York University Assistant Professor Mohamed Sesay is the winner of the International Studies Association’s Lee Ann Fujii Book Award for 2021 for his new book Domination Through Law: The Internationalization of Legal Norms in Postcolonial Africa.
Lee Ann Fuji was associate professor of political science at the University of Toronto (Mississauga) and a member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. After her passing in 2018, this book award was established to recognize the best book published in the previous two calendar years that significantly advances issues of diversity in the discipline, whether through topical focus or authorship. This is the second year for the award.
Sesay's book explores how the positive effects of rule of law norms and institutions are often assumed in the fields of global governance and international development, with empirical work focusing more on the challenges of using law to engineer social change abroad. Questioning this assumption, the book contends that purportedly “good” rule of law standards do not always deliver benign benefits but rather often have negative consequences that harm the very local constituents which rule of law promoters promise to help.
In particular, the book argues that rule of law promotion in post-colonial societies reinforces socioeconomic and political inequality which disproportionately favors dominant actors who have the wealth, education, and influence to navigate the state legal system. In addition to an historical account of legal development in settler-colonial environments, this argument is also drawn from a comparative study which focuses on the U.K.-supported justice sector development programs in Sierra Leone and the U.S.-funded rule of law projects in Liberia.
The International Studies Association stated in a press release: “This year’s winner, Mohamed Sesay’s book Domination through Law: The Internationalization of Legal Norms in Postcolonial Africa (Rowman & Littlefield 2021), exemplifies Lee Ann’s call for reflexivity and diversity in the discipline."
The release also notes that "Sesay uses a postcolonial analysis to argue that modern rule of law perpetuates forms of domination in post-conflict African states. He calls into question neoliberal characterizations of modern law – including the idea that it’s contemporary, distinct from a colonial past, and carried out as a neutral project – to argue that the reconstruction of post conflict societies through rule of law processes and peacebuilding as state-building efforts conducted by Euro-American parties continues the colonization project through three empirical spheres of legal internationalization (local economies, local politics of rule of law reforms, and communal rules and norms)."
Sesay is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies' Department of Social Science. He is also the coordinator of the African Studies (AFST) Program at York.