Democracy in Senegal: Tocquevillian Analytics in Africa (review)

In Democracy in Senegal, Sheldon Gellar proposes what he calls "Tocquevillian analytics" as an alternative methodology to the predominantly ahistorical and state-centered approach used by many scholars studying democratization processes in Africa today. An expert on Senegal, Gellar was intrigued by the extent to which de Tocqueville's ideas about freedom of association and the art of association as bulwarks against tyranny applied to Francophone Africa in general and to Senegal in particular. Gellar particularly appreciates the pertinence of Tocqueville's analysis of the role of laws, religion, language, culture, and mores in the transition from aristocratic to democratic societies.

The inquiry begins with some key questions. If Africa is part of the modern democratic revolution that began with the American and French Revolutions, then why has democracy had such a problem taking hold in Africa? What are the prospects for democracy? How should one study democracy in Africa? In marked contrast to the ideas of contemporary political scientists (such as Samuel Huntington), Gellar argues that Tocquevillian analytics, with emphasis on liberty, equality, popular sovereignty, and self-governance, provides a powerful and comprehensive tool for analyzing the process of democratization—and the failure of the nation-state model—in Africa.

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville identifies mores (habits of the heart and mind), laws (institutional arrangements), and environmental factors (geography and climate) as the three main factors shaping American democracy. Gellar applies these concepts to the study of democracy in Africa and in Senegal, arguing that precolonial history, political institutions, and social structures still affect African attitudes toward government, other ethnic groups and communities, and institutional arrangements in the postcolonial era. He notes that precolonial constitutional norms, recognizing representatives of different groups in society, frequently no longer functioned after independence: "At independence, the leaders inherited colonial state structures and adopted liberal Western constitutions based on European models with little consultation with the people. One-party states, military regimes, and personal dictatorships violated the political and civil rights guaranteed by their country's constitution and gave their people little say in making the laws and rules governing their lives" (8).

Herein, argues Gellar, lies the main explanation for the dysfunction of democracy in Africa today. Much as Basil Davidson does in The Black Man's Burden (James Currey, 1992), Gellar identifies the design of the African nation-state itself as the principal cause of such dysfunction. Gellar concludes that because colonialism imposed a highly centralized and autocratic state on the African peoples under its jurisdiction, and because the boundaries drawn up by the colonizer became the framework for the new African nation-states at independence, "the legacy of the nation-state has been one of the major obstacles to building viable democratic societies in post-colonial Africa" (172). Based on popular sovereignty and emphasizing popular and participatory democracy, this Tocquevillian concept of "democracy" is analytically more accurate (and morally more defensible) than the more formal "electoral democracy," with its emphasis on universal suffrage, periodic "free and fair" elections, and multiparty competition. "Tocquevillian analytics" also introduces a welcome multidisciplinary perspective—combining history, law, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, and political science—and reintroduces a neglected cultural dimension to the study of African politics. The historical perspective leads the author to demonstrate the existence of numerous vibrant, community-based associations based on indigenous culture—such as the Fédération des Organisations Non-Gouvernementales set up in 1978 and regrouping twenty-three peasant associations with one hundred thousand members in 850 villages. And Gellar's focus on the collapse of the African state as the leading cause of chaos and civil war is right on the mark. The study concludes with Gellar's observation that Africans themselves should be left to sort out their own problems and work out their own version of the democratic revolution without undue Western interference and intervention.

All of this is salutary. However, this being said, Gellar's work is not totally without flaws. While not devoid of...