Compliance and defiance to national integration in Barotseland and Casamance

Pierre Englebert

Africa Spectrum, 2005, vol. 40, issue 1, 29-59

Abstract: What determines whether peripheral regions in Africa comply with the national integration project? Why do some regional elites, outside the core "fusion of elites", willingly partake in the state while others promote separate paths for their communities? This paper suggests some answers, based on a comparison between Barotseland - where the Lozi leadership has chosen not to challenge the Zambian project - and Casamance - where local particularism has resulted in active separatist defiance towards the Senegalese state among many Diola elites. It argues that the contrast between the two regions is more apparent than real, and that elites in both cases strive for access to the local benefits of sovereign statehood. Provided they can use the post-colonial state in their local strategies of domination and access to resources, regional elites are unlikely to challenge it, even if they are kept at a distance from resource-sharing arrangements at the national level. A broader model of African state formation, including the benefits of sovereignty for local elites, is needed to make sense of the resilience of African states and of the compliance of loser groups with their authority.

Date: 2005
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