Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-08T06:29:13.580Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Elite associations and the politics of belonging in Cameroon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Francis Nyamnjoh  and
Michael Rowlands
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The development of elite associations has been a consequence of the growth of multi-partyism and the weakening of authoritarian state control in Cameroon in the 1990s. The attachment of electoral votes and rights of citizenship to belonging to ethnicised regions has encouraged the formal distinction between ‘natives’ and ‘strangers’ in the creation of a politics of belonging. The article argues that this development has also led to the replacement of political parties at the local level by ethnicised elite associations as prime movers in regional and national politics.

Résumé

Le développement des associations élitaires est l'une des conséquences de la croissance du pluripartisme et de l'érosion du pouvoir étatique autoritaire au Cameroun dans les années 90. L'attachement des votes électoraux et des droits des citoyens à faire partie de régions ethnicisées a encouragé la distinction officielle entre les “natifs” et les “étrangers” dans la création d'une politique d'appartenance. Cet article suggère que les associations élitaires ethnicisées se sont ainsi substituées aux partis politiques au niveau local en tant que force motrice de la politique régionale et nationale.

Type
The competitive regionalism of elites
Information
Africa , Volume 68 , Issue 3: The Politics of Primary Patriotism , July 1998 , pp. 320 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bayart, J-F. 1993. The State in Africa: the politics of the belly. London and New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Biya, P. 1986. Communal Liberalism. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Collectif, ‘Changer le Cameroun’ (C3). 1994. Ethnies et développement national: actes du colloque de Yaoundé. Yaoundé: Editions C3.Google Scholar
Fisiy, C, and Geschiere, P. 1996. ‘Witchcraft, violence and identity: different trajectories in postcolonial Cameroon’, in R., Werbner and T., Ranger (eds), Postcolonial Identities in Africa. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Fodouop, K. 1997. ‘Elites et intégration nationale au Cameroun sous le régime du renouveau’, in Nkwi, P. N. and Nyamnjoh, F. B. (eds), Regional Balance and National Integration in Cameroon. Yaoundé: ASC/ICASSRT.Google Scholar
Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung/GERDDES. 1997. La Démocratic à l'épreuve du tribalisme. Yaoundé: FES/GERDDES.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 1982. Village Communities and the State: changing relations among the Maka of south-eastern Cameroon since the colonial conquest. London: Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 1997. The Modernity of Witchcraft: politics and the occult in postcolonial Africa. Charlottesville, Va., and London: University Press of Virginia.Google Scholar
Gluckman, M. 1940. ‘Analysis of a social situation in modern Zululand’, Bantu Studies 14, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gobata, R. 1993. The Past Tense of SHIT: contribution of an unpromising critic to the democratic process in Cameroon. Limbe: Nooremac.Google Scholar
Gobata, R. 1996.I Spit on their Graves: testimony relevant to the democratisation struggle in Cameroon. Bellingham: Kola Tree Press.Google Scholar
Gugler, J. 1971. ‘Life in a dual system: eastern Nigerians in town’, Cahiers d'études africaines 11 (3), 400–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ignatieff, M. 1993. Blood and Belonging: journeys into the new nationalism. Toronto: Viking.Google Scholar
Jua, N. 1997. ‘Spatial Politics and Political Stability in Cameroon’, keynote address presented at the workshop ‘Cameroon: biography of a nation’, held at Amherst College, Mass., 20–3 November 1997.Google Scholar
Kago, Lele J. 1995. Tribalisme et exclusions au Cameroun: le cas des Bamiléké. Yaoundé: CRAC.Google Scholar
Kofele-Kale, N. 1981. Tribesmen and Patriots: political culture in a poly-ethnic African state.St Louis, Mo.: Washington University Press.Google Scholar
Kofele-Kale, N. 1987. ‘Class, status and power in post-unification Cameroon: the rise of an anglophone bourgeoisie, 1961–80’, in I., Markovitz (ed.), Studies in Power and Class in Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Konings, P., and Nyamnjoh, F. B. 1997. “The anglophone problem in Cameroon’, Journal of Modern African Studies 35 (2), 207–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M. 1996. Citizen and Subject: contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mentan, T. 1996. ‘Constitutionalism, press and factional politics: coverage of Sawa minority agitations in Cameroon’, in S., Melone, She A., Minkoa and Luc, Sindjoun (eds), La Réforme constitutionelle du 18 Janvier 1996 au Cameroun. Yaounde: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung/GRAP.Google Scholar
Mitchell, J. Clyde. 1969. Social Networks in Urban Situations. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Ngwane, G. 1997. ‘Cameroon: nation at a crossroads’, West Africa, 20–6 October, pp. 1678–80.Google Scholar
Njeuma, M. 1987. The Record Club, 1953–58. Yaounde: CEPER.Google Scholar
Nkwi, P. N., and Nyamnjoh, F. B. (eds), 1997. Regional Balance and National Integration in Cameroon: lessons learned and the uncertain future. Yaounde: ASC/ICASSRT.Google Scholar
Nyamnjoh, F. B. 1996. Mass Media and Democratisation in Cameroon. Yaounde: Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung.Google Scholar
Postman, , The. n.d. Where Heroes go to Die. Limbe.Google Scholar