Anchoring democracy in indigenous African Institutions

Scholars have suggested the importance of integrating African democratization process with grassroots institutions for long-term consolidation. However, the major problem remained the inadequacy of secularism in disentangling the religious from the non-religious intertwined in indigenous African institutions. This essay reconsiders the Burckhardtian notion of secularism for a recalibrated definition that embraces a trajectory of transposed values. Debunking the Burckhardtian notion opens up an analytic terrain relegated to the religious. Thus indigenous African religions are re-conceptualized as civic religions to shed light on their public aspects. (...)