POLITICAL REFORM, SOCIO-RELIGIOUSCHANGE, AND STABILITY IN THE AFRICAN SAHEL

Leonardo A. VillalónCenter for African Studies & Department of Political Science

University of Florida

2013 Minerva meeting and program reviewWashington DC, 11-12 September 2013

Research Project Overview

Empirical focus: Six countries of significant current interest, butstriking lack of expertise available

Core Question: Prospects for stability over longer term?

Methodological approach: • country level “whole systems” comparative methods• probabilistic and empirically grounded approach• seek to make informed arguments about likely

scenarios

Major goals: to provide better understanding of contemporary socio-political dynamics and to establish ongoing university-based program of research and study on this region.

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

THE FRANCOPHONE SAHELSENEGAL, MAURITANIA, MALI, BURKINA FASO, NIGER, CHAD

Sahelian regional characteristics

“Francophone” : former French colonies: AOF and AEF, independence 1960

Major zone of Muslim influence in Africa: religious demographics:

Senegal, Mali, Niger: approx. 95% MuslimMauritania: 100%Chad, Burkina Faso: ~60+%

Extreme governance challenges: Poverty and underdevelopment

UNDP 2013 Human Development Index ranking, of 186 countries:

Niger: 186Chad: 184Burkina Faso: 183Mali: 182Mauritania: 155Senegal: 154

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Muslim Africa

Sahelian regional characteristics, cont.

Experimentation with democracy: Intense politics of institutional change since early

1990s;Varied trajectories, but widespread liberalization

Social flux and mobilization:YouthRapid urbanizationCivil societyReligious change and transnationalism

External pressures: Separatist movementsAQIM “Arab spring”/Libya collapse

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Implications for the issue of: “Insurgencies and Ungoverned Spaces in West

Africa”

Key question for our discussion today: How and why do spaces become “ungoverned” or less than fully governed?

Policy and security implications:In contexts of societies historically resistant to radical or extremist movements, such movements can only gain a foothold in contexts of state failure to govern.

Focus:State-level political factors affecting institutionalization and hence stability

Goal:No claim to elaborate a general theory of state collapse, but rather:

1. to try to identify specific points of vulnerability in this region, and

2. to explain how and why these points of vulnerability emerge.

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

The limited utility of tracking progress on democracy:

Initial grouping of Sahelian countries: three patterns 1991-2011:

Democratic (Mali and Senegal)Unstable democratization efforts (Niger and Mauritania)Electoral Authoritarian regimes (Burkina Faso and Chad)

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Tracking democratic progress in the Sahel: Freedom House

Implications for the issue of: “Insurgencies and Ungoverned Spaces in West Africa”

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Tracking democratic progress in the Sahel: Polity IV

The Malian collapse and crisis of 2012

• Developments in Mali underline central importance of original questions: state instability and weakness in Mali at heart of current crisis.

• Now clear that Malian state—whatever its degree of “democracy” was distinctly not capable or resilient. Beyond following complex and rapidly unfolding situation, we need to develop deeper understanding of what happened in that case.

• Moreover: Malian crisis and spillover dynamics on other countries is new and crucial part of the equation for understanding prospects for stability in other states: creates significant new pressures.

 

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Mali

The self-declared Azawad state

Research Question

Core question:

Are the states of the Muslim Sahel likely to be able to maintain stable and capable political systems in the context of significant socio-religious change and mobilization, and facing strong external challenges?

More specifically:

To what extent are the Sahelian countries developing political institutions able to capture and channel the new socio-religious dynamics that have largely resulted from the processes of liberalization since the early 1990s, so as to develop capable and resilient states likely to maintain stability?

Leads to set of specific research questions about institutions and about social change:

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Analytic framework

Focus on interactive and reciprocal effects of processes of political and institutional reform on social change

Early 1990s and pressures for change in name of “democracy”

Relatively limited democracy results, but everywhere liberalization: as a consequence reduced state control over societal forces.

Explosion of associational life and politicization of social groups: both “interest” and “identity” based groups. Includes: “democratization” of religious sphere: significant internal debate & change

Political institutions incomplete/unsettled: debates shaped by new actors, and themselves give rise to social change and emergence of other new actors

Cumulative effect of “micro-transitions” which “reshape contours of state power and the emergence of new actors and arenas of contestation” (Lust and Ndegwa)

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Preliminary findings:

Trajectories of democracy and state institutionalization

Sahelian countries, 1991-2011

Getting at variation:

Variations in degree of institutionalization/state resilience are multidimensional: vary by sectors/domains

These can be relatively independent of each other: need to disaggregate to identify specific points of strength/weaknesses

Two caveats:

1. All countries of region are vulnerable; we may be splitting hairs! (But: important hairs; variations have real consequences for likely outcomes)

2. Contingent events (e.g. coups) rarely foreseeableBut: We can reach conclusions about likely aftermath/consequences of such events

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Examples from preliminary work:

• Judicial institutions and electoral politics in Niger vs. Mauritania • Civil-military relations in Chad and Burkina Faso • Civil society, religious movements and elections in Senegal and Mali

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

Current research team efforts at developing framework for studying variation:

Developing fieldwork protocol to include:

• What are crucial domains of institutionalization to consider comparatively?• What are likely dimensions of variation within those institutional domains?• Hypotheses: what processes or causal mechanisms explain variations?

Fieldwork: In each pair of countries team will research: For each given domain of institutionalization identified, what variation in fact exists between the two countries? And why? How to explain these variations? What factors, processes, mechanisms, seem to have led to each country’s specific configuration?

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel

The West African region

Thank you

Questions and comments?

Politics and Stability in the African Sahel