The Arab Spring and politics in West Africa

Abstract

AbstractIn the first part of the essay, I outlined the theoretical underpinning of the modern state and how it generated a paradoxical relationship with the concept of revolution. This conceptual exercise is necessary because it yields huge political significance in a people's desire to master their own destiny, and also for the understanding of the democratic and development dynamics in West Africa. In spite of the intellectual and media popularity that the Arab Spring has enjoyed, especially within its scholarly framing as a significant set of political actions, the consequentialist argument presented in this paper points attention to the outcomes rather than the processes that constitute the Arab Spring. I argue that a revolutionary situation ought to lead to the consequences of expanding the capacities that define the freedom of the citizenry. On the one hand, I argue that the Arab Spring does not qualify as species of revolutions because it falls short of what the freedom argument requires. On the other hand, I deploy the argument against the Arab Spring to interrogate the question: How does the nature of the postcolonial West African state generate the socioeconomic conditions that either augment the freedom of the citizens or aggravate the revolutionary quest for that freedom? I conclude by arguing that the freedom to enlarge the capacities of the citizenry serves as the first conceptual point from which West Africa can be transformed as a democratic hub that escapes the anarchy unleashed by the Arab Spring.