Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel

Abstract French-style secularism or laïcité is part of the constitutional order and the elite political culture in most of the Sahel. Yet in this region, laïcité—sometimes defined as the effort to protect the state from religion, as opposed to the American style of protecting religion from the state—does not entail complete aloofness on the part of the state. Rather, Sahelian laïcité has tended to involve: (i) state regulation of religion; (ii) strategic partnerships between politicians and religious leaders; and (iii) recurring renegotiation of the role that religious ideas and actors will play in political culture, elections, and policymaking. The foremost explicit and implicit defenders of Sahelian laïcité include French-educated politicians and intellectuals, while various clerics, activists, and politicians have questioned the meaning of laïcité or even the need for it. Conversations surrounding laïcité involve and affect a number of actors, including ordinary Muslims, Sufis, Islamists, jihadists, and Christians.