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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:African Personal Dictatorships
Author:Decalo, SamuelISNI
Year:1985
Periodical:Journal of Modern African Studies
Volume:23
Issue:2
Period:June
Pages:209-237
Language:English
Geographic terms:Equatorial Guinea
Central African Republic
Uganda
Africa
Subjects:dictatorship
Politics and Government
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/160571
Abstract:A personalist dictatorship may be defined as an authoritarian system of social repression set by an individual - civilian or military - in which, whether social or political structures are pro forma retained or not, all policy dictates derive from him, and all of society is viewed as his personal fief. Three such dictatorships have emerged in Africa - Uganda, Equatorial Guinea, and the Central African Republic - and they are the focus of this article. Ruling through auxiliary hierarchies of social repression (that may be political party, secret police, armed forces, or informal power gangs) with the tacit or intimidated consent of the bureaucracy, the personalist dictators - Jean-Bedel Bokassa in the Central African Republic, Francisco Macias Nguema in Equatorial Guinea, and Idi Amin in Uganda, ruled in an absolute imperial manner for the sole purpose of self-gratification, molding society in their own image and exploiting it to their own advantage. They created a vast societal void within which they often enacted their personal fantasies and whims, a vacuum that is particularly destabilising for successor regimes. - Notes.
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