Contenu du sommaire : Varia

Institutional Change versus Authoritarian Durability.  The Algerian Trajectory in a Comparative Perspective.  — If the study of authoritarian regimes enjoyed these recent years a renewed interest in political science, the issue of the institutional change occuring within an authoritarian durability remains less explored.  This article intends to study this problem in the Algerian case.  The presidential election of April 2014, which would, according to the dominant interpretation, establish the primacy of the raïs over the army and the security services, thus constitutes a relevant analyzer to tackle this puzzle.  The analysis, which aims to capture the “combined effects” of institutions and processes, distinguishes between “despotic power” and “infrastructural power”, “real politics” and “pseudopolitics”.  Enshrined in this theoretical framework, the article shows, unlike conventional narration, that the longevity of Bouteflika achieves several objectifs: accredit the storytelling of the “autocratic turn” of the autoritarian regime in order to better simulate the decline of the political police; to provide a time portfolios to the deep state to enable it achieving the “4.0 version” of the Algerian praetorianism; channel, in case of uprising, the popular discontent in the rejection of the figure of the raïs to better preserve the strategic sectors of the system as the military and the deep state; sell the post-Bouteflika era as being a “regime change”.  The analytical path deployed in this text, by identifying the mecanism of the underground metamorphosis of the political police apparatus, elucidates the enigma of how institutional change evolve within a durable authoritarian system.

The Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church and the Revolution: How to Survive Thanks to a Reform (1974-1991).  — In September 1974, King of Kings Haile Selassie I (1930-1974) was deposed by a military junta of Marxist allegiance which came to power in Ethiopia.  The patriarchate of the Ethiopian Orthodox Täwahedo Church of Ethiopia could take part to the ideological apparatus established by the new regime despite having been a pillar of the monarchy system.  Besides it could launch an important reform concerning all the ecclesiastical society of the country. This paper aims at analyzing the place and the role of this huge reform within all decisions taken by the patriarchate at that time in order to survive to the difficult political context.  And we will see that this analysis permits to understand the Church-State relations during the military junta times and thus to avoid the usual dichotomy presenting the patriarchate of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as, in one hand a martyr of the military repression or, in another hand, as the creature of the military junta.

Embodying the “New Rwanda”: Dance and Post-Genocide Reconstruction.  — Since reaching power by putting an end to the genocide, the Rwandan Patriotic Front has undertaken the project of constructing a new, de-ethnised and modern nation that, nevertheless, remains anchored in its cultural roots.  This article examines the current revitalization of so-called traditional dances in Kigali.  In particular, it highlights the way these practices contribute to embodying the project of a new national identity and explores in detail the transformations in the dances that are caused by the post-genocide state ideology.  In order to achieve this, it focuses on the Inganzo Ngari troupe which currently serves as a model for the numerous other burgeoning troupes in the capital and is regularly invited to appear at government functions.

This study attempts to unravel the relations established among several social players, when a “resistance alliance” was organized by chiefs from Angoche, Sangage, Sancul and Quitangonha and the macua-imbamella and namarrais groups in the face of Portuguese government interference that resulted in a series of actions such as firearms, ammunition and warriors exchange and simultaneous attacks to administrative posts and Portuguese military in northern Mozambique at the turn of the XIXth century.  Key study lines focus on the triggering factors of these interventions and on how parties involved in the “resistance alliance” organized themselves.

Whiteness in the Mirror of Africanity: Migrations and Social Urban Constructions of an Underexplored Identity Assignment (Dakar, Senegal).  — The concept of “whiteness” is rarely addressed in social sciences. However, it constitutes an ethnicized and transnational reference which is used in the racial expression of differences and stigmas. It may also question the social representations of North-South borders. The assignment of ethnic identities is not only moving from the Western world to other countries. Then it is relevant to analyze its social constructions and plurality within globalized worlds nowadays. This paper questions especially Black-White interactions in the urban society of Dakar (Senegal) from a study of North American students' migrations and French professional expatriation. As the concept of “whiteness” goes beyond color matters, this analysis also includes the mechanisms of social categorization and hierarchy that this concept builds in the Senegalese society, in the mirror of “africanity”.

This article intends to offer a feminist reading of two novels written by African women on the subject of polygyny.  Other novels will be drawn into the discussion, in order to demonstrate how polyphony as an aesthetical strategy corresponds to a political intention of making as many voices of women as possible heard on the subject.  A simplistic reading of polygyny as always merely oppressive to women, as opposed to monogamy as a desirable norm, is contradicted by an accent on complex power constellations, not to be defined through the parameter of gender alone, and by intersectional regards that discover invisible forms of agency and semantics of freedom and empowerment that feminist conceptual frameworks cannot account for so far.  The enlargement of perspectives leads to an epistemological questioning of the possible Eurocentrism and colonial semantics of some central concepts of feminist theory, such as power and emancipation.

Contractors Politicians and Local Populations in Cameroon.  Between Patronage and Mutual Exchanges.  — In Cameroon, there is mutual exchange between entrepreneurs and local populations.  Economic entrepreneurs can use their economic resources to become political entrepreneurs.  After accumulating their resources, they distribute gifts to the local populations.  Through these gifts, they create friendly relations with local authorities and the population, who in return thank them and will eventually vote for them when they stand as candidates during elections.  This strategy enables them to become mayors or parliamentarians in their locality, thus political entrepreneurs.