‘To seek happiness’: development in a West African village in the Era of democratisation

This article examines what democracy means to a people who have no direct word for it in their own language. It sets one village's experience of Guine‐Bissau's first multi‐party elections in the historic context of the struggle for independence, the failures of the one‐party state, the difficulties caused by structural adjustment. It sets this experience against theories of democracy as an ideal or as sets of formal arrangements and argues that whilst the latter may have been successfully implemented, democracy will be poorly rooted unless it leads to palpable socio‐economic progress. There are still many problems to be overcome, not least with the lack of resources available to the state, before this is likely to be achieved. This article follows others by Rudebeck: ‘Kandjadja, Guinea‐Bissau, 1976–1986: Observations on the Political Economy of an African village’ (ROAPENo. 41) and ‘The Effects of Structural Adjustment in Kandjadja, Guinea‐Bissau’ (ROAPENo. 49) ‐ which have sought to understand the impact of wider politcal and economic forces on this one village over time. This article is a continuation of that story.