Democracy in Senegal: Tocquevillian Analytics in Africa

Democracy in Senegal: Tocquevillian Analytics in Africa. By Sheldon Gellar. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. 256p. $79.95 cloth, $26.95 paper. What can Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of democracy in America and France contribute to our understanding of African democratic transitions? For Sheldon Gellar, the answer is “much.” In this book, Gellar uses Tocqueville's methods of inquiry to analyze Senegal's democratic experience. To do this, he emphasizes the historic, cultural, institutional, and environmental factors that have shaped Senegal's political path from the precolonial period to the present. He concludes that Senegal's foundations for democracy have gradually been strengthened and that the “prospects for democracy there look reasonably good” (p. 172).