Le contrôle semi-démocratique des Forces de Défense et de Sécurité en Afrique de l’Ouest: cas du Burkina Faso et du Sénégal

  • Léon Sampana

Student thesis: Doc typesDoctor of Economics and Business Management

Abstract

During the democratisation process in the second and fourth waves of democratisation, most African countries decided to implement the supervision of their armed forces through the pattern of democratic control, a kind of liberal civil-military relations which is increasingly being adopted worldwide. The first paradox which occurred in these countries is that they are not yet democratic States but they claim to have democratic control of their armed forces. Second, despite the existence of a civilian Rule, the armies are still a threat to the process of democratisation because the overthrow of the government by the army could be done at any moment; for this reason, some civil and military authorities tend to use, in practice, “subjective control” to secure the political power. Taking into consideration the context and the use of non democratic tools in the management of security forces, one cannot really scrutinise the civil-military relations in these countries on the basis of the model of democratic control. Therefore, to study the cases of Burkina Faso and Senegal (1960-2012), I propose to use a model of semi-democratic control of the armed forces. This model takes due account not only of the formal mechanisms of control, but also of the informal tools including the “subjective control”, as well as of the sociopolitical context of building up of that control.
Date of Award1 Feb 2013
Original languageFrench
Awarding Institution
  • University of Namur
SupervisorThierry Braspenning-Balzacq (Supervisor), Bruno Colson (President), Augustin Marie- Gervais LOADA (Jury), Tanguy de Wilde d'Estmael (Jury) & Christian Olsson (Jury)

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