RESEARCH

My broader research agenda examines how political authority is contested and legitimated under changing political conditions. One important strand of this agenda concerns the relationship between political and religious authority, including how religiously framed insurgencies and related threats are prompting Muslim-majority states to mobilize religious authority and how those interventions, in turn, reshape state-Islam relations.  Methodologically, my work draws on comparative historical analysis, qualitative fieldwork, archival research, and multilingual sources in English, French, and Arabic. I focus primarily on Mauritania and Mali, with broader engagement across the Sahel and North Africa.

Dissertation

The Indispensable Sacred: Jihadist Insurgencies and the Reshaping of State-Islam Relations in the African Sahel

Rather than asking why jihadist insurgencies emerge, how they spread, or why their trajectories vary across countries, my dissertation examines what these insurgencies do to the relationship between states and Islam. Specifically, it investigates how the pressures generated by jihadist insurgencies reshape state engagement with religious institutions, actors, and authority.

The dissertation compares Mali and Mauritania, two countries with sharply contrasting constitutional relationships to Islam. Mali is officially a secular republic, whereas Mauritania is constitutionally an Islamic Republic. Despite this contrast, both countries have confronted insurgent pressures that prompted deeper state engagement with religion. I argue that the resulting strategies are shaped by the interaction between preexisting political and constitutional arrangements and leaders’ willingness to work within or transform those arrangements. The project draws on original fieldwork, archival research, and interviews conducted in both countries.

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PUBLICATIONS

Journal Articles in Progress

Adou, Baba. 2026. “Political Parties and Post-Coup Electoral Legitimation in Africa: A Comparative Analysis of Guinea, Gabon, and Niger.” African Studies Review. Revise and resubmit invited. 

Articles 

Adou, Baba. 2026. “Beyond ‘Official Islam’: How State Islamization Blunted Islamist Opposition in Mauritania.” The Project on Middle East Political Science.  POMEPS Studies No 59, pp. 20–25.

Adou, Baba. 2025. “Islam and the Struggle for National Identity in Mauritania: Mediating Arabo-African Divides?” Souffles Monde, Issue Four: Afro-Arab Trajectories.

Adou, Baba. 2024. “Racializing Arabic: Colonial Education Policies and the Linguistic Issue in Contemporary Mauritania.” The Project on Middle East Political Science.  POMEPS Studies No. 52, pp. 7–11.