Representation and Redistribution in Decentralized West Africa Wilfahrt, Martha creator author. text enk 2022 monographic eng 1 online resource (xiii, 293 pages) : digital, PDF file(s). Why are some communities able to come together to improve their collective lot while others are not? Looking at variation in local government performance in decentralized West Africa, this book advances a novel answer to this question: communities are better able to coordinate around basic service delivery when their formal jurisdictional boundaries overlap with informal social institutions, or norms. This book identifies the precolonial past as the driver of striking subnational variation in the present because these social institutions only encompass the many villages of the local state in areas that were once home to precolonial polities. Drawing on a multi-method research design, the book develops and tests a theory of institutional congruence to document how the past shapes contemporary elite approaches to redistribution within the local state. Where precolonial kingdoms left behind collective identities and dense social networks, local elites find it easier to cooperate following decentralization. Martha Wilfahrt. Reissued as Open Access in 2022. Originally published in 2021. Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 20 Oct 2022). f-sg--- Decentralization in government Senegal Postcolonialism Senegal Elite (Social sciences) Political activity Senegal Group identity Political aspects Senegal Public administration Senegal Local government Senegal JQ3396.A56 D428 2022 320.9663 9781009286176 (ebook) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009286176 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009286176 UkCbUP 220405 20250826121300.0 CR9781009286176 eng