North-South Dialectic in Mauritania: An Update

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Periodical article

Title:	North-South Dialectic in Mauritania: An Update
Author:	Stewart, Charles C.
Year:	1986
Periodical:	Maghreb Review
Volume:	11
Issue:	1
Period:	January-February
Pages:	40-45
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Mauritania
Subjects:	political conditions droughts Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups)
Abstract:	This paper explores the nature of North-South tensions and political factionalism in Mauritania during the past decade, with particular reference to the war in the Western Sahara and the ramifications in the Mauritanian political economy of the droughts of the 1970s and early 1980s. The impact of the war has been severe and divisive in the ruling class, but it has had little influence upon the political economy of the country. By contrast, the droughts have effectively reversed the nomadic/sedentary demographics of Mauritania and brought to the fore a new population group, formerly subservient to nobles in the nomadic sector of the economy, which holds the possibility for dramatic change in the structure of politics. The author concludes with a number of factors that mitigate against an immediate political expression of the changing demographics, thus contrasting developments in Mauritania with those in Chad and the Sudan. Notes, ref.