Abstract
Ideas and processes remain inextricably linked in Africa's tryst with its political development. The cumulative complexity of the politico-security milieu is paralleled by self-corrective trends such as inclination for institutionalized domestic power transition, panel of the wise practice and, above all, effective regional mediation in Africa. The popular aspiration of a ‘substantively free and self-sustained’ Africa can be discerned in the profound ideas of many thinkers who carry meaningful locational connectivity with the continent and also have intense functional interface with the world external to it. Interface between ideas and practices in African political space offers lessons for India and other post-colonial societies for assessing the agenda of the extra-regional actors while being open to ideas coming from new quarters, looking for regional and indigenous solutions to problems concerning stateand nation-building exercises, and prioritizing their foreign policy approaches towards interest of the Global South.
Keywords: Pan-Africanism, African Liberalism, Sovereignty as Responsibility, Political Development
