Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T01:09:23.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Politics of Personal Relations: Beyond Neopatrimonial Practices in Northern Cameroon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2011

Ketil Fred Hansen
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article deals with political culture in northern Cameroon. By analysing two happenings—the arrival of a Minister in his home town and his speech to the traditional elites—it shows how neopatrimonial politics is practised in a given locality. Important aspects of neopatrimonialism—such as the personal distribution of public resources and the conflict between different moral obligations which results in illusory appearances—are described and analysed. Yet the complexity of symbols, behaviour and metaphors outlined in these two happenings suggests that we have to go beyond the neopatrimonial model of thinking if we want to gain a better understanding of politics in Cameroon.

Résumé

Cet article traite de la culture politique dans le Nord du Cameroun. En analysant deux événements à savoir l'arrivée d'un ministre dans sa ville natale et son discours aux élites traditionnelles, il montre comment la politique néo-patrimoniale est pratiquée dans une localité donnée. Il décrit et analyse des aspects importants du néopatrimonialisme, comme la répartition individuelle des ressources publiques et diverses obligations morales conflictuelles engendrant une sorte d'apparence d'illusions. Or, la complexité des symboles, du comportement et des métaphores, mise en lumière dans ces deux événements, suggère qu'il faut aller au-delà du modèle de pensée néopatrimonial pour mieux comprendre la politique au Cameroun.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , May 2003 , pp. 202 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2003

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

REFERENCES

Amundsen, I. 1997. ‘In Search of a Counter-force: State Power and Civil Society in the Struggle for Democracy in Africa’. Dr Polit, dissertation, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Azarya, V. 1994. ‘Civil society and disengagement in Africa’, in , J.Harbeson, , D.Rothchild, and , N.Chazan, (eds), Civil Society and the State in Africa. Boulder CO and London: Lynne Rienner.Google Scholar
Bassourou, A. and Mohammadou, , E. 1980. Garoua : tradition historique d'une cite’peule du Nord Cameroun. Paris: CNRS.Google Scholar
Bayart, J-F. 1993. The State in Africa: the Politics of the Belly. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, P. 1998. Practical Reason. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Bratton, M. and Van de Walle, , N. 1997. Democratic Experiments in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, P. 1991. ‘L'ethnie, la religion et l'Etat’, Journal des africanistes 61: 73–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burnham, P. 1996. The Politics of Cultural Difference in Northern Cameroon. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press; Washington DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, for the International African Institute.Google Scholar
Chabal, P. and Daloz, , J-P. 1999. Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument. Oxford: James Currey; Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, for the International Africa Institute.Google Scholar
Dealy, G. C. (1977) 1992. The Public Man: an Interpretation of Latin American and other Catholic Countries. Amherst MA: University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
Flambeau Ngayap, P. 1983. Cameroun : qui gouverne ? Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar
Geschiere, P. 1997. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa. Charlottesville VA: University of Virginia Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. F. 1999. ‘Space and power in Ngaoundéré’, in , L.Holtedahl, et al. (eds), The Power of Knowledge, from the Arctic to the Tropics. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Hansen, K. F. 2000. ‘The Historical Construction of a Political Culture in Ngaoundéré’. Dr Art. dissertation, Oslo: Unipub.Google Scholar
Holtedahl, L. 1992. The Sultan's Burden. BBC and NRK film.Google Scholar
Hyden, G. 1983. No Short Cuts to Progress. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Jackson, R. and Rosberg, , C. 1982. Personal Rule in Black Africa. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joseph, R. 1987. Democracy and Prependal Politics in Nigeria. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Mahmoudou, D. 2000. ‘Le Pouvoir, le savoir et la richesse : les Fulbe de Ngaoundéré face au processus de modernisation’. Dr Polit, dissertation, University of Tromsø.Google Scholar
Mauss, M. (1950) 1993. The Gift. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. 1992. ‘The banality of power and the aesthetics of vulgarity in the postcolony’, Public Culture 4: 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbembe, A. 1995. ‘Sexe, bouffe et obscénité politique’, in Terroirs. Paris: Harmattan.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. 2001. On the Postcolony. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Mbembe, A. and Roitman, , J. 1997. ‘Figures of the subject in times of crisis’, Public Culture 7: 323–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Médard, J. F. 1977. ‘L'Etat sous-développé au Cameroun’, Année Politique. Paris: Pedone.Google Scholar
Médard, J. F. 1991. ‘L'Etat néopatrimonial en Afrique noir’, in , J. F.Médard, (ed.), Etats d'Afrique noire. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Médard, J. F. 1994. ‘Politics from above, politics from below’, in , M.Masst, , G. T.Hylland Eriksen, and , J.Helle Valle, (eds), State and Locality. Oslo: NFU and SUM.Google Scholar
Médard, J. F. 1998. Patrimonialisme, nypatrimonialisme og studiet av den postkolonilae staten i Afrika sor for Sahara’, Sosiologi i dag (Oslo) 3: 3–22.Google Scholar
Mehler, A. 1998. ‘Cameroun and the politics of patronage’, in D. Birmingham and P. Martin (eds), History of Central Africa: the contemporary years since 1960. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Noye, D. 1989. Dictionnaire Foulfouldé-Français. Paris: Geuthner.Google Scholar
Rowlands, M. 1995. ‘Inconsistent temporalities in a nation-space’, in , D.Miller, (ed.), Worlds Apart. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ruud, A. E. 2000. ‘Talking dirty about politics: a view from a Bengali village’, in , V.Bénéi, and , C.Fuller, (eds), The Everyday State and Society in Modern India. New Delhi: Social Science Press.Google Scholar
Schatzberg, M. G. 1986. ‘Introduction’, in , M. G.Schatzberg, and , I. W.Zartmann, (eds), The Political Economy of Cameroon. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Schatzberg, M. G. 1993. ‘Power, legitimacy and démocratisation in Africa’, Africa 63 (4): 445–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schatzberg, M. G. 2001. Political Legitimacy in Middle Africa: Father, Family, Food. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Sinderud, M. B.Forthcoming., ‘On Royal Slavery in Northern Cameroon’. Dr Art. dissertation, University of Oslo.Google Scholar
Stabrun, ø. 1967. Der Lamidoen rdr (film). Stavanger: Norske Misjonsselskaps filmsentral.Google Scholar
Strandsbjerg, C. 2000. ‘Kerekou, God and the ancestors: religion and the conception of political power in Benin’, African Affairs 99 (396): 395–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stybe, S. E. (1972) 1979. Politiske ideologier. Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag.Google Scholar
Takougang, J. and Krieger, , M. 1998. African State and Society in the 1990s: Cameroon's Political Crossroads. Boulder CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Ver Eecke, C. 1988. ‘Pulaaku: Adamawa Foulbe Identity and its Transformation’. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (1947) 1979. The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Weiss, B. 1996. The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: Consumption, Commoditization and everyday Practice. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar