Dear readers,

With only a few days to go before the next Presidential Election in The 
Gambia, I am very pleased to announce that I have written a book on Gambian 
Politics under Yahya Jammeh and it can now be purchased online.

Published in Canada by Trafford Publishing, the book is titled: The Military 
and 'Democratisation' in The Gambia: 1994-2003. It has ten fascinating 
chapters and 345 pages. The size of the book is 6 inches x 9 inches and it 
is available in both trade paperback (softcover)  and hardcover. Take note 
of the fact that the hardcover is more expensive than the paperback 
(softcover). The book’s ISBN number is: 1-4251-0103-8.

The book is available for sale online and it can be ordered online at 
www.trafford.com/06-1860


Excerpts from the book can be seen/read on my webpage.

Alternatively, you can ring Trafford UK or Trafford Canada and order the 
book over the phone. These are the contact addresses of Trafford UK and 
Trafford Canada:

Trafford Publishing
2333 Government Street
Suite 6E
Victoria, British Columbia
Canada, V8T 4P4
Tel: 250 383 6864
Toll Free: 1-888-232-4444 (from Canada and USA)
Fax: 250 383 6814

Or

Trafford Publishing (UK) Ltd.
9 Park End Street, 2nd Floor
Oxford, OX1 1HH
United Kingdom
Tel: 01865 722 113 or 0845 230 9601
Fax: 01865 722 868


This is a very thought provoking book on a very important subject/topic. In 
fact, it is the most comprehensive book ever written on the military and the 
democratisation process in The Gambia. It’s very well-written and there is, 
of course, a clear link between the theory and the very solid empirical 
evidence. Needless to mention, the theoretical framework is very clearly 
presented.

This timely and incisive book provides an original and detailed analysis of 
the root causes of the 1994 coup d’etat in The Gambia, the motivations 
behind the juniors officers who seized power, as well as critically examines 
post-coup politics in The Gambia from 1996 to 2003.

In other words, the book offers lucid, original, important and critical 
insights into our understanding of contemporary Gambian politics. Anyone who 
wishes to understand Gambian Politics under Yahya Jammeh is advised to buy 
this book. The study is also a valuable addition to the literature on the 
military and the democratisation process in Africa.

My book will be a vital text for any student of African Politics who wishes 
to study Gambian Politics. It will be an essential guide for academic 
researchers, students, politicians, journalists and policy makers who wish 
to understand the nature and scope of the most recent political changes that 
occurred in The Gambia, in the wake of the 1994 coup d’etat.

In a similar development, be informed that another important book on Gambian 
Politics/History will be released on 27th October 2006. The book is titled 
"A Political History of The Gambia, 1816-1994"and is written by Professor 
Arnold Hughes and Dr David Perfect, both Gambianists or experts/specialists 
in Gambian Affairs.

Professor Arnold Hughes is former Director and Emeritus Professor of African 
Politics, Centre of West African Studies, University of Birmingham, UK. This 
560-page book can also be ordered online at www.boydell.co.uk/80462308.HTM


Anyone interested in the political history of The Gambia will find this book 
an important source of insight. The book should be core reading for anyone 
with an interest in Gambian Politics/History. It contains insightful and 
well-articulated analyses of pre- and post independence politics in The 
Gambia.

Meanwhile, for more about my book, you can read the write-up below, culled 
from the webpage created by Trafford Publishing for my book.

Regards,

Ebrima Ceesay


ABOUT THE BOOK:   The Military and ‘Democratisation’ in The Gambia: 
1994-2003

This book - The Military and ‘Democratisation’ in The Gambia: 1994-2003 (By 
Ebrima Ceesay) - provides an account of significant political developments 
in a small West African country, The Gambia, about which such information is 
not readily available. It is a robustly written account of the very fluid 
politics of The Gambia over the last ten years since the coup that ousted 
President Dawda Jawara. The author is able to bring an enviable amount of 
first-hand understanding to the case at hand. He was a newspaper editor in 
The Gambia and also a correspondent there for the BBC.

The book addresses a subject of much current interest in the wider 
development and policy-related literatures and much of the information makes 
an original contribution to knowledge in the area of democracy and military 
rule in The Gambia. The study thus constitutes an original contribution to 
the growing scholarship on The Gambia. It also makes a contribution to the 
existing literature on democratisation and the military in West Africa.

The book undertakes the much needed research into recent political 
developments in The Gambia, and sets this in the wider context of West 
African politics. It provides an in-depth study of events in The Gambia 
prior to and post 1994 and examines The Gambian case in a theoretical 
context pertaining to Africa in general, and the West African sub-region in 
particular.

The fundamental concern of this book is to determine whether it is possible 
for a nation to democratise under 'military' rule. Following the 1994 coup 
d’etat, The Gambia had military rule until 1997. After two Presidential 
elections, it remained under 'quasi-military' rule, the military having 
merely been thinly disguised in civilian clothes. The central argument of 
this book is that in the case of The Gambia, it has not been possible to 
democratise under either ‘military’ or ‘quasi-military’ rule. The country is 
far from being democratic and the democratisation process has barely begun. 
The Gambia operates under an authoritarian regime with strong military 
overtones.

The 1994 coup d’etat in The Gambia took place at a time when most of Africa 
was moving towards democratisation. At the same time, The Gambia moved away 
from democratisation and into military dictatorship. This Gambian 
'exceptionalism' in recent regional, continental and global political 
development is explained and analysed in the book. The study presents a 
conceptual and empirical analysis of the recent 'democratisation' processes 
under the military and military-turned civilian regimes in The Gambia. It 
uses conceptual or analytical insights, drawn from the general literature on 
military regimes in Africa, to inform understanding of the case study. The 
book raises a number of very pertinent questions concerning the place of the 
military in a modern African polity, and the varied contexts and contested 
nature of this role.

The book sets out to assess the military regime that seized power in The 
Gambia in July 1994, and which remains in power to the present day - having 
formally converted itself into an "elected" civilian regime through managed 
elections from which the military leader emerged victorious.

It is broadly concerned with four themes: a) pre-independence politics in 
The Gambia, the Jawara years and the causes of his overthrow; b) the coup 
d’etat that brought the military regime to power on 22 July 1994; c) the 
subsequent conduct of the military regime, with particular concern for its 
attempt to legitimise itself through elections; and d) the question of 
whether The Gambia can be regarded as a democracy, to which the author has 
returned a decided negative.

Four main questions are posed. What were the causes of the military coup in 
The Gambia? What were the various phases of military rule? How has the 
military performed in office? Has The Gambia returned to a functioning 
democratic state following the 1996 and 2001 elections? The findings 
indicate that the military intervention was prompted by a combination of 
political, economic and social problems in the country.

The 1994 coup d’etat in The Gambia is best seen as the outcome of two main 
variables: the societal/economic/political factors which made military 
intervention a possibility, set against the motivations of junior officers 
of the Gambia National Army to intervene in the government of The Gambia 
because of their own dissatisfactions and possible personal aspirations. 
Direct military rule was in two phases and the military’s leadership 
performance was poor in respect of human and civil rights in both phases, 
although there were some modest gains in socio-economic terms. Despite the 
holding of elections, The Gambia remains undemocratic.

The study is based on newspaper reports, interviews and the author’s own 
experiences as a journalist in The Gambia until his departure from the 
country in 1996, together with published sources. The empirical element in 
the book is accompanied by a survey of literature in the field, notably 
relating to military regimes in general, and especially in Africa. The 
treatment of empirical developments and academic sources in the book is both 
descriptive and conceptual.

The ten chapters (including a general conclusion) which make up the book are 
logically structured; general aims and objectives, which are clearly 
identified in the introductory chapter, are pursued in a sustained way in 
the subsequent discussion. Early presentations of approach, objectives and 
strategy combine with overviews of pre-1994 politics and economics in the 
opening two chapters.

Along with the summary of the circumstances surrounding the military’s 
intervention in politics in 1994 (Chapter 3), these serve as a prelude to 
the detailed evaluation of the military’s performance in government; and the 
circumstances, processes and consequences of the army’s transformation into 
a "democratic" civilian (in reality a "quasi-military") regime, which 
constitutes the middle third, and core, of the book.

The final third of the book focuses on the fortunes of both democracy and 
politics under a quasi-military regime, and tries to draw lessons from this 
experience for a serious consideration of the role of the military in 
democratic politics. The penultimate chapter offers recommendations for 
deterring future coups in The Gambia and elsewhere in Africa, while a 
general conclusion presents a cogent summary of the principal findings and 
conclusions.

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