Abstract
Formal decisionmaking procedures and practices, high politics, are only one (albeit key) component of the political process. These formal procedures may be part of, subsist alongside, or stand in opposition to the deep politics of society. Deep politics are concerned not only with the way power is exercised but also with the purposes of governance; they may present challenges to policy, to the incumbents of public office, or to the dominant political vision.1 At issue, therefore, are questions of authority and power as well as legitimacy. Participation, collaboration, cooperation, cynicism, dissatisfaction, protest, rebellion, insurrection, revolt, civil war, disengagement, and withdrawal are all ways of reacting to specific regimes; they may also be profound responses to reigning political doctrines.2 As a consequence, patterns of political conflict have a direct bearing on policy decisions and on the dynamics of civil order and disorder in African countries. They also touch upon the fundamentals of political organization, on the creation of a civic public.
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Notes
John Lonsdale, “Political Accountability in African History,” in Patrick Chabal, ed., Political Domination in Africa: Reflections on the Limits of Power (London: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 130.
See also Goran Hyden and Michael Bratton, eds., Governance and Politics in Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991).
A much more straightforward view is suggested by Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, “Popular Legitimacy in African Multi-Ethnic States,” Journal of Modern African Studies 22, no. 2 (1984): 177–198.
This classification expands substantially on a scheme originally presented in Donald G. Morrison and Hugh Michael Stevenson, “Integration and Instability: Patterns of African Political Development,” American Political Science Review 76, no. 2 (1972): 902–927.
Alhaji Babatunde Joseph, “Press Freedom in Africa,” African Affairs 74, no. 296 (1975): 255–262.
Many works recognize the significance of factional conflicts but do not analyze them in detail. For one notable exception, see Jonathan S. Barker, “Political Factionalism in Senegal,” Canadian Journal of African Studies 7, no. 2 (1975): 287–315.
Karl W. Deutsch, “Social Mobilization and Political Development,” American Political Science Review 55, no. 3 (September 1961): 493–514;
Robert Melson and Howard Wolpe, “Modernization and the Politics of Communalism,” American Political Science Review 64, no. 4 (December 1970): 1114–1117;
and James R. Scar-ritt and William Safran, “The Relationship of Ethnicity to Modernization and Democracy,” International Studies Notes 10, no. 2 (Summer 1983): 17.
Quoted in Donald Rothchild, “Rural-Urban Inequities and Resource Allocation in Zambia,” Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies 10, no. 3 (1972): 233.
Robert H. Bates, “Ethnic Competition and Modernization in Contemporary Africa,” Comparative Political Studies 6, no. 4 (1974): 457–484.
Also see Nelson Kasfir, “Explaining Ethnic Political Participation,” World Politics 31, 3 (1979): 365–388.
For an excellent discussion of elections in Africa, see Fred M. Hayward, ed., Elections in Independent Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1986).
Donald Rothchild, “Middle Africa: Hegemonial Exchange and Resource Allocation,” in Alexander J. Groth and Larry L. Wade, eds., Comparative Resource Allocation (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications, 1984), pp. 172–175.
Donald Rothchild, “Comparative Public Demand and Expectation Patterns: The Ghana Experience,” African Studies Review 22, no. 1 (1979): 127–149.
See also Donald Rothchild and Victor Olorunsola, “Managing Competing State and Ethnic Claims,” in Donald Rothchild and Victor Olorunsola, eds., State Versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1983), pp. 1–25.
Not included are irredentist schemes, which spill across boundaries. For a superb analysis of these ethnic conflicts, see Benyamin Neuberger, National Self-Determination in Postcolonial Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1986).
See also Naomi Chazan, ed., Irredentism and International Politics (Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991).
Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978).
Samuel Decalo, “Chad: The Roots of Centre-Periphery Strife,” African Affairs 79, no. 317 (1980): 491–509;
Samuel Decalo, “Regionalism, Political Decay and Civil Strife in Chad,” Journal of Modern African Studies 18, no. 1 (1980): 23–56.
Donald Rothchild, “Inter-Ethnic Conflict and Policy Analysis in Africa,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 9, no. 1 (1986): 66–86;
and David R. Smock and Kwamena Bentsi-Enchill, eds., The Search for National Integration in Africa (New York: Free Press, 1975).
John A. Marcum, “Angola: A Quarter Century of War,” CSIS Africa Notes, no. 1, 37 (21 December 1984): 3.
John Ravenhill, “Redrawing the Map of Africa,” in Donald Rothchild and Naomi Chazan, eds., The Precarious Balance: State and Society in Africa (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 1988).
Much of the following discussion is based on Christopher Clapham, Third World Politics: An Introduction (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 160–168.
This type of conflict is not limited to Africa. See D. L. Steth, “Grassroots Stirrings and the Future of Politics,” Alternatives 9 (1983): 1–24.
Crawford Young, “Patterns of Social Conflict: State, Class, and Ethnicity,” Daedalus 111, no. 2 (1982): 71–99. This sentence is a paraphrase of p. 72.
Nelson Kasfir, “Class, Political Domination and the African State,” in Zaki Ergas, ed., The African State in Transition (London: Macmillan, 1987).
This analysis is based on Naomi Chazan, “Patterns of State-Society Incorporation and Disengagement,” in Rothchild and Chazan, The Precarious Balance, and on Victor Azarya and Naomi Chazan, “Disengagement from the State in Africa: Reflections on the Experience of Ghana and Guinea,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, no. 1 (1987). For a more general discussion, see Albert O. Hirschman, Exit, Voice, and Loyalty (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 106–131.
Karin Barber, “The Popular Arts in Africa,” (ACLS/SSRC Paper presented at the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association in Madison, Wisconsin, 29 October-2 November 1986), p. 6. This is a superb discussion of politics and popular arts in Africa.
See Irving Leonard Markovitz, ed., Studies in Power and Class in Africa (London: Oxford University Press, 1987), esp. pp. 27–66.
Also see Sara Berry, Fathers Work for Their Sons: Accumulation, Mobility and Class Formation in an Extended Yoruba Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
Irving Leonard Markovitz, Power and Class in Africa (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1977), p. 346.
Roger Charlton and Roy May, “The State of Africa: Evaluating Contemporary Challenges to Authority and Legitimacy” (Paper presented at the African Studies Association of the United Kingdom and the Centre of Commonwealth Studies Symposium on Legitimacy and Authority in Africa, University of Stirling, 23 May 1986).
Also see, for one example, Thomas M. Callaghy, “State-Subject Communication in Zaire: Domination and the Concept of Domain Consensus,” Journal of Modern African Studies 18, no. 3 (1980): 469–492.
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© 1992 Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc.
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Chazan, N., Mortimer, R., Ravenhill, J., Rothchild, D. (1992). Deep Politics: Political Response, Protest, and Conflict. In: Politics and Society in Contemporary Africa. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12976-8_8
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