In this elegant and lucid study, Frederic C Schaffer asks what democracy means to people in Senegal.... Schaffer succeeds in saying, to people who make blanket assertions about the democratic character and salutary benefits of elections, that democracy, when translated, is not necessarily what they think it is. That is his aim and achievement and arguably a quite valuable one.
~Jeffrey W. Rubin, American Journal of Sociology
Schaffer's intensive interviews and linguistic analysis demonstrate that good fieldwork, coupled with careful analysis, still has much to contribute to the field of comparative politics.... If the author is correct and local interpretations of broad ideal and discourses of democracy are central to understanding and explaining the outcomes of political liberalization in Senegal, then this book is among the best written on this topic.... It should be required reading for anyone interested in the prospects for political change not just in Senegal but in Africa as a whole.
~William Reno, Comparative Political Studies
This book is intended, in short, to enrich both the study of Senegal and democratic practices and the practice of cross-cultural inquiry more generally. Schaffer concludes his study with an excellent bibliography.
~Choice
Schaffer's small jewel of a book... contains a detailed description of his methodology for linguistic analysis of oral interviews, of political texts in documentary form and in the media, and of interviews with educated multilingual Senegalese. Intended for a relatively expert audience, the book is accessible to advanced undergraduates as well.
~Margaret E. Scranton, Perspectives on Political Science
This well-crafted and deeply researched study is one of the two or three most important studies of democratization in Africa yet to appear in the 1990's.
~John Clark, International Journal of African Historical Studies
A probing and highly original study.... A significant contribution to the literature on transitions to democracy.
~Foreign Affairs
