Social Science Research Council

"Complicit Disputes: Islamic and Secular Norms of Political Modernity in Niger"

My project aims at studying the ways in which liberal and secular norms of political modernity are appropriated and transformed in Niger’s largely Islamic society, in the context of the current liberalized politics of that country. I argue that social and political reforms result from the normative contradiction between Islamic and secular norms of political modernity, because the apparent normative disagreement does not suppress an active connivance between liberals and Islamists in this setting. To ascertain this proposition, I intend to analyze three empirical issue areas—the Family Code, Education and the reforms of the Political regime—in which normative tensions have led to syncretic policies.

I will conduct the research on two sites (the capital and a major provincial town), combining interviews, participant observation and the collection and analysis of archival material, audio and illustrated media and news items. I will interpret my conclusions in the framework of a theoretical construct which borrows from post-colonial theory and the literature on governmentality. Additionally, I will estimate the impact of Niger’s dire political economy on the evolutions under study, relating that impact, in particular, to the influence and authority of the wealthier countries in both the West and the Islamic world, and the numerous organizations of international government (United Nations agencies, International Financial Institutions and NGOs) which intervene in this context. My ultimate results will help illuminate political development in the Islamic, and more broadly in the post-colonial worlds, by teasing out of the Nigerian case general propositions on social and political change through the complicity of conflicting norms and the underlying global power relations which frame their contextual operation.