The moral and the political in African democratization: Thecode de la famillein Niger's troubled transition

This article considers the political struggle surrounding the set of laws known as the code de la famille (family code) during Niger's 1992–93 transition to a democratic system as a means of examining the rise and decline of various social forces provoked by the transition, as well as for what it reveals about the difficulties that have plagued this new democracy. More importantly, the case provides an opportunity to examine the nature of the transformations subsumed under the rubric of ‘transition to democracy’ in Africa, or indeed elsewhere. The article argues that despite the universalist claims of the conception of ‘democracy’ dominant in international for a, the value system which it incorporates in fact frequently conflicts with prevailing indigenous values. Casting democracy as the search for a moral, rather than a political, order has thus complicated ‐ perhaps at times even doomed ‐ transitions to democracy.