Seminar: "Democracy and Electoral Imperialism in "French-speaking" Africa (1789-2023)", by Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla

Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla, head of research and policy for Africa at International Development Economics Associates will open the new lectures series "The Economics of Liberation" at ICTA-UAB.

 

Seminar: "Democracy and Electoral Imperialism in “French-speaking” Africa (1789-2023)"
 

Speaker: Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla, International Development Economics Associates
 

Date: Tuesday, March 5th 2024
Time: From 11 to 12.30h
Venue: C1/070-1 Sala graus (Sala d'actes, reunions i juntes). C - Facultat Ciències i Biociències

Democracy on the European side of the Mediterranean, dictatorship (or ‘flawed democracies’) beyond. This is how the Western world usually sees Africa. This perception needs to be nuanced. Firstly, it assumes separate trajectories where we should be seeing a shared history. Secondly, it is based on a simplistic conception of democracy, reduced to the representative system and elections. Based on the case of “French-speaking” Africa, this lecture will document two hundred years of electoral imperialism. Since the French Revolution, elections have been used as a means of selecting and legitimizing leaders perceived in Paris as favorable to French interests within the colonial empire, then of maintaining a neo-colonial order in the post-independence period, and finally of maintaining a formally "democratic" order since the end of the Cold War. A "democratic" order that is based on political and economic violence, i.e. the negation of national sovereignty and the subjugation of domestic needs and priorities to the dictates of financial institutions dominated by Western powers. In place of "choiceless democracies" imposed by global neoliberalism, and in the face of environmental and militaristic challenges that put human survival at risk, the author argues for a substantive democracy based on the principle of substantive equality.

Dr Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist. He is head of research and policy for Africa at International Development Economics Associates, and a former technical adviser for the presidency of Senegal. He authored “The Fair Trade Scandal. Marketing Poverty to Benefit the Rich”, Pluto Press & Ohio University Press, 2014, co-authored “Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story” (Pluto Press, 2021) and co-edited of “Economic and Monetary Sovereignty in 21st Century Africa” (Pluto Press, 2021).