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About this book
Providing an in-depth comparative study of democracy formation, Gellar traces Senegal's movement from a pre-colonial aristocratic order towards a modern democratic political order. Inspired by Tocqueville's methodology, he identifies social equality, ethnic and religious tolerance, popular participation in local affairs, and freedom of association and the press as vital components of any democratic system. He shows how centralized state structures and monopoly of political power stifled local initiative and perpetuated neo-patrimonial modes of governance.
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Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Reviews
"This book proposes a fresh way of looking at Senegalese politics and of assessing prospects for democracy in Africa. Gellar shifts the scale of analysis from an exclusive focus on the national level to a focus that considers local-level politics as well. This is a refreshing way to approach the study of politics in an African country, and it generates many useful comparisons between France, the US, and Senegal. The net result is a book that is mind-opening and provocative, and that will be interesting for university students as well as professionals who study African politics." - Catherine Boone, University of Texas at Austin
"40 years of research and travel in Senegal have made Sheldon Gellar one of the most knowledgeable analysts of that country. In this book, he uses the ideas of Alexis de Toqueville to enrich our understanding of one of Africa's most vibrant democracies. It is a creative marriage of two passions, one for democratic theory, the other for a country he loves." - Martin A. Klein, Professor Emeritus of history, University of Toronto
"Gellar's is an important, refreshing statement, which must be read by any serious student of African politics"
- Donal B. Cruise O'Brien, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
About the author
SHELDON GELLAR is a Visiting Scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University, USA. He has worked in francophone Africa as researcher, teacher and international development consultant for more than forty years on democracy and development issues. He is the author of Structural Changes and Colonial Dependency: Senegal: 1885-1945 and Senegal: An African Nation Between Islam and the West. He also served as Democracy advisor to the USAID/Senegal mission in 1998-1999.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Democracy in Senegal
Book Subtitle: Tocquevillian Analytics in Africa
Authors: Sheldon Gellar
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781403982162
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan New York
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political & Intern. Studies Collection, Political Science and International Studies (R0)
Copyright Information: Sheldon Gellar 2005
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4039-7026-8Published: 13 October 2005
Softcover ISBN: 978-1-349-53192-9Published: 13 October 2005
eBook ISBN: 978-1-4039-8216-2Published: 16 September 2005
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIX, 222
Number of Illustrations: 3 b/w illustrations
Topics: African Politics, Comparative Politics, African History, Political Science, Modern History, Democracy