"We just want a constitution": Gambian Civil Society in Democratic Consolidation

Abstract: In recent years, Gambia is one of the few countries having experienced development in a more democratic direction. As part of democratic consolidation, the process of reviewing the constitution was started in 2017 with an aim to be participatory and inclusive. This thesis seeks to investigate how the Gambian civil society organization TANGO has tried to impact the constitutional review process, to further contribute to the understanding of civil society in democratic consolidation. This is achieved through an explorative and descriptive case study focusing on TANGO’s practice of advocacy and accountability. The method used is mainly semi-structured informant interviews with persons central to civil society in the constitutional review process together with secondary sources such as legal documents and news articles. The results show that TANGO has exercised advocacy mainly in terms of position papers to the Constitutional Review Commission, whereas accountability has primarily been exercised through press conferences and lobbying. However, statements on their efforts as lacking and too late have been persistent in the study, meaning that even if efforts were done, they could have been improved or have other focal points for leveraged impact in the constitutional review process.