Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Burkina Faso in the winds of liberalisation

1998; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 25; Issue: 78 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/03056249808704348

1740-1720

Ernest Harsch,

Social Sciences and Governance

A decade after the end of Burkina Faso's ‘democratic and popular revolution’, the Sahelian country has graduated to the top ranks of the World Bank's select class of model reformers. The regime of President Blaise Compaoré is frequently praised not only for its pursuit of economic liberalisation, but also its seeming commitment to the donor institutions’ current assortment of favoured notions: multiparty democracy, good governance and human development. But beyond such facile external perceptions, the daily reality in one of the continent's most underdeveloped countries is far more complex, with an impoverished populace ill‐disposed to the traumatic imposition of market dominance and a political elite unsure of how far it can open up without weakening effective control.