Table Of Content$2.95
By Aristide R. Zolberg
Revised Edition
Mr. Zolberg's account of the rise of the
Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast is well
informed and brilliant; it ranks among the
best two or three studies yet published on
African political change. / Martin Kilson, on
the first edition, in African Forum
Digitized by the Internet Archive
2012
in
http://archive.org/details/onepartygovernmeOOzolb
ONE-PARTY
GOVERNMENT THE
IN
IVORY COAST
-<%- ONE-PARTY
GOVERNMENT THE
IN
IVORY COAST
BY ARISTIDE R. ZOLBERG
REVISED EDITION
PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
1969
©
Copyright 1964 by Princeton University Press
Introduction to the Revised Edition" and "Appendix: The First Decade'
Copyright © 1969 by Princeton University Press
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
L.C. Card 63-12673
Printed in the United States of America
by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey
Revised Edition, 1969
First Princeton Paperback Printing, 1969
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by
way of trade, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise disposed
of without the publisher's consent, in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published
TO ^^ee/
MEMORIAM
IN
INTRODUCTION TO REVISED EDITION
^
LIKE many others ofmy generation, I was initially drawn
to the study of non-Western politics, and particularly to
Africa, by a desire to participate in two processes ofrevolution-
arychange: The emancipationofnonwhite colonialpeoples and
the emancipation of the study of politics in American Uni-
versities. Africa was both a political cause and a social science
laboratory. The cause of African freedom could be served by
recording in an earnest and sympathetic manner the achieve-
ments of African nationalist movements; the laboratory en-
abled young scholars to experiment with new theories and new
methods while minimizing the risk of interference from es-
tablished academic authorities who were often indifferent to
and almost always ignorant of political life in the Third World.
The re-publication of this book provides an opportunity to
reflect on the aftermath of both revolutions.
As the original introduction and concluding chapter to this
study suggest, by the time I conducted field work in the Ivory
Coast in 1959 it had become obvious that the achievement of
freedom from colonial rule did not necessarily coincide with
the establishment of political liberty. The most striking fea-
ture of Ivory Coast politics, as well as of West African politics
more generally, was the emergence of authoritarian tendencies,
especially in the form of a^nciparty^state. This phenomenon
captivated my attention and overshadowed what had origi-
nally been a more sociological interest in the relationships
between society and politics during periods of rapid historical
change. Many other observers shared a concern with the qual-
ity of political life in the new African states, and the ensuing
debate over democracy and one-party systems dominated the
activities of political scientists interested in Africa at the be-
ginning of the 1960's.
That debate has since been superseded, but some of its im-
vii
INTRODUCTION TO REVISED EDITION
plications remain interesting because they provide a link be-
tween the study of politics in Africa and the study of political
modernization more generally. For many of us who identified
with various shades of the liberal left in the United States,
the deplorable authoritarian features of some African regimes
were redeemed by their commitment to racial equality, popu-
lism, and economic justice. Some went so far as to argue that
authoritarian rule was even necessary and hence justified in
order to maintain freedom, to achieve equality, and to pro-
mote economic development. It did not matter if governments
were not democratic, since democracy was inherent in the
characteristics of mass parties and since the policies carried
out by some regimes would have eventual democratic con-
sequences.
The Ivory Coast occupied a special place in this debate.
Since its spokesmen initially rejected independence and later
eschewed Socialism, Negritude, Pan-Africanism, and Neutral-
ism, they could not earn the label "democratic" on the basis of
their policy orientation; furthermore, since the party had been
dismantled after the period of militancy and later transformed
into a political machine, it was no longer a "mass party," hence
the regime could not be dubbed "democratic" on that ground.
On the basis of this study, the Ivory Coast was eventually cate-
gorized by others as an important example of the "pragmatic"
as against the "revolutionary" version of the one-party state in
Africa. But this provided little comfort. To study the Ivory
Coast entailed removing oneself from the mainstream of what
had initially been most attractive about studying Africa; the
student who did not denounce the regime even risked facing
the uncomfortable silent charge of being a conservativc-by-
association. The only compensation was that to study the
Ivory Coast helped overcome at an early time the temptations
of romanticism which lay in wait for all of us wlio had par-
ticipated vicariously in the African emancipation mo\'ement.
In the Hght of later events, this was no mean advantage.
via
