Civil society in Africa

With the end of the Cold War and the subsequent political changes in Eastern Europe, the concept of civil society not only became popular in good governance policies all around the globe but was also demanded by internal forces for political liberalization. Commonly viewed from a liberal perspective at the time, civil society was understood as being central to democratization. A glance over the literature from the time suffices to see that numerous studies celebrated civil society as a new tool for democratization processes and emancipatory politics in the global South. Many of these studies were highly normative regarding civil society activists as drivers for democratic change who occupied a higher moral ground than politicians and state bureaucrats. This concept of civil society, however, has come under increasing scrutiny.

The concept of civil society as a realm separated from the state is an ideal deeply rooted in European political thought and is therefore profoundly Eurocentric (Hann and Dunn Reference Hann and Dunn1996). Numerous studies celebrating civil society as a democratizing force are both simplistic and problematic, as they entail both Eurocentric and evolutionist thinking that typically assumes a linear development based on observations of European history – a form of thinking that Mamdani (Reference Mamdani, Mamdani and Wamba-dia-Wamba1995: 608) criticized as ‘history by analogy’. However, African states have not necessarily followed this linear pattern of highly idealized European development. Moreover, this ideal civil society is not the reality in Europe either, where an empowering state is required for an active and powerful civil society (Levy Reference Levy1999). In short, the idealized Eurocentric dichotomy between the state and civil society cannot simply be transferred to African contexts. This dichotomy's normative and moral framework involves misleading positive connotations of political progress, legitimate grievances and a better social order (Mamdani Reference Mamdani, Mamdani and Wamba-dia-Wamba1995). Instead, the workings of civil society cannot be understood without focusing on the complex and dynamic relationship between state and society in Africa (and elsewhere) (Bayart Reference Bayart and Chabal1986).

Looking at the state–society relationship in Africa, the literature can be grouped into ‘introverted’ and ‘extraverted’ perspectives. Looking from an ‘introverted’ perspective, the neopatrimonial state model (Médard Reference Médard and Clapham1982), which has become a kind of catch-all concept, describes the conflation of patrimonial informal logics and formal legal-rational bureaucratic logics in political administration. The prime reason for this conflation is typically understood as internal, lying in traditional elements of African societies or a somewhat opaque notion of ‘culture’ (see especially Chabal and Daloz Reference Chabal and Daloz1999). On the other hand, rather than focusing on internal culture as an or the explanatory variable, theorists such as Bayart (Reference Bayart2000) look at Africa's history of ‘extraversion’ in the world, seeing the continent's insertion in the international economy as the most important factor in explaining social inequalities, clientelism and corruption. Building on Bayart's notion of extraversion, Pommerolle (Reference Pommerolle2010) has argued that civil society in Africa has to be seen as an agent both of emancipation and of domination, navigating a tight political space under constraints. From a Gramscian perspective in particular, civil society (in Africa) is not seen as a force for challenging the status quo and engaging in progressive politics, but often rather for relaying the interests of Western donors and thereby maintaining the status quo by building societal consensus (Hearn Reference Hearn2001). Such a perspective, however, neglects the ‘introverted’ civil society associations that often engage in public political disputes, and overemphasizes ‘extraverted’ development or non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which most often align with the agenda of their international donors. Nevertheless, the introverted/extraverted boundaries are not clear-cut but rather blurred and fluid, with some associations constantly switching between these positions or activists simultaneously leading both types of organization. Moreover, as civil society organizations are typically highly personalized, and some well-known figures head several different organizations, this article also focuses on key actors.

Historicizing civil society in Niger

As a former French colony, Niger experienced several anti-colonial as well as postcolonial struggles after independence in 1960. The postcolonial constitution of 1960 first provided for a multiparty system, with two large unions emerging: the student union Union des Scolaires Nigériens (USN), and the workers’ union Union Nationale des Travailleurs du Niger (in 1978 it was renamed Union des Syndicats des Travailleurs du Niger (USTN)). However, through the elimination and co-optation of political opponents, Niger – with the help of France, which was interested in the country's uranium deposits – soon turned into an authoritarian regime (van Walraven Reference van Walraven2009). Despite authoritarian rule and regular government attempts at co-optation, repression or material distribution, the unions, and the USN in particular, formed the nation's de facto political opposition, at least until 1983, when violent clashes left the movement paralyzed for several years (Smirnova Reference Smirnova2019).

The first ordinance specifying the regime of associations in Niger was introduced by Seyni Kountché’s military regime.Footnote ² Kountché came to power in 1974 after ousting Niger's first president, Hamani Diori (1960–74), in a military coup. Based on high uranium revenues (uranium production in the north of Niger had finally started in 1971), Kountché announced ambitious development goals in his new société de développement. In this new ‘development society’, two main ‘civil society’ organizations – a moderate Islamic organization and a national youth movement (Samariya) – were assigned an important role in disseminating the government programmes among the population and in forming a national identity (Robinson Reference Robinson1991). However, the restrictive character of the first ordinance did not allow for the existence of associations other than those promoted by the Kountché regime.

When uranium prices fell in the early 1980s and high government spending led to a growing budget deficit, Niger was effectively forced to apply for its first loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1983. It was in this context that the regime of associations saw its first important modification in 1984,Footnote ³ allowing youth, school, sport, religious, cultural, foreign and charity associations. In 1986, Niger had to accept the first structural adjustment programmes (SAPs).

The austerity measures imposed by the IMF through the SAPs primarily hit the beneficiaries of the société de développement and led to growing tensions, which, in turn, threatened the stability of the regime (Gervais Reference Gervais1995). The state violently repressed strikes and demonstrations led by USN and USTN, and on 9 February 1990, three protestors were killed and several were seriously injured. The deaths were the last straw, and at the end of 1990, Ali Saibou (1987–90) – who had taken over power following Kountché’s death in 1987 – was forced to allow the transition to a multiparty system and the holding of a National Conference. The reintroduction of a multiparty system changed power configurations in Niger. A number of new political parties emerged, of which the most important over the years came to be the Mouvement National de la Société de Développement (MNSD-Nassara), the Convention Démocratique et Sociale (CDS-Rahama), the Parti Nigérien pour la Démocratie et le Socialisme (PNDS-Tarayya) and, most recently, the Mouvement Démocratique Nigérien pour une Fédération Africaine (MODEN-FA Lumana Africa). In addition, with their participation in the National Conference, civil society organizations were recognized as legitimate countervailing powers to the state. Non-governmental and human rights associations were formally introduced by law in May 1991.Footnote ⁴ With this law, civil society associations proliferated – over 1,000 formed in Niger between 1991 and 2015 (Tidjani Alou Reference Tidjani Alou2015: 138). However, most of these civil society associations have been relatively short-lived and today exist only on paper. After an initial phase of funding from international donors, the money was often embezzled, and the associations ceased to exist without continued sponsorship.

The reintroduction of a multiparty system in Niger gave rise to a decade of experimentation and repeated breakdowns of the institutional order (Villalón and Idrissa Reference Villalón, Idrissa, Villalón and Von Doepp2005). Under the new multiparty constitution, the state monopoly of radio and television had also been abandoned, guaranteeing the freedom and independence of the media.Footnote ⁵ After years of silence under authoritarian rule, an emerging civil society and private media thus enabled public debate. However, civil society has had an ambiguous role in the country's regime changes. Elischer (Reference Elischer2013) shows how Niger's trade unions were largely driven by economic demands and have thus contributed to both ‘autocratic’ and ‘democratic’ breakdowns of power since the early 1990s. The unions did not want to pay the costs of austerity measures enforced under the SAP and thus sought to delegitimize and paralyze Niger's Third Republic under Mahamane Ousmane from CDS-Rahama (1993–96). Then, in the immediate wake of the violent military coup in 1996, they remained subdued (Adji Reference Adji2012). However, when they were excluded from Colonel Ibrahim Baré Maïnassara's new military regime in 1996, they started a series of general strikes that in turn led the regime to encourage the formation of a rival union, the Confédération Nigérienne du Travail (CNT). When Baré was assassinated in 1999, Major Daouda Malam Wanké became head of state. That year, Wanké gave way to a democratically elected government, and Mamadou Tandja from MNSD-Nassara became president. With debt-relief programmes, a new influx of development aid and no real accountability system in place, Tandja was able to increase civil service salaries and to buy social peace for several years.

After a long period of silence from civil society, in 2005 the Coalition Équité, Qualité et Lutte contre la Vie Chère ‘reinjected politics into public life’ (Tidjani Alou Reference Tidjani Alou and Polet2007) by protesting against an increase in value-added tax (VAT) from 15 to 19 per cent. Focusing on the increase in VAT and rising food prices, the civil society coalition organized highly successful demonstrations, general strikes and ‘ghost town’ operations in the country's major cities (Maccatory et al. Reference Maccatory, Oumarou and Poncelet2010). On 15 March 2005, 100,000 to 150,000 people are said to have participated in a demonstration in the capital, Niamey. The movement had become a genuine threat to the stability of the government. When the coalition called for further public demonstrations, the Tandja government arrested the five leading activists – Marou Amadou, Nouhou Arzika, Kassoum Issa, Moustafa Kadi and Moussa TchangariFootnote ⁶ – on charges of threatening the security of the state and organizing illegal assemblies.

After the arrests, the government started negotiations with the coalition leaders. With newly gained financial leverage through external funding, especially development aid, Tandja was able to acquiesce to many of the protestors’ demands, including the withdrawal of the increase in VAT (except for sugar), with the loss of government revenue to be made up through increases in business and property taxes. To collect these taxes, the Tandja government founded the Comité d'Appui aux Services d'Assiette et de Recouvrement des Taxes et Impôts Fonciers (CASARIF). The coalition was invited to propose six members for the committee, an invitation that created division among its leaders. Whereas Moussa Tchangari remained publicly opposed to the idea of civil society entering governmental committees, Marou Amadou became its vice-coordinator. This is a typical example of how co-optation works in the Nigerien context, with governmental committees being created to include civil society members. As committee members, the activists then receive privileges and financial benefits such as daily and travel allowances or food and drinks. In co-opting civil society activists into governmental decision making and by using public funds or intimidation to quell political opposition, Tandja was able not only to create division between the activists, thereby weakening civil society as a whole and thus maintaining a social peace, but also to pursue his political projects over the years to come.

First, in February 2007, the Tuareg rebel group Mouvement des Nigériens pour la Justice (MNJ) launched attacks on the Nigerien military and French parastatal uranium company AREVA, justifying them as protests against both foreign exploitation of uranium and regional marginalization from the government in Niamey. Against the background of the US War on Terror, Tandja's government classified the MNJ as a terrorist group. This move received support from some civil society activists, especially Nouhou Arzika's Mouvement Patriotique, which argued against diplomatic efforts and for a military solution to put down the rebels. Second, after having concluded an oil contract with China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in June 2008, a cornerstone ceremony for the refinery in Zinder was held on 27 October 2008. President Tandja used the ceremony to launch his campaign for constitutional change, tazarce or ‘Continuation’. Under tazarce, the regime would go from semi-presidential to presidential, the president would be allowed an extra three-year transitional term, and, after that, he would then be eligible to stand for re-election. An impressive crowd had been mobilized to welcome Tandja at the ceremony in Zinder. In his speech, the Zinder governor at the time, Yahaya Yandaka, asked the president, in the name of the Nigerien population, to complete the ‘great construction sites’ that he had initiated, especially those that were making Niger an oil producer.

To make the strategically fabricated ‘will of the population’ for him to remain in office a public fact, Tandja co-opted popular civil society associations and labour unions to support tazarce (Abdoul Azizou Reference Abdoul Azizou and Polet2010). Nouhou Arzika's Mouvement Patriotique and Dan Dubai's Mouvement Populaire pour la Pérennisation des Actions du Développement (MPPAD) became the leading lobbyists for tazarce, and together with other actors from politics and civil society such as the USN, they formed a national ‘tazarce committee’. In return for their support, Tandja gave these civil society activists seats on various governmental bodies. However, a number of other civil society organizations joined the political opposition around Mahamadou Issoufou from the PNDS-Tarayya in vocally opposing tazarce. In December 2008, Marou Amadou's CROISADE and several other civil society associations and labour unions formed the Front Uni pour la Sauvegarde des Acquis Démocratiques (FUSAD) to combat any attempts at constitutional change. They later joined with the political opposition to form a ‘movement for democracy’, the Coordination des Forces pour la Démocratie et la République (CFDR). The CFDR openly called for international sanctions and even a military coup against the Tandja regime.

To understand how Tandja was able to co-opt certain civil society organizations, and not others, we need to look at these groups’ political and ideological affiliations, and at their sources of funding. At the time when Tandja was seeking supporters for tazarce, Nouhou Arzika's Mouvement Patriotique was the only one of the five major activists’ associations that had no significant international donors, thus remaining ‘introverted’. As such, it was able and willing to join tazarce, especially as the campaign's patriotic and anti-imperial rhetoric following Tandja's turn towards China fit well with its image. Although Moussa Tchangari's Alternative Espaces Citoyens' anti-imperialist and Pan-Africanist rhetoric was also similar to Tandja's, it was not viable or able to support the campaign due to both the group's extraverted partnership with the international anti-globalization movement and its close introverted relationship with Nigerien intellectuals who primarily supported the ‘socialist’ PNDS-Tarayya party. As such, Tchangari's organization refrained from taking a clear position on tazarce. Moustafa Kadi's extraverted CODDAE was prevented from actively intervening and declared itself neutral, as its main international donors, including the IMF, represent themselves as ‘apolitical’. Kassoum Issa's introverted SNEN teachers’ union also declared itself neutral. While Tandja had been able to quell or appease the unions and their members in 2005, SNEN retained a traditional closeness to the ‘socialist’ PNDS, which had been formed by student and teacher union activists in 1990. Finally, Marou Amadou's extraverted CROISADE became one of the major voices against tazarce, as his association was financially supported by international donors in the field of democracy promotion.Footnote ⁷

With international sanctions in place, Commander Salou Djibo overthrew Tandja in a military coup on 18 February 2010, saying that he wanted to make Niger an example of democracy and good governance. Under the new military regime, a 131-strong National Consultative Council was created to assist and instruct the transitional government. Although leading civil society activists had not been included in the transitional military government itself, they were assigned prominent positions by the military junta. Marou Amadou was appointed president of the council. Djibo organized new elections within a year. In March 2011, the former political opposition came to power, with Mahamadou Issoufou at the helm. Issoufou appointed Marou Amadou Minister of Justice – a role he used to jail several of his former colleagues and friends. While those civil society associations who had supported tazarce were consequently removed from governmental bodies, they were replaced by those who had supported Issoufou. The Issoufou government also created so many advisory positions for its supporters, especially university intellectuals, that it became a ‘state of advisors’ (Adji Reference Adji and Sylla2014: 370–2). The roles switched, with those civil society associations and intellectuals who had been vocal in criticizing the Tandja regime becoming mute, while those who had supported tazarce and consequently lost their positions in governmental bodies now becoming vocal critics of the new regime.

It was in this social and political context that the oil refinery was inaugurated near Zinder in late 2011 and that CRAS emerged as a new civil society collective.

CRAS and civil society in Zinder

Dan Dubai's MPPAD, which had been a vocal supporter of tazarce and Tandja's oil project (Dubai was therefore widely regarded as the founding father of tazarce), was now the most vocal organization in criticizing the government and claiming that the Zinder region was being marginalized with regard to the possible benefits of oil. In the weeks prior to the oil refinery's inauguration, several other civil society leaders and organizations and labour unions from Zinder met to discuss working together on issues around oil. The initiative to establish a new civil society committee came from regional representatives of Nouhou Arzika's Mouvement Patriotique and his consumer organization OCRONI. After several initial meetings with just a handful of activists, they tried to assemble as many Zinder civil society associations as possible to create a new umbrella organization. This organization would become known as the Comité Regional des Associations et Syndicats de la Région de Zinder, or CRAS. It included members from the Mouvement Patriotique, the transport union, the lorry drivers’ union, the teachers’ union SNEN, the labour union USTN, the student union USN, the jobseekers’ organization, and a few youth leaders from neighbourhood groups called fada. Some of CRAS's founding members had personally enjoyed positions on regional governmental committees such as the committee for the prevention of recurrent food crises under Tandja. Nevertheless, CRAS did not include all of the important civil society associations in Zinder, with several others working closely with the government or trying to stay neutral. These included rival unions such as the CNT as well as associations with international donors who therefore pursued a more extraverted agenda, such as the Réseau des Organisations pour la Transparence et l'Analyse Budgétaire (ROTAB), the Groupe de Réflexion et d'Action sur les Industries Extractives (GREN) and the country's largest human rights association, the Association Nigérienne de Défense des Droits de l'Homme (ANDDH).Footnote ⁸

Before the first large CRAS meeting in Zinder at the USTN compound in the city centre on 16 November 2011, I met a well-known civil society activist from ROTAB and CNT outside. Earlier that same day, I had interviewed him about his vision for the role of civil society in the country's oil future. He had explained that the task of civil society was to cooperate closely with government authorities to guarantee social peace and stability, to appease the population, especially violence-prone youth and the expropriated rural population, and to ensure that oil exploitation becomes a ‘blessing’ and not a ‘curse’. Throughout the interview he had stressed the good relationship between civil society and government authorities, pointing out that he was directly involved in several governmental committees, including the organizational committee for the oil refinery's inauguration ceremony, and therefore often visited the governorate. Seeing him at the meeting place, I asked him if he would be participating, to which he retorted sharply: ‘These are the people of tazarce. We don't do politics. We are not involved. In no way!’

About thirty activists attended the meeting, which focused on the negative effects of oil for the Zinder region. Whereas the activist at the entrance had emphasized the opportunities that went with oil production and had stressed his good relationship with the government authorities, the attendees accused the government of corruption and incompetence. Attendees also argued that they should become members of regional government committees, like the committee to supervise the recruitment process of oil workers created by the regional and municipal councillors and the governor, or the central government committee created in Niamey to fix the country's future fuel price, or the organizational committee for the refinery's inauguration in Zinder – in short, some of the positions the ROTAB/CNT activist claimed to occupy. Whereas he had claimed to speak in the name of the entire civil society, one meeting attendee said that the absence of civil society associations such as ROTAB, GREN, CNT and ANDDH was because they were ‘unjust people who had betrayed civil society of Zinder’. From its formation, CRAS's stated objective was thus to counteract what they saw as infiltration and sabotage of civil society by the state, saying that those civil society activists who were members of governmental committees were only there to enjoy good food and drinks, and then to give their blessing to everything that the government proposed. In contrast, these CRAS members portrayed themselves as the only civil society defending the interests of the Zinder region against western Nigerien domination by Issoufou's national government in Niamey and the governor of the Zinder region.

To understand these divisions, it is important to know that most civil society associations in CRAS had supported tazarce, and had therefore been left empty-handed after the 2010 coup. CRAS members were thus seeking to use the inauguration as an opportunity to become reincorporated into the political game by seeking positions on regional government committees – positions that are especially attractive for members of low- and middle-income groups facing pressing demands for financial redistribution within their social networks.Footnote ⁹ By voicing popular grievances, CRAS members also saw the inauguration as an opportunity to deliver their list of concerns and demands to President Issoufou, hoping to do so in a face-to-face meeting, where Issoufou would be expected to hand out envelopes of money to appease his opponents. In short, using the inauguration as a stage that would bring regional and national attention, opposition civil society organizations regrouped as CRAS to once again become politically relevant and visible, to press for renewed incorporation into government power structures, and to receive monetary contributions. I therefore now look at how the disputes surrounding the oil refinery's opening evolved and the role CRAS took within this process.

Two weeks before the refinery's inauguration, the government announced a new official fixed fuel price of 579 FCFA per litre (€0.88). Although this was a significant reduction on the former fuel price of 679 FCFA/litre (€1.03), it was not only much higher than the 200–250 FCFA/litre (€0.30–0.38) that CRAS and the MPPAD of Dan Dubai had been pushing for (and which appeared to have been widely hoped for among the population), but also higher than the fuel price on the black market, which was around 350 FCFA/litre (€0.53) at the time. The announcement led to unrest among the population, particularly among youth, and Dan Dubai was arrested three days prior to the inauguration for defaming President Issoufou in radio debates and press statements.

The inauguration was held on 28 November. The political opposition's mobilization strategy was to not attend the opening ceremony, but rather to stage violent protests. It was effective. That day, urban youths held violent demonstrations against the president's arrival. They built street barricades of tyres and set them alight, clashed with police, and attacked Issoufou's festive procession as it made its way to the refinery. After the inauguration, mobile phone messages glorifying the riots as resistance against Issoufou and professing faith in former President Tandja were circulated.

Over the following days, public debate in Zinder remained dominated by Dan Dubai's arrest. In press statements and radio debates, civil society associations demanded his release, and in mobile phone messages he was portrayed as a ‘folk hero’ who dared to speak the truth in the name of the poor. The chain messages also called on the population to show their support at his trial on 6 December. Members of the MPPAD occasionally attended CRAS meetings and cooperated to coordinate public action and to pressure for the release of Dan Dubai. While the MPPAD's secretary general and CRAS vice president (also aligned to the MPPAD) demanded the organization take protest action, other CRAS members were reluctant, as they wanted to steadily increase pressure on the governor – from debate to declaration to demonstration – before resorting to protest action. Arguing that demonstrations often turned violent because powerful political players had a hand in them, the other CRAS members saw street protests as a last resort and wanted to first release a memorandum on the radio. While many CRAS members viewed the governor as the ‘first enemy to fight’ and wanted to demand his resignation, because he had denied them access to regional government committees and an audience with the president on the inauguration day, the MPPAD did not agree with the strategy; their secretary general argued that ‘we will not negotiate, we have the mass on our side, the governor must come to us’. The debate resulted in a leadership conflict, with the MPPAD member resigning from his position as CRAS vice president. The MPPAD and CRAS simply did not share the same objectives: whereas the MPPAD's ultimate aim was regime change and their primary target was thus the new president, Issoufou, leading members of CRAS again wanted to be granted places on regional government committees and their primary target was thus the regional governor. From the MPPAD's perspective of rich businessmen, CRAS was said to be a structure of ‘prébendiers’ – a term frequently used in Niger to denote those seeking any form of income from politicians, either through positions on committees (co-optation) or by accepting informal envelopes (bribery and corruption).

Dan Dubai's 6 December trial and the two days that followed were marred by violence and disorder, with youth clashing with security forces in the streets, burning down a police station and looting a bank. Two people were killed and several were injured. CRAS members held the governor responsible for the violence and demanded his immediate resignation. The president of CRAS thereby compared the events to the student protests of 9 February 1990 that had paved the way for the transition to democracy. Blaming the political authorities, the committee's president underlined that the Zinderois were ready to die for justice. To appease the rioters, Prime Minister Brigi Raffini was sent to Zinder to meet the sultan, the governor, student representatives, the teachers’ association, the parents’ association and religious authorities. After the meeting at the sultanate, a joint statement appealing for calm was released. After a dispute within the student union USN about how to divide their share, it soon became public that the prime minister had distributed money at the meeting. USN members who had not received any of the money reported that the religious authorities and the parent and teacher associations had each received 1 million FCFA (€1,500), while the USN had received 300,000 FCFA (€450). Despite this, there was hardly any public criticism of the ‘fact’ that the government had bought off the different representatives to subdue the tensions. Rather, the common attitude seemed to be that those USN members who were crying foul over the ‘bribe money’ were only doing so because they were disappointed that they had not received any of it.

CRAS members were extremely disappointed: they had neither been granted an audience with the president at the refinery's inauguration, nor been appointed to the regional government committee, nor invited to the meeting with the prime minister where money was handed out. In the following weeks, the number of attendees at CRAS dropped markedly, from over thirty to around a dozen. Numbers also fell because CRAS was becoming increasingly personalized around the tiny leadership circle that had initiated it, and was thus losing legitimacy among its members and followers, who felt neither heard nor represented by the committee, nor saw any means of profiting from it.

In the weeks following the pacification of Zinder, a CRAS member from the leadership circle approached me to ask for help in finding an international donor, as a source of funding would help ‘make the committee a more stable civil society player’. Until then, CRAS had been in a precarious financial state and had to operate on small, sporadic contributions from its members to finance activities such as information campaigns, radio debates, press statements and public assemblies. I agreed to help in the search for an international donor and started to write emails to political and social foundations in Germany, one of which then requested that CRAS submit a proposal specifying the planned activities and the money required for so-called start-up funding. In early January, I called the member who had approached me to discuss the possibility of funding. We made an appointment to talk prior to a regular meeting. When I arrived, several other members were already present. He told me that he did not want me to talk just then, as he said that the other members were not to be trusted. After the meeting, we met together with one of his closest friends in CRAS, who was also from the same sub-organization. Here, they repeated the claim that there were ‘spies’ within CRAS, arguing that the governor was always up to date on the organization's activities, a problem that they said they did not have within their own organization. They therefore suggested we meet at a bar later, where I insisted that we make the plan transparent within CRAS. At the next meeting, two days later, I presented the aims and the funding possibilities of the donor institution and insisted on a collective vision from CRAS before a written proposal could be submitted.

The next day, one of the two members I had met beforehand privately called to meet me so that we could write the proposal together. When I arrived, however, only the two CRAS members were present, as was the president of an NGO. The meeting was about how to write the proposal and what CRAS wanted to ask for. With his experience of writing funding proposals, the NGO president was there to help guide the process. I was there to once again outline the donor's funding guidelines, especially for start-up funding. The discussion soon centred on their material demands, which included two motorbikes as well as office equipment (desks, office chairs, computers, laptops, printers, cameras and electricity converters), tables and chairs, an internet connection, and office rent. In total, they applied for 4,560,000 FCFA (€7,000) in funding, although I explained that the funding was capped at about €4,000. It soon became apparent that the whole application process was about neither a common vision for CRAS nor knowledge transfer among its members, but rather the appropriation of the funding opportunity by a small inner group. I nevertheless decided to translate their original proposal into German and submitted it. The proposal was rejected some weeks later.

Without international donor funding, CRAS remained introverted throughout the following months and continued to sharply criticize the government. In doing so, they were attempting to mount pressure on the government in the build-up to a mass demonstration they had set for March 2012. Shortly before the demonstration was to take place, two of the committee's most influential members – the same members who had wanted me to help find an international donor – said that they had received information that opposition politicians were planning to hijack the demonstration by distributing tyres and fuel to encourage youth gangs to turn them into violent riots. After CRAS decided to cancel the demonstration, another member claimed to have proof that those who had pushed for the cancellation of the demonstration had been paid off by a wealthy businessman on behalf of the governor. In the debate among CRAS members following the accusations, it was illuminating that the discussions did not focus on the ‘fact’ that their comrades had accepted bribes from state officials, but rather that the accused had not shared the money with the other members. One committee member, for example, expressed his disappointment that the accused lacked solidarity, and referred to their former collective support for tazarce. He said that he had always shared contributions from the Tandja government equally among the other group members, and demanded that the other CRAS leaders did the same. With the two accused members continuously denying the existence of bribe money, CRAS stopped functioning after the dispute.

The social and political embeddedness of civil society in Niger

As I outlined initially, in understanding the workings of civil society, it is essential to focus on the historical sedimentation of state–society relations. While a few, rather restricted civil society associations disseminated government programmes to the population and thus had close ties to the ruling party during the authoritarian phase of Nigerien politics, the reintroduction of the multiparty system soon highlighted the ways in which the rules of the game had changed. From that time on, political competition and strategic conflicts between the opposition and the government majority became an integral part of the game. This also had implications for the role of civil society organizations. With their ability to act as counter-powers to the state in a multiparty system, civil society organizations have to be appeased, repressed or incorporated into government by political manoeuvres such as bribery, co-optation, intimidation and imprisonment. In this context, civil society groups either became increasingly incorporated into the state's administrative body or they joined the political opposition. Looking at the historical dynamics of civil society since the introduction of a multiparty system, we can thus observe episodic civil society engagement in the political game, with phases of high activity when organizations are seeking to pressure the government, and phases of low activity or invisibility when they have been repressed, co-opted, or simply assuaged by informal redistribution (cf. de Waal and Ibreck Reference de Waal and Ibreck2013).

To understand this episodic civil society engagement, we have to acknowledge that the political logic of competition in a multiparty system becomes inextricably mixed with social logics that closely tie status, morality and personal integrity to gift giving and redistribution within social networks (Olivier de Sardan Reference Olivier de Sardan1999). With such entangled logics, one – or even the – primary aim of today's civil society seems to be inclusion in the clientelist political redistribution system. Indeed, ‘doing politics’ (faire la politique), as it is generally referred to in Niger, is seen paradoxically both as acting outside the moral and ethical values of the community and as the only way to find employment or to be included in redistribution networks (Olivier de Sardan Reference Olivier de Sardan2017). These infamous redistribution networks are typically referred to as PAC (parents, amis et connaissances) and are crucial for finding a job, asking for a favour or receiving support. As such, they have an existential dimension: with a virtually non-existent state social security system, the population depends on mutual assistance to survive. However, these networks also place significant pressure and demands on the employed, for they are expected to redistribute their earnings, provide favours or misuse their power to benefit their PAC. These demands are often exacerbated by the fact that those who have a good position are likely to have obtained it through the network and are therefore indebted to it. For example, when my research assistant, himself a CRAS member, started working for me, not only was he immediately expected to make contributions and give presents to his uncle's family with whom he was living, but friends and neighbours also started visiting him regularly to ask for money or credit. His personal integrity and status depended on meeting their expectations. When, as a USN member, he received the chance to campaign for the PNDS (also through his uncle, who was a PNDS member), he switched sides from opposition to government, became a party member and finally landed a job that allowed him to marry, buy a house, start a family and thus leave the state of ‘masculine waiting’ (Masquelier Reference Masquelier2013) that characterizes the situation of many young men in Niger (and beyond).

Looking at concrete practices of ‘doing’ civil society and representations of ‘seeing’ civil society, a gap between practices and representations becomes apparent. In numerous biographical and semi-structured interviews that I conducted with civil society activists in Niger, they presented themselves as fighting for democracy and transparency, as helping the poor and disadvantaged against the abuse of power of the country's corrupt political elite (cf. Yarrow Reference Yarrow2011 for Ghana). To underline their fight for the collective good, they often referred to the state repression, arrests and frequent imprisonment of civil society leaders in Niger. However, as they often accused other civil society activists of not following their collective fight but rather of being prébendiers, the interviews already hinted at the patterns of co-optation, bribery and corruption that became even clearer through my participant observation of CRAS. In addition, talking to a wide range of different people during my fieldwork, I had the impression that a large part of the population in Niger had lost their faith in the country's civil society, often accusing activists of playing the political game to enrich themselves rather than to benefit society as a whole. Civil society activists (as well as state bureaucrats and politicians) are thus caught in numerous ‘normative double-binds’ (Bierschenk Reference Bierschenk, Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan2014): that is, the paradoxical moral orders of official democratic values and informal social rules. In this sense, it is not so much ‘traditional culture’ that brings forth the phenomena of corruption and cronyism, as the model of neopatrimonialism would suggest. Rather, entangled logics of material realities (social networks of subsistence and survival in the absence of a welfare state) and political realities (competition in multiparty systems) favour the social and political embeddedness of civil society.

If redistribution within political networks is anticipated as a spoil of the political game, then the success of being included in these networks depends on the dynamics of an association's external as well as internal relations. For associations, effective external relations are characterized by the ability to gain political leverage. To gain this leverage, an association has to be able to put pressure on political authorities. Only with sufficient leverage can it seek and achieve a form of profitable cohabitation with the authorities, either through positions on governmental committees or through informal cash payments. This political leverage is achieved through a web of relations, with opposition politicians and wealthy businessmen on the one hand, and media on the other. For example, some influential CRAS members received politically sensitive information and payments from opposition politicians and businessmen for publishing and/or broadcasting that information. Through the media, especially radio, civil society (re)creates and strengthens its political leverage by threatening to mobilize the population against the political authorities. In doing so, civil society effectively demands that political authorities include it in political decision-making processes by creating new governmental committees and assigning places on them to civil society representatives, or by replacing members on existing committees. If their demands are not heard, they increase their threats by, for example, organizing a public meeting and inviting the media, thereby demonstrating their potential to mobilize the population. If their mobilization potential is sufficient, they could then proceed to the highest threat level: the organization of a mass demonstration or a general strike or a ‘ghost town’ operation. With their potential to turn violent, mass demonstrations are especially feared by the political authorities and typically provoke them to take preventative and calming measures. As I have shown, the approaching oil refinery's inauguration offered the perfect opportunity to regroup as CRAS by appropriating the sensitive topic of oil as a public issue and gaining political leverage.

As we have also seen, an association's internal dynamics are crucial for its effectiveness and legitimacy, its appropriation and redistribution of spoils, and thus its very survival. Playing the internal political game is therefore about building relationships among a small inner circle of intimates or insiders who together channel the association's activities and share the positions of power and the envelopes of cash. The precarity faced by many activists, and also by large segments of the population, exacerbates a situation in which everyone is trying to get along by searching for any form of income. In such a situation, attracting bribes is a morally acceptable economic strategy within one's own social network because it takes place in politics, a field typically deemed outside society's moral universe. Moreover, as bribes often come as informal lump sums (or as goods rather than cash), they are especially desirable as recipients may more easily invest them directly in items (such as motorbikes, cars and computers) that are typically too expensive to purchase, especially given the demands to distribute more publicly known payments (such as wages) among their solidarity networks. Looking at the internal organization of CRAS, it became obvious that the committee members jockeyed for positions within the inner circle by showing their commitment, their rhetoric and communication skills, their specific political and legal knowledge, and their access to secret information. Only in these leadership positions would they ever have the opportunity to participate in governmental committees, conduct missions in the name of CRAS, and receive envelopes. Indeed, the inner circle of CRAS had all studied together in the capital, Niamey, and had long been active in civil society associations and public politics, especially within the ‘Coalition against the High Cost of Living’ in 2005. In doing so, they had learnt the necessary rhetoric and communication skills, gained the political and legal knowledge, and broadened their political networks of politicians and journalists.

I contend that these internal and external dynamics can explain the six strong tendencies that Tidjani Alou (Reference Tidjani Alou2015) identified among civil society organizations in Niger: proliferation, professionalization, regrouping, political intervention, personalization and an urban anchor. Political intervention is the first means to introduce oneself as a new negotiating party, to gain political leverage, and to be rewarded with spoils. An urban anchor is needed for successful political intervention, as urbanization processes assemble political power in a dense space that enables acts of infrastructural sabotage (such as demonstrations, ‘ghost town’ operations, burning barricades, strikes and meetings) that can stop the flow of urban life and the economy. In contrast, rural resistance in Niger is characterized by passivity or non-movements, mostly involving strategies of non-compliance and tax boycotts (Spittler Reference Spittler and Hanisch1983). Professionalization is the result of governing techniques, either through co-optation in the state's administrative body, or through external funding from international donors, as well as internal status politics within organizations and committees to claim leadership positions. Personalization and proliferation are the result of a ‘rent of political liberalization’, in which membership of a civil society association becomes an important source of income, be it through external funding from local businessmen or international donors, daily allowances for work on governmental committees, or informal contributions from politicians. Finally, regrouping – the result of episodic civil society engagement – is necessary to reacquire political capital after processes of personalization and co-optation have either hampered the association's social and political legitimacy and thus its negotiating power or led to its complete disintegration.

The case study of CRAS, contextualized in the historically sedimented order of contemporary Niger, illustrates how civil society engagement is embedded in the same structures that shape other political actors, including their opponents. In this way, the values and language of contemporary democracy – ‘transparency’, ‘good governance’, ‘human rights’ – that were always emphasized in interviews or public statements by civil society activists are primarily appropriated to acquire political legitimacy and do not signal the development of emancipatory politics per se. Especially prone to political party co-optation is the ‘introverted’ civil society that, having understood the logic of the political game over time, might even anticipate government positions or informal contributions as spoils, while more ‘extraverted’ civil society tends to align its political agendas to those of its international donors (which can also be seen as a form of external co-optation). However, organizational leaders also know how to constantly and strategically switch between these positions, and many are in charge of several different ‘introverted’ and ‘extraverted’ civil society organizations.