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Long on the periphery of both academic research and international attention, the countries of the West African Sahel currently find themselves at the center of global concerns over security, terrorism, migration, and conflict. Since the early 1990s the Sahelian states have also been engaged in political struggles over the construction of democratic institutions. Edited by Leonardo A. Villalón and Abdourahmane Idrissa, Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform, and State Resilience in the African Sahel addresses a key and little-studied question: How have the politics of democratization across the Francophone Sahel shaped processes of state-building, and with what effects on the resilience of state institutions? Starting from the premise that variation in the politics of institution building and institutional reform-although most frequently justified and debated in terms of democratization-have differing impact on the construction of resilient states , this book examines these processes in six francophone states of the Sahel: Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Chad. The contributors represent a set of distinguished scholars from across the region, many of whom have also been important actors in the struggles they analyze.
List of contents
1: The Politics of Democratization and State Building in the Sahel
Leonardo A. Villalón
2: Controlled Democratization, Institutional Reforms, and Political (In)Stability in Mauritania
Zekeria Ould Ahmed Salem
3: Constitutional Revisions, Democracy, and the State in Senegal
Ismaïla Madior Fall
4: Stress-testing Democratic Reforms in Mali: The Political Elite and the Breakdown of the State
Moumouni Soumano
5: Democratic Struggle and State Building in Burkina Faso: Between Manipulation and Resilience of Institutions
Augustin Loada
6: The Nigerien Paradox: Institutional Consolidation through Political Instability
Mahaman Tidjani Alou
7: Reforming for Stability or Reforming the Instability? Legacies of War, Democratic Struggle, and Institutional Change in Chad.
Lucien Toulou
8: The Dialectics of Democratization and Stability in the Sahel
Rahmane Idrissa
About the author
Leonardo A. Villalón is professor of African politics at the University of Florida.
Rahmane Idrissa is senior researcher in the African Studies Centre at the University of Leiden.
