Sub-Saharan Africa has seen startling growth in jihadi Salafist activities throughout the last couple of decades. Beneath the increasing number of jihadi terrorist attacks lies important variation in the extent of homegrown terrorist activity. While some countries such as Nigeria or Mali are home to domestic jihadi terrorism, neighboring Niger experiences terrorist activity by outsiders but it has curbed the emergence of domestic groups. In this important book, Sebastian Elischer explains why some African countries have become bases for jihadi activity while others have constrained it. Relying on 10 cases from across Africa, Elischer focuses on the role that states play in curbing Salafi jihadi activities, or conversely, creating conducive circumstances for it to flourish. This carefully researched book, with a wealth of data and keen insights derived from fieldwork across multiple countries, is an impressive piece of scholarship and is bound to influence the collective understanding of the spread of domestic jihadi terrorism in Africa.

Salafi Islam is a relatively newer addition to Africa’s religious landscape, where the vast majority of Muslims practice Sufi Islam. It spread as the number of African clerics who received training in the Arab world increased, gaining momentum in the 1970s. Elischer argues that how African states regulated the initial spread of Salafism had important long-term consequences for their ability to stem the rise of the jihadi strand of Salafism in the future. States that sought to regulate Salafism early on were able to prevent future radicalization as they had greater control over the religious sphere, whereas states that adopted a laissez-faire approach to it missed an opportunity to contain it and were therefore more vulnerable to the spread of jihadi Salafism later on. The book traces this process in great detail with six major cases: Chad, Niger, and Uganda, where the state took an active role in regulating Salafism, and Mali, Mauritania, and Kenya where the state failed to do so.

The first two empirical chapters account for why governments pursued such differing approaches to regulating Salafism, whereas the subsequent chapters illustrate the consequences of these early decisions on future outcomes. While all states under consideration experienced significant political uncertainty throughout the first few daces of the postindependence period, Elischer makes the case that regimes chose to regulate Salafi activities only when they saw Salafism as a threat to the regime, as was the case in Chad, Niger, and Uganda. In those instances, regimes created national Islamic associations that were empowered to control the religious sphere. Where states did not view Salafism as a threat (Kenya) or even saw it as a resource (Mali and Mauritania), they did not establish effective control. These decisions formed a critical juncture that placed the respective countries on different paths.

The empirical core of the book traces the abilities of the states to manage the growing threat of jihadi Salafism in the decades following the critical juncture of the 1970s. Elischer relies on extensive interviews with clerics, academics, and civil society leaders, in addition to rich secondary sources, to chronicle each country’s response to the growing threat. In Chad, Niger, and Uganda, the state was able to use the structures that it created to act as a gatekeeper of the religious sphere and to monitor and contain rising threats, acting as a “demobilizer.” In Mali, Mauritania, and Kenya, the state lacked this critical tool of regulation and, in the case of Kenya and Mauritania, it further radicalized Salafi groups by using indiscriminate repression. Elischer is clear that his theory is largely inductive, derived from these six cases. He then uses four additional shorter case studies of Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Ghana to subject his theory to an out of sample test.

The book’s biggest contribution is in analyzing the agency that even weak states have in managing the growth of religious extremism. Elischer’s case selection allows him to hold many factors, such as state weakness, constant, and explain how otherwise similar states are better or worse equipped to address challenges of religious fundamentalism. The extensive fieldwork and data collection make an important empirical contribution in their own right. The book offers very readable and thoughtful accounts of the rise of jihadi activity in the different countries. Salafism and Political Order is clearly written and the arguments it presents are logical and compelling. It is ambitious and has clear relevance, given the toll that jihadi terrorism has taken in Africa. Much of the material is summarized with helpful charts and tables, emblematic of Elischer’s methodical approach.

The sheer empirical ambition of the book—with six core cases and four additional cases—also presents some challenges. Covering so many cases over a span of several decades leaves a few instances where more evidence or discussion would be helpful. For example, while the book embraces process tracing as an empirical strategy, sometimes the processes need to be more fleshed out with more explicit links between cause and effect. More attention could have been paid in the case studies to the timing dynamic of state regulation of Salafism, which is so central to the argument. The discussion of Niger reveals that it is a nuanced case with significant “evolution of state-led Islamic associations” (p. 179). This cased deserved perhaps more space to unpack change over time, as it was more complicated than readers might have expected based on its characterization as a successful case of deradicalization.

The four cases used for theory testing are much more limited than the original cases. The discussion of Senegal (pp. 177–82) seems to end much earlier in time than the other cases, shedding less light on the more recent period. While this is understandable given the already ambitious scope of the book, there are limitations to how much these additional cases can truly test the theory. The author also conceded that Ghana is not the most instructive case given the absence of attempts to create jihadi cells. Elischer generally sourced evidence very well and paid a great deal of attention to detail but there are a few instances when more specific information about sources would have been helpful to the reader when, for example, tables are labeled “author’s own compilation” (pp. 38, 174) or “based on media coverage” (p. 146) without further elaboration.

Finally, the choice to group cases by outcomes—cases of successful regulation of Salafism are discussed together and cases of failed containment are grouped in a separate chapter—does not present explicit comparisons and requires the reader to do so. Side-by-side comparisons (e.g., Mali vs. Niger, or Kenya vs. Uganda) would offer clearer contrast between the cases.

Yet, these are ultimately minor quibbles that do not detract from this impressive piece of scholarship. Elischer amassed a wealth of qualitative evidence to present a compelling theory of the state’s role in managing the religious sphere. This book offers keen insights into the incidence of religious extremism in Africa, as well as relations between the political and religious authority in weak states, making it of interest to a wide audience.