CODESRIA BULLETIN No 1, 2022 IS AVAILABLE!

Over the last two years, political life in West Africa has been disrupted by what some have described as the ‘return of military coups in Africa’. Between 2020 and 2022, military-staged coups took place in Mali, Chad, Niger, Guinea, Sudan and Burkina Faso. To some observers, this was a return to familiar African ways. The period 2000 to 2020 appears to them to have been only an interlude that eventually had to give way to events in Africa that, by their very nature, test the promise of multiparty politics and neo-liberal economic reforms for democracy and development. The return of coups, especially in the West Africa region, suggests the failure of multipartyism and neo-liberal interventions to deliver on citizens’ expectations for democracy and economic development. Read the Full Editorial