Rivalries of Proximity and the Crisis of Democracy: From Household to Political Elites, in Niger and Beyond

In Niger, there is an increasing rejection of party politics and the politics of democracy, characterized by personal rivalries. There is a direct link between the social perceptions of intra-familial rivalries and the social perceptions of political rivalries. The archetypical relationship among the baab-izey (children of one father but different mothers) is characterized by competition and jealousy, as a consequence of the latent rivalry that pits the co-wives against each other. The same is true for the political microcosm of Niger: political conflicts are above all personal/factional conflicts in which friends and supporters are implicated, and thus constitute rivalries of proximity. In the familial space as in the political space, experts in the occult are merely an "accelerator" of these conflicts: they reinforce suspicions about the familial or political entourage.