The Constitutive Policy in the South : rebuilding Family Law in Senegal and Morocco
type: Distribution
access URL: https://theses.hal.science/tel-00881115
format: HTML
issued: 2026-05-09T02:52:06.966973
modified: 2026-05-09T02:52:06.936504

test_moissonnage_selune
type: Agent

The Constitutive Policy in the South : rebuilding Family Law in Senegal and Morocco
type: Dataset
contact point: Organization
  fn: CCSD
keyword: action-publique
keyword: theses
keyword: afrique
keyword: family-law
keyword: africa
keyword: infoeu-reposemanticsdoctoralthesis
keyword: application-du-droit
keyword: femmes
keyword: normative-pluralism
keyword: shssociohumanities-and-social-sciencessociology
keyword: gender
keyword: islam
keyword: statut-juridique
keyword: law-enforcement
keyword: shsscipohumanities-and-social-sciencespolitical-science
keyword: genre
keyword: marocco
keyword: droit
keyword: code-de-la-famille
keyword: maroc
keyword: pluralisme-normatif
keyword: senegal
keyword: women
keyword: statut-social
landing page: https://theses.hal.science/tel-00881115
description: n Muslim countries, Family Law is a highly sensitive matter, which generates recurrent controversy, mainly polarised around Islamic and feminist positions. This is, for instance, what can be observed in Senegal and Morocco. In both countries, the legislator tried to mediate this tension by strengthening Women's Rights within a text that conciliates Islamic imperatives and injunction to modernity. But this solution is far from receiving unanimous support.Taking the Family Law debate as a starting point, this work combines public policy studies and political sociology of law to analyse how the State tries to regulate the intimate sphere in order to be viewed as the sole domination apparatus within a context of strong normative pluralism. The comparison between the Moroccan and the Senegalese States - a comparison based on 'dramatic contrasts'- allows to focus the analysis on the differences between the Morocco and Senegalese states in terms of capacity and legitimacy, and thus helps us in better understanding the specificity of state-institutionalisation processes in developing countries.In both cases, the State tries to take advantage from the controversy. It plays on the different normative systems and involves all the actors who acknowledge it as the legitimate arbitrator in order to keep and consolidate its power of law framing. Furthermore, in order to overcome the difficulties linked to law enforcement, the State relies on non-state actors to apply the law. This evidences and confirms the fact that Family Law is the result of a process of co-production. Even if State jurisprudence does not constitute the only normative order, but one amongst others, it nevertheless importantly influences individual behaviour on both the cognitive and the experiential levels. It thus reinforces the State's pretention to constitute the ultimate political authority.
issued: 2026-05-09T02:52:06.963932
language: fr
modified: 2026-05-09T02:52:06.963937