The Construction of States and Societies in the Sahel

Today, there is a threatening divide between state and societies in Sahelian countries. Societies have become increasingly diversified and are permeated by growing divisions. In contrast, the states are relatively standardized. They are partly a legacy of the colonial legacy of the despotic state, but they also developed some original traits—for example, a very specific bureaucratic culture and a quasi-private monopolization by a business-oriented political elite. In a context of aid dependency and elite capture, Sahelian states are today confronted with widespread distrust on the part of their citizens and a serious crisis in relation to the delivery of state services. The social divide, the bias of development aid, the weakness of the political elites, and the failure of electoral democracy have paved the way for the rise of anti-Western and anti-state Islamic fundamentalism, and for politico-religious and politico-ethnic entrepreneurs.

Citizens Committees and Local Elites: Elite Capture, Captured Elites, and Absent Elites in Health Facility Committees

Mainstream development policies often promote citizens committees to oversee basic social services. Such committees require influence over, and legitimacy among, service providers and citizens to perform their roles, which local elites can help or hinder. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyse the situation in 251 health facility committees in Burundi, part of which benefited from interventions designed to bolster their relationship with local leaders. Interviews and focus groups reveal that leaders’ support is essential for committees to access citizens and work with nurses, but the failure of the interventions show it is hard to nurture. The local socio-political elites (politicians, faith leaders) bypass and ignore the committees. In a ‘fragile’ context such as Burundi’s, the lack of political elite capture attempt suggests a largely vacuous committee system. The committees remain a façade participatory institution. Understanding and engaging with local everyday local politics is crucial for committee-based development approaches.

Demanding Power: Struggles over Fuel Access in Nigeria

Why do some fuel protests in Nigeria lead to a response from government, but others are barely noticed? What are the politics behind government response and who are the winners and losers? Using a multi-method approach, this study focuses on the period between 2007 and 2017 to investigate the dynamics of fuel protest in Nigeria to ask how, and under which conditions, struggles over energy access in Nigeria produce accountability and empowerment. The findings suggest that accountability and empowerment outcomes of the struggles over fuel access in Nigeria are severely limited by the very conditions that define the state as fragile: weak institutions, elite capture, widespread corruption, and a citizenry that is protest-fatigued and disempowered. This could be true of other fragile and conflict-affected settings. Therefore, frameworks that open up the civic space for dialogues between the government and citizens may produce better outcomes than protests.

Technological Progress and Health Convergence: The Case of Penicillin in Postwar Italy

Throughout history, technological progress has transformed population health, but the distributional effects of these gains are unclear. New substitutes for older, more expensive health technologies can produce convergence in population health outcomes but may also be prone to elite capture and thus divergence. We study the case of penicillin using detailed historical mortality statistics and exploiting its abruptly timed introduction in Italy after WWII. We find that penicillin reduced both the mean and standard deviation of infectious disease mortality, leading to substantial convergence across disparate regions of Italy. Our results do not appear to be driven by competing risks or confounded by mortality patterns associated with WWII.