Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance Assessment of Senegal

Senegal's history since independence is one of strong central government, due in part to the French Gaullist legacy and in part to the initial need for a strong central government to build the Senegalese nation-state. All of Senegal's first three presidents used patronage politics to govern. Patron-client relationships with the Marabout leaders1 of the Sufi brotherhoods provided popular support for Léopold Senghor, Abdou Diouf, and Abdoulaye Wade. All three used enhanced executive...
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Senegal's history since independence is one of strong central government, due in part to the French Gaullist legacy and in part to the initial need for a strong central government to build the Senegalese nation-state. All of Senegal's first three presidents used patronage politics to govern. Patron-client relationships with the Marabout leaders1 of the Sufi brotherhoods provided popular support for Léopold Senghor, Abdou Diouf, and Abdoulaye Wade. All three used enhanced executive power to practice "presidentialist" politics as heads of three successive dominant parties, the Union Progressiste Sénégalaise (UPS), the Socialist Party (PS), and the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS). Then the period of democratic transitions stemming from the end of the Cold War saw the rise of an awakened citizenry in the 1990s, a trend that was amplified in 2011. In 2000, Senegal's voters ended the Senghor/Diouf legacy of socialism in hopes of spurring economic growth, and in 2012, they ended Wade's wild "liberalism" in hopes of starting an era of good governance. This Democracy, Human Rights, and Governance (DRG) assessment is based on three weeks of field research. A team interviewed approximately 100 knowledgeable informants in Dakar, Ziguinchor, and Kédougou, ranging from representatives of the national, regional, and local levels of government; civil society actors at the national and local levels; U.S. Government officials; donors and implementers; and academic and other independent analysts. In addition, extensive use of both primary and secondary documents informs this assessment. The DRG problem identified in this assessment is that power and resources are too highly concentrated in Senegal, a major cause and effect of the lower-level problems of a lack of effective checks and balances, weak accountability, and poor delivery of basic services-the latter due, in part, to incomplete decentralization.