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Key Text Recycled Elites

Author: P Chabal and J-P Daloz
Date: 1999
Size: 14 pages (1.87 MB)

Summary

Why have recent transitions to multi-party politics in Africa largely failed to sweep away established political elites? This chapter from the book 'Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument' discusses leadership and representation as key concepts for understanding contemporary African politics. It outlines a concrete approach to analysis, centred on the actual behaviour of leaders and other political actors in relation to the rest of the population.

The analysis of post-colonial political systems in Africa is all too often conducted at an excessively abstract level, instead of studying political realities as they appear empirically. This is particularly relevant when considering the introduction of multi-party elections in African countries. It is frequently assumed that Africans would oust well-entrenched leaders if given the opportunity, but this has not actually been the case. On the contrary, there has been a high degree of continuity, and few fresh political figures have emerged in the immediate past other than through military coups.

It is far from clear that the introduction of multi-party elections in African countries has induced any in-depth change in political culture. Old-style political leaders continue to have many comparative advantages over newcomers, largely due to the understanding of leadership and representation which is prevalent in African societies.

The number of plausible new contenders remains limited and there is little evidence that the rise to power of a younger generation of leaders brings about significant reforms.
As well as provoking widespread deference, age is an advantage in politics because it implies the accumulation of resources and therefore credibility and the means to fulfil political ambition.
Old-style political leaders are adept at knowing how to change style and discourse in response to predominant ideologies and this is in no way incompatible with the continuation of existing political practices.
Even with elections, the basis of politics remains grounded in a logic of asymmetric and clientelistic reciprocity - the population expects to exchange political support for concrete help.
For those at the very bottom of the social order, the material prosperity of leaders is not a problem as long as they too can benefit materially from their association with a patron.
Ostentation is an integral part of the process of representation, understood as showing, embodying the qualities and affirming the ambitions of a given community.

It is wrong to assume that sub-Saharan Africa is in the process of adopting Western-style democracy. The weight of personalised and infra-institutional dynamics remains stronger and more consequential than any programme of reform induced from outside. Other warnings for policy are:

Politics in Africa cannot be encompassed within the electoral process because it is experienced and instrumentalised according to the short-term logic of representation and reciprocity.
Without a wholesale mutation in existing political culture and mentalities, elections are unlikely to alter the logic of vertical and personalised patronage.
The argument that greater political control by Africa's citizens would ensure reform lacks credibility because relations between rulers and ruled are determined by practices which have very little to do with the formal structure of power.
There is no discernible scope for the elaboration of a political and administrative sphere, both professionally competent and autonomous from society.
A focus on democratisation runs the serious risk of deflecting attention from those more significant processes which need to be understood in order to make sense of what is actually occurring on the continent.

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Source: Chabal and Daloz, 1999, ‘Recycled Elites’, Chapter 3 in Africa Works: Disorder as Political Instrument’, African Issues, James Currey, Oxford
Author: Jean-Pascal Daloz , j.p.daloz@sciencespobordeaux.fr