Traditional ‘Men of Religion’ and Political Power in Mauritania

Abstract

Since the early 1980s, the ideological landscape of Mauritania, dominated by an elite that originated from the political struggle for independence, has fallen into decline. In a time of economic, social, and political crisis, neither the political elite nor the military was capable of meeting the expectations of Mauritanian society. The modernist projects, timidly undertaken since the independence, only reinforced economic and cultural dependency on the Western model. The failure of the national elite was blatant, and new social frameworks began to emerge in order to end the ‘state of grace’ enjoyed by the political power at the time.