Revolutionary State-Building and the Politics of Conflict: Antagonism, Contestation, and the Collapse of Sankara’s Burkina Faso (1983-1987)

Why do revolutionary projects with strong popular legitimacy so often fail to institutionalise their gains? Drawing on the Schmittian–Mouffean debate on political conflict, this article theorises revolutions as state-building experiments whose durability depends on how post-rupture conflict is organised: through antagonistic closure (friend–enemy politics) or through agonistic contestation (legitimised disagreement). Using qualitative process tracing of speeches, policy documents, and secondary sources, the article analyses Thomas Sankara’s revolution in Burkina Faso (1983–1987) as a diagnostic case of postcolonial revolutionary governance. It shows how ideological ambiguity and confrontational state-building initially enabled mobilisation but subsequently narrowed coalitions, eroded institutions, and generated political and strategic isolation, culminating in regime collapse. A structured comparison with Ghana under Jerry Rawlings illustrates an alternative trajectory in which revolutionary legitimacy was stabilised through hybrid institutions that channelled conflict rather than suppressing it. The article contributes to comparative debates on revolution, state formation, and postcolonial governance by specifying a mechanism linking conflict management, legitimacy, and regime durability across the Global South.