Vom Camarade Zum Monsieur: Strukturanpassung Und Demokratisierung in Benin

From 'Camarade' to 'Monsieur': Structural Adjustment and Democratization in Benin

Dirk Kohnert and Hans-Joachim Preuss

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: The process of political and economic liberalisation in Benin is regarded as a model for the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa. Benin made history by becoming the first African country to overthrow a military dictator by democratic means. The civilian coup d'état cleared the way for economic recovery, too. The strengthening of democratic institutions, and the good will of the new government of the former high ranking World Bank-employee Soglo, to follow the recommendations of the structural adjustment program have been honoured by the donors' generosity. The recovery of the economy, however, was hampered by the underlying fabric of the socio-cultural structure of clientelism and patronage, which resulted in a situation in which the on-going structural adjustment program mainly served the vested interests of the state class and rival strategic groups, bargaining for the booty of increasing development assistance. Thus, socio-economic conditions for a self-sustaining development process and, consequently, increased development assistance are not yet met. Nevertheless, areas of co-operation do exist in the fields of liberty of press and opinion, basic needs and self-help organizations.

Keywords: Transition; structural adjustment; democratization; Bénin; frankophone Africa (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: P2 P31 P32 P33 P37 P52 R58 Z1 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1992
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published in Peripherie 46 (1992): pp. 47-70

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/3674/1/MPRA_paper_3674.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Vom Camarade zum Monsieur: Strukturanpassung und Demokratisierung in Benin (1992)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:3674

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().