ABSTRACT
The implicit compromise that has characterized relationships between rulers and ruled in West Africa during the postcolonial period is no longer capable of maintaining a functional semblance of social cohesion within existent nations. The compromise that curtailed political contestation and investment in social development in return for allowing elites from diverse social categories to feed off the accumulation availed to the states pursuing strategies of extraversion has given way to political and economic restructuring mandated as conditionalities for access to needed resources and legitimacy. Even though former regimes have proved adept at remaking themselves to adapt to new conditions, the increased diversity in the itineraries of political ascension gives rise to new actors, as well as increased levels of social inequality and the normalization of violence in some national contexts as a modality of social recomposition.
