The Peugeot and the baobab: Islam, structural adjustment and liberalism in Senegal

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Periodical article

Title:	The Peugeot and the baobab: Islam, structural adjustment and liberalism in Senegal
Author:	Hesse, Brian J.
Year:	2004
Periodical:	Journal of Contemporary African Studies
Volume:	22
Issue:	1
Period:	January
Pages:	3-12
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Senegal
Subjects:	Islam economic policy Politics and Government Development and Technology Economics and Trade Religion and Witchcraft economics politics
External links:	https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0258900042000179571 http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=W39V065L24467Q42
Abstract:	Islam in the Senegalese context has not impeded, but facilitated, the acceptance and spread of the type of reforms embodied in IMF and World Bank-sanctioned structural adjustment programmes (SAP) and the associated liberal ideas. Against high odds, the essential elements of economic and political liberalism are being successfully grafted onto uniquely local traditions and institutions, a process symbolized by the Peugeot (the ubiquitous cars of Senegal, representing the ineluctable spread of consumerist Western culture in the country) and the baobab (the national tree of Senegal, used by the author as metaphor for Senegal's four main Sufi Muslim brotherhoods). In the face of cronyism and corruption, Senegal's Islamic traditions and institutions inject a degree of accountability into the economic and political equation and are, therefore, congruent with liberalism. Bibliogr., notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]