditional allies who endured sharp criticism, unpredictable behavior and new tariffs under Trump, the election of Biden offered a return to normalcy.”

In the global environmental movement and the health sector, many anticipate the quick return of the US to the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organization to combat COVID-19 and other long-standing and future global health threats. Multilateralism seems poised to enjoy a new burst of diplomatic energy. But the hegemonic rivalry between China and the United States is fated to continue, and the decline of the American model is unlikely to be reversed. The Trump saga and his expulsion from power has exposed both the fragility and resilience of American institutions. In that sense, it has made the United States ordinary.

Trumpism – a reincarnation of the Republican Party’s Southern Strategy that has been reconfigured to incorporate digitalised angry populism and the laager of white supremacy and racial capitalism – is likely to survive and to cast a shadow over the Biden presidency.

For Africa, the US can be expected to return to its traditional diplomatic preoccupations of economic development, human rights, anti-terrorism, and competition with China. But the Biden administration will encounter a different continent from that of the Obama years – one that has lived without serious engagement with the departing Trump administration and demands more respect, a continent whose economies have been ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic and require productive and transformative relationships.

For me personally, it has been fascinating to watch the elections in the two countries whose citizenship I carry: Malawi and the United States. Earlier this year, the Malawi Supreme Court annulled the presidential election of May 2019 because of irregularities by the Malawi Electoral Commission. The opposition proceeded to win the election re-run in June. What I have learned from the two elections is that the notion that American democracy is more mature than that of an African country like Malawi is false.

The Malawian Supreme Court exercised judicial independence that is unlikely to come from the highly politicised US Supreme Court. Moreover, the losing ruling party demonstrated maturity that has not been demonstrated by the infantile, irascible and entitled Trump administration and his unprincipled Republican sycophants. This underscores a sobering and empowering fact: democracy is not a monopoly of developed countries; it is always a work in progress that needs to be jealously guarded.