Mauritania presents a quite different explanatory challenge from Morocco. For, unlike its near neighbour, Nouakchott seems to offer a near textbook exposition of Levitsky and Way's ideas and arguments, starting with their foundational observation that not all political transitions ‘lead to democracy’. The country's 2005 turn towards more liberal and open government proved to be short-lived and, over the course of the next couple of years, it steadily regressed into authoritarianism, albeit of a more competitive form. That the self-installed Military Council for Justice and Democracy (Le Conseil Militaire pour la Justice et la Démocratie, CMJD) felt obliged to launch this experiment at all was mainly due to the political and economic pressure Western governments were beginning to put on them for having ousted their long-time ally, President Maayouya Ould Sidi Ahmed Taya. Anxious to avoid the imposition of any further sanctions, the CMJD quickly sought to mollify the West. On this occasion, therefore, the threat of further Western pressure succeeded in altering the regime's behaviour, in making it democratise, in creating the political opening.

Yet the speed with which this opportunity passed continues to raise difficult questions about the true extent of the West's support for this democratic turn and leverage over the regime. Western governments may have been pleasantly surprised by the course of events but their optimism has proved insufficient to sustain the country's experiment with democracy. This, by extension, generates doubts about how much influence they actually have over Nouakchott because they have failed to discipline subsequent governments into respecting and consolidating these earlier reforms. Why, if they have been able to make the regime democratise once, have they not done so again? Is this failure due to disinterest, incompetence or inability?

Then there were the causes of the West's ire, of the irritation and anger which prompted the regime to make these changes. While Western governments welcomed Nouakchott's democratic turn, their pleasure stemmed, at least in part, from their surprise. They did not expect it to respond in this way. Nor, crucially, did they demand that it do so. On the contrary, the regime took the initiative by introducing reforms calculated to appeal to Western sensibilities and prevent the imposition of any further sanctions.