Burkina Faso in the winds of liberalisation

Abstract

A decade after the end of Burkina Faso's ‘democratic and popular revolution’, the Sahelian country has graduated to the top ranks of the World Bank's select class of model reformers. The regime of President Blaise Compaoré is frequently praised not only for its pursuit of economic liberalisation, but also its seeming commitment to the donor institutions’ current assortment of favoured notions: multiparty democracy, good governance and human development. But beyond such facile external perceptions, the daily reality in one of the continent's most underdeveloped countries is far more complex, with an impoverished populace ill‐disposed to the traumatic imposition of market dominance and a political elite unsure of how far it can open up without weakening effective control.

Capital Flight from Burkina Faso: Drivers and Impact on Tax Revenue

“…The problem of complicity and collusion between political and administrative elites and the business world has been documented in a number of publications including Labazée (, ) and Harsch (). In addition, the review of social networks of mining actors shows that influential Burkinabe in the mining sector are former ministers, advisors at the president's office, and ex‐senior officers of the Ministry of Mining (Africa Mining Intelligence, ).…”

Die gestohlene Revolution Burkina Fasos Präsident Blaise Compaoré musste nach 27 Jahren im Amt zurücktreten

“…Bei den ersten Mehrparteienwahlen, die allerdings von der Opposition boykottiert wurden, wurde Compaoré im Amt bestätigt. Bereits die unmittelbar auf die formale politische Liberalisierung folgende erste Phase der "Strukturanpassung" (das erste Struktur anpassungsprogramm wurde in Burkina Faso von 1991-1993 implementiert) war durch gewerkschaftliche und studentische Proteste gegen die liberale, auf den Weltmarkt orientierte Wirtschaftspolitik gekennzeichnet (Englebert 1996;Federici & Caffentzis 2000;Harsch 1998 (Frère 2010;Harsch 2009). Gewerkschaften, Menschenrechtsorganisationen, Schüler_innen und Studierende schlossen sich zum "Kollektiv der demokratischen Massenorganisationen und politischen Parteien" zusammen, um die zivilgesellschaftlichen Proteste gegen die Strafl osigkeit zu bündeln.…”

Seeing through African protest logics: a longitudinal review of continuity and change in protests in Ghana

“…For many years, several popular protests have occurred in many cities around the world and during these times many analysts have offered careful explanation of why they happen in particular instances and in general (Gurr 1970). Protests have been driven by the demand for social goods and services, the search for spatial meaningfulness and cultural identity, the drift towards local autonomy (Castells 1983), the erosion of traditional welfare rights, new competitive forms of urban development, expansion of the urban political system (Mayer 2000), urban-based class struggle (Harvey 2012), labour conditions (Helbrecht et al 2017) and low citizen participation in decision making platforms (Awuah 1997;Castells 1983;Hasson 1993;Lowe 1986).…”