Africana Periodical Literature 
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 Periodical article |
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| Title: | External Actors and the Relative Autonomy of the Political Aristocracy in Zaire |
| Author: | Callaghy, Thomas M. |
| Year: | 1983 |
| Periodical: | Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics |
| Volume: | 21 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Period: | November |
| Pages: | 61-83 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Congo (Democratic Republic of) |
| Subjects: | political elite dependence economic dependence Politics and Government Economics and Trade Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) |
| External link: | https://doi.org/10.1080/14662048308447436 |
| Abstract: | Despite its great and continued dependence on powerful external actors, the Mobutu regime has been able to maintain an amazing degree of relative autonomy - politically, economically, and militarily - because of the patrimonial nature of the Zairian state, the non-productive characteristics of its ruling class, the way various external actors define their interests, and their inability to coordinate their positions sufficiently and over a long enough time span to make a real difference. Complex state formation processes in Zaire have resultrued in the emergence of an absolutist state controlled by Mobutu Sese Seko as its presidential monarch, and by a ruling class with the characteristics of a political aristocracy. The patrimonial nature of this state and the non-productive, non-bourgeois character of its political aristocracy make the regime both more dependent on external actors and more able to resist their demands and intrusions. Zaire's severe debt crisis, and the failure of externally-induced political liberalisation and military reorganisation efforts during the period 1975-1982 are cases in point. Notes. |
