"The President Is Coming to Visit!": Dramas and the Hijack of Democratization in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania

Abstract

Since 1989 research in comparative politics has focused largely on democratic tran sitions and consolidation. The entrenchment of semiauthoritarian regimes after the initial wave of political liberalization has yet to be thoroughly analyzed. The time is nigh to answer Brownlee's call to explore the tide after the third wave.1 Although regimes that have adopted initial democratic reforms while successfully maintaining an authoritarian core have stimulated scholarly interest, analysis has been restricted largely to formal political arenas, such as the manipulation of elec tions and subordination of the judiciary. However, the success of semiauthoritarian regimes does not rest only on the hijack of formal political arenas; it also depends on the symbolic and cultural efforts of incumbent authoritarian elites. This article ana lyzes the symbolic gestures of authoritarian elites during a presidential tour in an understudied country, the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. Elites in Mauritania pre vented the regime from implementing the formal democracy it had espoused, while successfully adapting their exclusionary politics to conform to formal democratic rules. The democratic transitions initiated in 1989 caused significant political changes in Africa. The vast majority of African states instituted multiparty elections, backed by new democratic constitutions that in principle guaranteed fundamental civil and political rights. Countries such as South Africa, Benin, Ghana, and Mali demonstrate the potential for relatively stable democratization. Recent developments in countries such as Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe, and even the once exemplary Zambia, however, point in quite a different direction. The phases following the initial formal democratization of their political institutions suggest a renewal of authoritarian ism.2 Theories of democratic transition and consolidation fail to account for such regimes, which comprise about half of all African governments.3 The analysis can not be limited to simply identifying the necessary factors for successful democrati zation that were missing?a weak civil society or low level of socioeconomic devel opment, for instance?but must also evaluate the active role played by authoritarian elites in subverting the democratic transition.