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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:From administrative to civil chieftaincy: some problems and prospects of African chieftaincy
Author:Trotha, Trutz vonISNI
Year:1996
Periodical:Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law
Issue:37-38
Pages:79-107
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:political systems
chieftaincy
External link:https://doi.org/10.1080/07329113.1996.10756475
Abstract:The colonial and postcolonial principles of devolution, hierarchy and the administrative district changed the bases of power and authority of the chiefdom in sub-Saharan Africa. African chieftaincy became partly or wholly dependent on the central administrative apparatus. But the diversity of precolonial African chieftaincy remained. As administrative chieftainship, African chieftaincy is still part of an antagonistic intermediary order caught between opposing loyalties and severe conflicts of administrative subordination, despotic politicization, ambitious striving for power and self-interest, clientelism and patronage, folklorization and self-traditionalization. Chieftaincy is unlikely to disappear from African politics. It could become an important element in the reconstruction of polities trying to discard postcolonial despotism on condition that administrative chieftaincy is transformed into a new type of 'civil chieftaincy'. Principles by which such a transformation may be evaluated are local justice and local autonomy, legal competition, agency and competence, 'civil chieftaincy', legislative integration, and limitation of the national power of chiefs. Bibliogr., notes, ref.
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