Colonial Legacies and Institutional Fragility in Niger: Tracing the Administrative Roots of Postcolonial Governance

Niger has experienced recurrent military coups, persistent fiscal dependence, uneven state presence across its territory and low levels of human development since independence in 1960. This article examines the extent to which these patterns are rooted in the administrative architecture inherited from French colonial rule. Drawing on historical institutionalism, it employs qualitative process tracing of scholarly literature and documentary sources to examine five mechanisms of institutional continuity: administrative centralisation, an extractive fiscal orientation, the political role of coercive institutions, legal and authority pluralism, and restricted elite formation. The analysis follows these mechanisms from colonial rule through the First Republic, subsequent military regimes and the period of multiparty politics. It interprets the 2023 coup and subsequent shift towards Sahelian sovereignty as a change in external political alignment accompanied by important continuities in domestic institutions. The central argument is that colonial administration shaped the initial organisation and incentives of the Nigerien state, but postcolonial political choices, reliance on resource rents and regional insecurity have also reproduced institutional fragility. The article concludes by identifying implications for decentralisation, fiscal reform, civilian oversight of the security sector and the accommodation of plural forms of local authority.