John Cartwright

Some Constraints Upon African Political Leadership

RESUMELe leadership politique peut etre decompose en trois elements: la faculte de se faire accepter, ce qui comprend la legitimite, le programme politique et le style, cest-a-dire la facon dont un chef politique rassemble ses appuis. Ces elements se combinent pour produire differents types de leaders, chacun dentre eux agissant sous linfluence de differentes contraintes. Lexperience de leaders successifs en Sierra Leone demontre quun type en particulier, le type paternaliste, fonde sur la distribution generalisee de recompenses materielles, cree des attentes de toutes sortes liees a lexercice de la fonction de chef politique. Il devient alors tres difficile pour son successeur dobtenir de ses partisans un appui plus altruiste.

Warlord Politics and African States

Focusing on the examples of Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Zaire, this text demonstrates how African rulers hold on to power while severed from foreign aid and subjected to collapsing economies and disappearing bureaucracies.

Dark Age: The Political Odyssey of Emperor Bokassa

Dark Age recounts the turbulent political career of recently deceased Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the flamboyant president-for-life and later emperor of the Central African Republic/Empire. Brian Titley examines the myths and legends surrounding the man, probes their origins and veracity, and attempts to provide a more balanced perspective on this controversial and misunderstood figure. Following a lengthy career in the French army, Bokassa seized power in the Central African Republic in 1966. His flamboyance and excesses soon became legendary: he was accused of cannibalism, feeding enemies to lions and crocodiles, and beating schoolchildren to death. Bokassas tendency for self-aggrandisement culminated in 1977 when he named himself emperor and orchestrated a coronation in the style of Napoleons. He was overthrown by French paratroopers in 1979 and went into exile, but returned to his homeland in 1985 to face a sensational trial. Titley interprets Bokassas authoritarian and self-aggrandising style as an attempt to legitimise his regime in a context devoid of indigenous political structures and explores the troubled relations between France and its former colonies. Combining techniques of historical inquiry and investigative journalism, he has produced a fascinating account of a pivotal chapter in contemporary African history.