L'exercise du pouvoir dans les etats africains depuis l'lndependance—generalisee ici sous le terme de “post-colonisation”—a ete marque par un penchant pour les ceremonies et par un esprit d'apparat plus surprenant quand Ton considere le caractere et combien illusoire sont des grands travaux realises par ces etats. De plus, le pouvoir est applique a un degre de violence et de pure exploitation dont l'on trouve les antecedents dans les precedents resgimes coloniaux. Le peuple reagit par la voie de l'indecence qui s'exprime dans des festivites obscenes. La question generate est de comprendre la raison pour laquelle ce pouvoir, en depit de ses limites evidentes, a semble-t-il autant de portee. Et plus precisement, pourquoi la population joue-t-elle apparemment le jeu de son gouvernement? Comment peut-elle a la fois se moquer des simagrees de ses gouvernants et toutefois prendre part a leur celebration? L'argumentation soutenue ici, d'apres les faits tires principalement du Cameroon et du Togo, explique que, si l'on centre l'analyse sur les precedes detailles et les rituels de cette concertation, il devient clair qu'il se produit une intimite, un lien presque familial, dans la relation entre gouvernants et gouvernes, ce qui desarme emcacement les deux camps et met le jeu du pouvoir en representation.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0001972000057909

Provisional notes on the postcolony

Current usages of the terms patrimonial and neopatrimonial in the context of Africa are conceptually problematical and amount to a serious misreading of Weber. His use of the term patrimonial delineated a legitimate type of authority, not a type of regime, and included notions of reciprocity and voluntary compliance between rulers and the ruled. Those reciprocities enabled subjects to check the actions of rulers, which most analyses of (neo) patrimonialism overlook. We apply these insights to a case study of Botswana and suggest that scholars reconsider the application of Weber's concepts to African states. Introduction Is "neopatrimonialism" a pathology, analogy, cause, effect - or a term for all of Africa's troubles? How is it linked to Weber's notion of patrimonial authority, and what parts of it, precisely, are "neo"? Is it an attribute of most African states only, or are its causes and consequences generalizable to other countries and regions of the world? Indeed, given its myriad uses by scholars, does the term neopatrimonialism retain any analytical utility at all? We argue that the answer to that last question is "yes" - but that the meaning and its implications can be surprising. We begin with a survey of the uses and misuses of neopatrimonialism as an idea, and of the analytical and policy consequences that may flow from its abuse. We then return to Weber to explore the core concept of patrimonial authority. Our focus - like Weber's over a century ago - is on the contrasting ways rulers may establish legitimate authority by securing consent (compliance) from their subjects. Throughout the analysis we draw a distinction between types of authority and types of regime - the latter referring to the means by which positions of power are filled in a state and the degree to which citizens are allowed to participate in that process. Larry Diamond's classification (2002), extending from liberal democracies to politically closed authoritarian regimes, embodies well our understanding of regime types. We suggest that many applications of neopatrimonialism wrongly assume a direct causal connection between types of authority and types of regime, or even treat the two as synonymous. To illustrate the fundamental difference between the two, and to illustrate the critical role of human agency in shaping both, we examine the case of Botswana, where a modern democratic state has been erected on historical foundations of patrimonial authority. We conclude by exploring some implications of our analysis, arguing that a misreading of Weber has turned African countries into examples of an imagined common pathology and caused a mistaken identification of this pathology with a type of legitimacy or authority. As deGrassi (2008) has noted, too often the term neopatrimonialism is invoked in the absence of detailed historical and ethnographic attention to particular times and places. Scholars consequently ignore variations in the interactions of power and accountability within African states that might lend themselves to insightful comparisons with countries elsewhere. Diverse Roots of Legitimacy For Weber, patrimonialism was not a synonym for corruption, "bad governance," violence, tribalism, or a weak state. It was instead a specific form of authority and source of legitimacy. Weber (1947 [1922]) defined power (Macht) as "the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests" (152).1 While he understood such power as pervading all human interactions, he was fascinated with how certain structural positions were allocated the right to expect compliance by others - or "the probability that a command with a given specific content will be obeyed by a given group of persons" (1947[1922]:152). Almost all structural subordinates retain some power to resist or subvert the desires of those in authority, but they also agree that certain individuals are entitled to their obedience. …

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0002020600003358

Rethinking Patrimonialism and Neopatrimonialism in Africa

The African Poor: A History.

In recent years, a number of analysts have argued that qualitative changes have occurred in the nature of violent conflict and that it is now possible to think in terms of ‘new wars’ that are disti...

The ‘New Wars’ Debate: A Historical Perspective is Needed

Political liberalization in Cameroon has been marked by the construction and mobilization of ethno-regional identities that pose a major challenge to the postcolonial nation-State project This book focuses on Anglophone Cameroon, a region characterized by a widespread feeling that reunification with Francophone Cameroon in 1961 has led to a growing marginalization of the Anglophone minority The book traces the historical trajectory of Anglophone Cameroon to reunification and outlines the strategies used by the Francophone-dominated State to undermine the identity of Anglophone Cameroon, the emergence of Anglophone organizations in the aftermath of political liberalization in the 1990s, the strategies employed by the Biya government to deconstruct the Anglophone identity, and Anglophone and Francophone responses to the Anglophone movements' views It pays special attention to two of the major confrontations between the government and the Anglophones, namely the struggles for the preservation of the Anglophone educational and economic legacies The book concludes with some suggestions on how the present stalemate between the regime and the Anglophone movement could be broken [ASC Leiden abstract]

Negotiating an Anglophone Identity: A Study of the Politics of Recognition and Representation in Cameroon

L'État au Cameroun

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FOUR has been an apocalyptic year of famine over a large area of West Africa Famine following drought has hit the West African savannahs, where there have been other bad droughts, notably the great one of 1972-741 It has also hit other parts of West Africa, notably Ghana At the same time Ethiopia has also been hit by drought and famine again, even worse than in 1973-75, while a large area of southern Africa has suffered a scarcely unprecedented three-year spell of poor rains At the time of writing, good early rains are reported in West Africa, while in southern Africa yet another Southern-hemisphere rainy season has ended with totally inadequate rainfall If the same happens in West Africa, as is possible since the sufficiency of the rains is unpredictable until they end in October or November, the famine already raging will become even worse and 1985 will see many more die besides the large number, probably hundreds of thousands, dead in 1984 A special FAO appeal, launched in October 1983, has led to massive exceptional commitments of aid for 24 food-short African countries* Deliveries are well behind commitments and it is sadly unlikely that aid has reached myriads of villages and nomad camps in time, which means by the time of writing (June 1984) The famine has shown that the capacity of many African countries to cope with such a disaster may be better than it was ten years ago, when it was very deficient, but is still not at all adequate Between the great crisis in West Africa in 1972-74 and the new one ten years later, there have been many years of inadequate crops in the agricultural savannah zones of West Africa Recurrent droughts and food shortages have been constantly studied since the 1972-74 drought attracted worldwide attention There has been abundant research into all aspects of the social structures and economies of the West African savannah states in French, American, British and African universities and institutions** It has examined many questions which the crisis raised, and which were briefly summarized by me in a lengthy article in African Affairs in October 1977 The major

Jonathan Derrick

Papers

L'État au Cameroun

West Africa's Worst Year of Famine

The Great West African Drought, 1972-1974

The ‘native clerk’ in colonial west africa

Cameroon: Dependence and Independence