Description
Book SynopsisExploring the cultural underpinnings of political legitimacy, this title argues that the societies have a culturally-rooted template against which people come to understand the political legitimacy, or 'thinkability', of institutions, ideas, policies, and procedures. It also explores the role of the father-chief as head of the family.
Trade ReviewExcavating in the cultural context of authority relations, Schatzberg (Univ. of Wisconsin) adds fuel to the long-simmering debate over the peculiarities of African politics—and the assumed universality of explanations of Western social science—by demonstrating that legitimate rule in Middle Africa rests on a moral matrix of key premises: the father—chief; the importance, yet limits of consumption; the role and limits of inclusion and exclusion (largely women); and the organic alternation (generational rotation) of power. Space permitting, a fifth premise, on communal aspects of African life, could also be demonstrated. This review cannot do justice to the rich discussion and varied evidence from popular culture that Schatzberg adduces. This remarkable evocation of the politics of ordinary beliefs discusses what is politically thinkable, suggesting a cultural logic differing from the supports of states and institutions in the West. This is the realm of subjacent politics, an arena of implicit models that guide and condition political behavior. While the mundane implication is that the practices of bureaucracy and democracy in Africa will be interpreted in a special way, i.e., patrimonial and communal, the overall thesis fits within a Weberian and Tocquevillian tradition of the importance of culture and ideology in the exercise of power. This courageous book could form the basis of symposia for years to come.June 2002
-- H. Glickman * Haverford College *
Table of ContentsPreliminary Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments
1. Metaphor and Matrix
Methods
Paternal and Familial Metaphors
The Moral Matrix of Legitimate Governance
Subjacency, Legitimacy, and the "Unthinkable"
2. Representations of Power
Power Defined
Local Faces of Power
Conclusion
3. Parameters of The Political
The Elision of Church and State
The Elision of State and Civil Society
Conclusion
4. Alternative Causalities
The Banality of Sorcery
The Perils of Explanation in Congo/Zaïre
Other Visions
5. Matrix I-The Father-Chief: Rights and Responsibilities
Nurture and Nourishment
Punishment and Pardon
Corruption and Its Limits
6. Matrix II-Gender and Generation: Women, the Paternal Order, and the Alternation of Power
Women and the Paternal Order
Women as Counselors
Evolving Norms
Generational Rotation
7. Democracy and the Logic of Legitimacy
Epistemological Issues
The Matrix Revisited
Legitimacy, Democracy, and "Democratization"
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index
