Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T15:25:48.120Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Myth of the Expanding Centre —Politics in the Ivory Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Michael A. Cohen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A COMMON premise in the study of central–local relations in new states is the belief that governments attempt to extend their authority into most areas of socio–economic and political life. By exerting influence within a variety of distinct spheres of activity throughout the national territory, central authorities are supposed to create connections between national institutions and potential arenas for the exercise of central power. These ‘structures’, such as local administration, political parties, schools, and programmes as diverse as agricultural extension and family planning, are intended to be the orgartisational skeleton of the new state. Their success in relating central authority to specific localities, political movements, and development problems is supposed to indicate the degree of institutionalisation of a regime and its level of development.1 Observers of this process examine the ‘penetration’ of public policy into local areas, the expansion of the influence of central authority on traditional political and administrative arrangements, and the gradual incorporation of the ‘periphery’ into the process of decision-making at the ‘centre’. While differing in form and content across national boundaries, the ‘crisis of penetration’ is understood to be a common experience in the political development of new states.2

Type
Africana
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1973 , pp. 227 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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

Page 227 note 1 For a discussion of institutionalisation, see Huntington, Samuel P., Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, 1968), passim.Google Scholar

Page 227 note 2 Cf. Pye, Lucien, Aspects of Political Development (Boston, 1966), pp. 64–5.Google Scholar

Page 227 note 3 See Kilson, Martin, Political Change in a West African State (Cambridge, 1966), passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 228 note 1 Another dimension of central–local relations is the political socialisation of those who live upcountry. For such an analysis, see Salem, Claude, ‘Pluralism in the Ivory Coast: political attitudes and socialization in a one-party state’, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, 1973.Google Scholar

Page 229 note 1 New York Times, 14 December 1969.

Page 230 note 1 Zolberg, Aristide R., One-Party Government in the Ivory Coast (Princeton, 1964), passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 230 note 2 Zolberg, Aristide R., ‘Patterns of National Integration’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), v, 4, 12 1967, pp. 449–67.Google Scholar

Page 230 note 3 Stryker, Richard E., ‘Center and Locality: linkage and political change in the Ivory Coast’, Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, 1970.Google Scholar

Page 230 note 4 Ibid. See also Stryker, Richard E., ‘Political and Administrative Linkage in the Ivory Coast’, in Foster, Philip and Zolberg, Aristide R. (eds.), Ghana and the Ivory Coast: perspectives on modernization (Chicago, 1971), pp. 73–502.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 1 Staniland, Martin, ‘Single-Party Régimes and Political Change: the P.D.C.I. and Ivory Coast politics’, in Leys, Cohn (ed.), Politics and Change in Developing Countries (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 135–76.Google Scholar

Page 231 note 2 Staniland, Martin, ‘The Rhetoric of Centre–Periphery Relations’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, VIII, 4, 12 1970, pp. 617–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Page 232 note 1 See Cohen, Michael A., ‘Urban Policy and Political Conflict in Africa: a study of the Ivory Coast’, Ph.D dissertation, Department of Political Science, University of Chicago, 1971,Google Scholar where I examine the cases of Abidjan, Agboville, and San Pédro, and relate public policy to social stratification and political conflict.

Page 232 note 2 The old Conseils des notables were supposedly transformed into Conseils de sous-préfeaures, but have never met. The Conseils généraux, at the level of the former six déartements, were filled by appointed local ‘notables’, but never met in their five-year tenure. They were not reformed in the 1970 elections.

Page 233 note 1 See Cohen, op. cit. ch. 3.

Page 233 note 2 The legal structure of the communes in the Ivory Coast is based on the French municipal law of April 1884.

Page 233 note 3 Michel Ipaud Lago, ‘Le Régime municipal de la Côte d'Ivoire: caractères généraux et exemple de la commune de moyen exercice’, unpublished manuscript, Abidjan, May 1969, p. 10.

Page 234 note 1 For a good description of the process of decline of local arenas, see Staniland, op. cit.

Page 234 note 2 See Wodié, François, ‘Le Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire’, in Revue juridique et politique d'outre-mer (Paris), xxii, 4, 10–12 1968, p. 1002.Google Scholar

Page 235 note 1 See Cohen, op. cit. ch. 8, on the political origins of social mobility.

Page 236 note 1 Personal interview, Agboville, 9 April 1970.

Page 237 note 1 A year later the ‘plan d'urbanisme’ for Agboville had not yet been completed by the Bureau national des études techniques du développement in Abidjan.

Page 237 note 2 Salem, op. cit.

Page 238 note 1 du Plan, Ministère, La Côte d'Ivoire, 1965: emploi (Fontenay-sous-Bois, 1968), p. 97.Google Scholar See also Bloch-Lemoine, Michel, ‘Abidjan: mythes et réalités’, lecture given on 17 08 1967,Google Scholar at Fraternité Saint-Dominique, Abidjan, p. 4.

Page 238 note 2 The term was used by Bloch-Lemoine, Michel at a symposium of the Centre d'étude et d'action sociale de Côte d'Ivoire; Economies solidaires et participation (Yopougnon, 1969), p. 11.Google Scholar

Page 238 note 3 Personal interview, Abidjan, 29 September 1969.

Page 238 note 4 For a full account of this distribution of public services, see Cohen, op. cit. ch. 3.

Page 240 note 1 This observation is based on personal interviews in Agboville during the spring of 1970.

Page 240 note 2 Cohen, op. cit. ch. 7.

Page 244 note 1 Fraternité matin (Abidjan), August 1970, p. 1.Google Scholar

Page 244 note 2 The incident in Aboisso resulted from efforts of a secessionist movement of Agni tribesmen to break away from the Ivory Coast and form the Kingdom of Sanwi. Events in Gagnoa involved attacks by Bété villagers on Ivoiriens living in Gagnoa born elsewhere. Led by a French-trained Marxist opposition figure, the Guebié clan of the Bété tribe attempted to overthrow the local préfet and establish a separate state. These efforts led to massive reprisals by the army and the reported deaths of 200 persons.

Page 245 note 1 This phrase was used by Noel Eba at an early session of the ‘dialogue’ in September 1969. It was later included in official press coverage of the sessions. See Fallet, Pierre, ‘Le Dialogue du palais,’ in Eburnea (Abidjan), 11 1969, p. 4.Google Scholar