Defining New Development Options and New Social Compromises in the Context of Reduced Political Space: Reflections on the Crisis in Cote d'Ivoire

Campbell, Bonnie

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Title:	Defining New Development Options and New Social Compromises in the Context of Reduced Political Space: Reflections on the Crisis in Cote d'Ivoire
Author:	Campbell, Bonnie
Year:	2003
Periodical:	African Sociological Review (ISSN 1027-4332)
Volume:	7
Issue:	2
Pages:	29-44
Language:	English
Notes:	biblio. refs.
Geographic terms:	Ivory Coast - Côte d'Ivoire West Africa
Subjects:	legitimacy political stability economic policy Development and Technology Economics and Trade Politics and Government Military, Defense and Arms Law, Human Rights and Violence politics Political development Political crisis social history Economic reconstruction
External link:	https://www.jstor.org/stable/43657701
Abstract:	The situation of violence which prevails in Côte d'Ivoire is the expression of a complex set of factors. This paper draws attention to the links between the current political and military crisis and the reshaping of political space on the one hand, and the manner in which economic reforms were introduced into the country over the last twenty years on the other. Rather than contributing to the renewal of past modes, the adjustment process appears to have been quite compatible with their continuation. Among the consequences, however, the reduction of the scope of State patronage was to entail a narrowing of the internal base of political legitimacy. Furthermore, political processes tended to be reduced to technical administrative procedures. The result appears to have contributed to the de-politicization of key issues (poverty, citizenship) that were increasingly treated as issues of good management. The paper briefly recalls certain political dimensions of the 'Ivorian miracle', of the adjustment process and the transition period, in order to argue that the present crisis is, among other things, deeply rooted in the nature of the reform process introduced over the last two decades. If lasting political solutions are to be found, it appears essential that conditions prerequisite to the shaping of longer term development strategies capable of reversing present trends of social marginalization and exclusion must also be addressed. Bibliogr. notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]