Path dependency and the construction of citizenship in West Africa:

the Cape Verdean case

Abstract

This article analyzes the social trajectory and the construction of citizenship in West Africa, with particular focus on the Cape Verdean reality, considered peculiar when compared to the other realities of its West African (sub)region. The main argument defended is that the construction of citizenship in Cape Verde follows, in its different founding moments, a top-down orientation perpetrated by the State, deviating from the liberal tradition widely spread in the central countries, that states that the construction of citizenship developed from bottom-up mobilization strategies. The results of this article are inserted in this argumentative line and point out to a social trajectory in which the citizenship resulted from State intervention. That is, it was created by the State through the implementation of diverse social mechanisms, aiming at constituting a field of action convergent with the structures of political and electoral opportunities in the county.

Keywords: West Africa. Cape Verde. Citizenship. Social Trajectory. Path Dependence.