Behind the Ballot: An Exploration of West African Election Policy

Class Year

2027

Document Type

Digital Project

Date of Creation

Summer 2024

Department 1

Library

Abstract

Since its conception, the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU) has based itself on a mutual economic interest among its 8 member states to foster a forum for the exercise of democracy and regional cooperation. However, the interconnectivity of the region created a suitable environment for a cascade effect in which democratic instability in a country becomes a blueprint for the adjacent nations. Behind The Ballot aims to dissect the main events surrounding election policy and power transitions including elections, policies, uprisings, coups d’etat, and conflicts in the last 12 years in the eight member countries of the WAEMU: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Guine-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Through the use of local, regional, and international newspapers, this project presents eight timelines of the major events from 2012 to 2024 in these countries. Furthermore, Behind the Ballot introduces a selection of interactive maps that display the intricacies of the processes while raising questions and discussions about voter suppression, economics, neocolonialism, and the future of West African democracy.

Comments

Final project for the 2024 Digital Humanities Fellowship at Musselman Library, Gettysburg College.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.

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