Emergence instead of development in Senegal: cosmetic change, new institutional mode or (r)evolution in the paradigm?

Abstract

Drawing on the example of Senegal, and in particular by means of a critical analysis of the Plan Senegal Emergent, our purpose is to show how the concept of emergence has come to replace that of development, and to analyses the epistemological, theoretical, institutional and geopolitical implications which may be attributed to this situation. To this end, our contribution sets out a historiography and archaeology of the concept of emergence. It highlights how this concept came to have such a seductive effect on political decision makers in Senegal, and how its victory also marked a decline in the appeal of the concept of development. A good part of the analysis is devoted to ascertaining whether the new concept actually introduces shifts in the country’s development strategies and models, or whether it is in fact no more than a new avatar of the newspeak of development. Is emergence simply an intermediate path in the trajectory of development? Does its victory instead bring paradigm shifts which ought to prompt sociology and development economics to modernize their orientation, their theoretical models and their teachings? This article endeavors to respond to these questions.