What can Alexis de Tocqueville's analysis of democracy in America and France contribute to our understanding of African democratic transitions? For Sheldon Gellar, the answer is “much.” In this book, Gellar uses Tocqueville's methods of inquiry to analyze Senegal's democratic experience. To do this, he emphasizes the historic, cultural, institutional, and environmental factors that have shaped Senegal's political path from the precolonial period to the present. He concludes that Senegal's foundations for democracy have gradually been strengthened and that the “prospects for democracy there look reasonably good” (p. 172).

The book begins by distinguishing Tocqueville from the contemporary democratization literature, particularly the work of Samuel Huntington. The author supports Tocqueville's broad definition of democracy that includes liberty, equality, popular sovereignty, and self-governance, and he contrasts this definition with Huntington's (and other unspecified analysts') focus on elections and multiparty competition. Gellar applauds Tocqueville's assertions that democracy is built from the bottom up and that it is rooted in local identities. He asserts that “Tocquevillian analytics” goes beyond the top-down, state-centric approach found in the democratization literature to look at peoples, their communities, and their capacity for self-governance. He then contrasts this viewpoint with that of Huntington, who supports a strong state that can minimize national divisions based on subnational identities. While this chapter highlights the ways in which Tocqueville differs from Huntington, it appears to portray Huntington as the spokesman for a vast and increasingly diverse democratization literature.

The next nine chapters focus on the environmental, historical, sociocultural, and political components that have shaped Senegal's democratic process. Gellar takes history seriously, providing an in-depth explanation of precolonial social castes, cultural norms, and governance structures in several Senegalese ethnic groups. He describes how social hierarchies, norms, and institutions changed under French colonialism in ways that contributed to the country's democratic project: Muslim leaders with close ties to their followers became important power brokers and founded powerful, independent organizations; an elite class of citizens in the Four Communes of Saint-Louis, Gorée Dakar, and Rufisque embraced French education and became active in politics; and traditional warrior castes lost the power to hold slaves and expropriate resources. These developments fostered greater equality, a factor Tocqueville saw as essential for citizen participation.

The book also investigates changes in political institutions, from colonial rule to state tutelage under Senegal's first independence president, Léopold Sédar Senghor, to political liberalization in the 1980s and 1990s. In this comprehensive examination, Gellar points to the continuance of political tendencies such as corruption, personalization of power, and state centralization. The book places President Abdoulaye Wade's efforts to squelch criticism, control subnational institutions, and co-opt opponents into these larger historical patterns. For example, despite the 2000 election that brought the opposition Parti Démocratique Sénégalais to power, the legislature and judiciary remain weak. Rural councils, while increasingly autonomous, have often lacked resources to meet citizens' demands for services.

In his optimism about the country, Gellar claims that we must look beyond national politics to see Senegal's real democratization. The chapters on religion, associational life, the media, language, and equality provide several positive examples. At times, though, the reader wishes for more analysis of the complexities embedded in these illustrations. For example, the author details the rise of women's organizations, economic interest groups, and hometown associations founded by Senegalese living abroad. He asserts that not only do these associations provide important services to their members but they also teach citizenship and undermine traditional patron–client relationships. However, evidence presented to support these assertions about political learning is minimal. In another example, the book portrays Islamic organizations both as counterweights to state power and as tolerant of other religions, though it minimizes the inherent inequalities in the relationship between religious leaders (marabouts) and followers.

The chapter on language is one of the most interesting, particularly because the democratization literature has tended to ignore the ways that language is used in the political realm. Despite the ruling elite's attempt to preserve the use of French in politics and the economy, Wolof has become increasingly “recognized as the national Senegalese language” (p. 138). Building on Frederick Schaeffer's Democracy in Translation: Understanding Politics in an Unfamiliar Culture (1998), Gellar details how Wolof words convey unique meanings for such concepts as democracy, political change, and accountability. The chapter further maintains that the Senegalese have been able to maintain multiple identities and linguistic pluralism, despite the dominance of Wolof, and that this pluralism has not divided them but has enabled them to better communicate. These arguments could provide the foundation for future research that examines language use and democratic attitudes, particularly among non-Wolof ethnic groups.

There are two broad criticisms of Democracy in Senegal. First, the reader may question how Senegal's continuous struggle with poverty and underdevelopment has shaped its democratic transition at both the national and local levels. Despite the book's comprehensive nature, economics receives only cursory attention. For example, while it shows that debt and structural adjustment policies contributed to decentralization, the work downplays how privatization, trade liberalization, and remittances have shaped economic opportunities and social inequalities. Second, the components of Tocquevillian analytics that foster democracy (e.g., institutional, cultural, and historical factors) sometimes overlap the definition of democracy itself. For example, democracy embodies liberties (p. 2), but liberties also are utilized as an institutional variable that fosters democracy (Chapter 5).

Gellar's many years of work, research, and travel throughout Senegal make the book a detailed examination of one country's democratic transition. It is a must-read for any student of Senegalese politics, and through its comparisons to the French and American democratic experiences, it helps us think comparatively about African political development. It clearly illustrates the ways in which Senegal is different, from its unique colonial experiences with French citizenship to its religious and ethnic tolerance to its recent expansion of associational life. In doing so, the book highlights one of Tocqueville's most important insights: that each country's democratic experience is shaped by its own history, culture, environment, and institutions.