Another fascinating essay. I'll include this in our next roundup. I have a question for you, and forgive me if you've discussed this elsewhere; if so, I've just overlooked it. How has Senegal so *completely* escaped the coup trap? Not one coup, not ever--just one peaceful, stable transition of power after another. (I know the Wade government claimed it had thwarted a coup in 2011, but it sounds to me as if they thwarted a violent protest more than a proper coup.) I was so impressed by the way Macky Sall so suavely took the wind out of Sonko's sails. Mind, my knowledge of Senegal consists entirely of having spent a week in Dakar visiting my family. But to my amateur eye, it looked to me then as if that was poised to become quite the hairy situation. Then, suddenly, Senegalese exceptionalism struck again. Where does that come from, that political maturity? All of the explanations offered to account for Sahelian instability are also true of Senegal: Same colonial history; a protracted conflict in Casamance; the CFA and the challenges it implies for developing a robust export economy; a multi-ethnic society (and a multi-ethnic military ... ). The trend--in Africa, Europe, and the Americas alike--is now so grim for mature politics and electoral democracy that the Senegal exception seems even more remarkable. I'd like to understand it better. If you've not written about it, perhaps you could recommend someone who has?
Great piece. I think this the premiere example of where the agency of people involved in coups--and in counter-coup politics--shows up as being important, and a source of contingent (in this case, better) outcomes than the usual cycle of hapless civilians or unresponsive authoritarians taking power after militaries relent, then militaries stepping in and becoming just as hapless, then relenting and letting civilians take power. Rawlings let himself be led towards a real project of building institutions, his opponents participated in that project, and for once global institutions didn't just yammer about multiparty democracy as if the mere fact of an election creates a democratic system once and for all. It's not that Ghana was somehow deterministically bound to escape the trap: key actors had to decide they wanted to and then had to recognize what that required.
Another fascinating essay. I'll include this in our next roundup. I have a question for you, and forgive me if you've discussed this elsewhere; if so, I've just overlooked it. How has Senegal so *completely* escaped the coup trap? Not one coup, not ever--just one peaceful, stable transition of power after another. (I know the Wade government claimed it had thwarted a coup in 2011, but it sounds to me as if they thwarted a violent protest more than a proper coup.) I was so impressed by the way Macky Sall so suavely took the wind out of Sonko's sails. Mind, my knowledge of Senegal consists entirely of having spent a week in Dakar visiting my family. But to my amateur eye, it looked to me then as if that was poised to become quite the hairy situation. Then, suddenly, Senegalese exceptionalism struck again. Where does that come from, that political maturity? All of the explanations offered to account for Sahelian instability are also true of Senegal: Same colonial history; a protracted conflict in Casamance; the CFA and the challenges it implies for developing a robust export economy; a multi-ethnic society (and a multi-ethnic military ... ). The trend--in Africa, Europe, and the Americas alike--is now so grim for mature politics and electoral democracy that the Senegal exception seems even more remarkable. I'd like to understand it better. If you've not written about it, perhaps you could recommend someone who has?
Great piece. I think this the premiere example of where the agency of people involved in coups--and in counter-coup politics--shows up as being important, and a source of contingent (in this case, better) outcomes than the usual cycle of hapless civilians or unresponsive authoritarians taking power after militaries relent, then militaries stepping in and becoming just as hapless, then relenting and letting civilians take power. Rawlings let himself be led towards a real project of building institutions, his opponents participated in that project, and for once global institutions didn't just yammer about multiparty democracy as if the mere fact of an election creates a democratic system once and for all. It's not that Ghana was somehow deterministically bound to escape the trap: key actors had to decide they wanted to and then had to recognize what that required.
Very well researched. My family is Ashanti and my entire family hated his regime with immense passion. It's good to hear an outsider's perspective.