ABSTRACT
René Otayek in a French round-table discussion of 1994 noted that “discussion of democracy in Africa (by Africans) is usually in a foreign language, almost never in local languages,”1 a fair point which he developed with reference to the Mossi of Burkina Faso. Fred Schaffer’s study2 of rural Wolof discussion of demokaraasi in Senegal is to be welcomed in this context. The Wolof example is an important one for the present study of possible democratic transitions in Africa: not only is Senegal the African state which has had the longest exposure to multiparty politics, with universal adult male suffrage in the coastal communes dating from 1848,3 but the Wolof are the ethno-linguistic group which has come to dominate the state of Senegal. What the Wolof have made of demokaraasi is thus an important question for the political study of Africa.
