The State-Society Struggle: Zaire in Comparative Perspective 9780231897549

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The State-Society Struggle

The State-Society Struggle Zaire in Comparative Perspective Thomas M . Callaghy

Columbia University Press

New York

1984

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Callaghy, Thomas M . The state-society struggle. Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Zaire—Politics and g o v e r n m e n t — 1 9 6 0 2. Local government—Zaire. 3. Comparative government. I. Title. JQ3602.C34 1984 321,9'09675'1 84-5865 ISBN 0-231-05720-2 (alk. paper) ISBN 0-231-05721-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

C o l u m b i a University Press N e w York Guildford, Surrey Copyright © 1984 C o l u m b i a University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America

Clothbound editions of Columbia University Press Books are Smythsewn and printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper

To Jane

Contents Preface

ix

Acknowledgments

xvii

PART I. COMPARATIVE A N D A N A L Y T I C PERSPECTIVES 1 . Mobutu's Zaire: An Authoritarian State in Comparative Perspective 2 . State Fo-mation and the State-Society Struggle 3 . Absolutism and the State-Society Struggle

3 81 111

PART II. THE STATE-SOCIETY STRUGGLE IN ZAIRE 4 . Zairian Absolutism and the State-Society Struggle

141

5 . Absolutist Territorial Administration: Mobutu's Prefects

233

6 . The Daily Tasks of Zairian Absolutism: Two Subregions

277

7 . Zairian Absolutism and the Coverover Process: Control of Local Collectivities

335

8 . Conclusion

409

Notes

427

Bibliography

475

Index

507

Preface For there is a real sense in which the problems of politics are perennial. . . . Nothing is today more greatly needed than clarity upon ancient notions. Sovereignty, liberty, authority, personality—these are the words of which we want alike the history and the definition; or rather, we want the history because its substance is in fact the definition. —Harold Laski 1

This study is about attempted state formation and the state-society struggle in contemporary Zaire examined from a variety of theoretical and comparative perspectives. In looking at politics in new countries today, we need to focus on some concrete unit or structure. A focus on the multidimensional aspects of "modernization," "development," even "political development" tends to be too diffuse. The same point holds for the often overly macrostructural, abstract, and deterministic notions of the more recent underdevelopment and dependency literatures, despite their proper emphasis on domination and extraction, which were so ignored by the earlier literature. The center of attention here is the state and the processes of state formation, and I believe there is need for a more historically, theoretically, and comparatively grounded view of state formation.2 The state, as Laski would heartily have agreed, is another one of these ancient notions to which we need to pay more attention. Until the mid-1970s, the notion of the state had not been a common focus of attention among political scientists, particularly Americans, for many years. With the rise to prominence of various forms of systems theory and structural-

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functionalism in the field of comparative politics in the mid-1950s, the concept of the state and its use as a key element in comparative analysis were looked upon with suspicion and generally neglected. In 1953 David Easton reviewed the use of the concept by political scientists and decided that "after the examination of the variety of meanings, a critical mind might conclude that the word ought to be abandoned entirely." He emphatically declared that, henceforth, in his work, "the word will be avoided scrupulously." 3 I would strongly agree with Easton about "the inadequacy of the state concept for depicting in general terms what it is the political scientist studies that distinguishes him from other social scientists. It defines by specifying instances of political phenomena rather than by describing their general properties."4 I am not interested in using the concept of the state as a definition of the subject matter of political science; my concern is with one specific type of political phenomenon that becomes salient in certain historical conditions, particularly where political order and control are uncertain.5 The state is one type of political organization which seeks dominance over a population in a particular territory. In this sense the term emphasizes separation, control, and autonomous power. If one is interested in the relationship of societal groups and external actors and forces to a dominant form of territorial political authority, then the concepts of the state and state formation become very useful and not, as in Easton's view, barriers to research. Concern with broadening the analytic focus of political science became evident with increased interest in the politics of the "developing" countries after the demise of European colonial empires in Asia and Africa in the 1950s and early 1960s. Particular attention was given, and rightly so, to nonstate forms of political phenomena. This was especially true for those interested in Africa, as social anthropologists demonstrated that societies that did not possess state forms of political organization were nonetheless highly useful for a general understanding of political life. It is my belief that the concept of the state, if carefully specified in analytic and historical usage, can be very fruitful for empirical work concerned with the processes of the establishment of political domination or control and unification by territorial rulers or

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their attempts to establish them. The state does not appear out of the blue to perform the function of maintaining social order; neither is it necessarily the pliant tool of a dominant economic class. It is created by political groups interested in establishing domination and control, and this involves struggles with other political and socioeconomic groups having different interests. In a 1968 article that discusses the state as a conceptual variable, the late J. P. Nettl declared that "there are probably good reasons why no idea of the state is likely to develop from the increasingly unique and particular political experience of these developing countries. As they develop their own autonomous traditions in coping with particular problems, which in turn are very unlike those of historical Europe, it seems improbable that any adequate concept of the state will appear." 6 Contrary to this position, I believe that the processes of state formation are the crucial aspects of politics in African countries today and that in many ways they can usefully be compared with those of historical Europe and early postcolonial Latin America. A false and dangerous belief in the uniqueness of the events of particular areas often accompanied the growth of "area studies" as fields of study for academics and as programs of instruction in universities and colleges. Initially the study of Africa greatly benefited from a multidisciplinary "area studies" approach, but a clear consequence of this approach as it developed was that social and political events, and, to a lesser degree, economic ones, were analyzed as if they were something unique to that area and had no relation to events in other areas of the world or to events in other historical periods. Thus, the contention was that in order to understand African politics, one should study primarily African sociology, anthropology, history, linguistics, etc. and ignore historical and contemporary situations in which these problems were dealt with in similar ways by ruling groups in different parts of the world. This tendency was reinforced by leaders of the new states themselves in their attempts to create new, separate identities and loyalties for their countries. I believe that, in an analytic sense, the state formation experience of other areas and periods is indeed germane to the study of state formation processes in Africa and that the use of comparative perspectives helps to highlight key aspects of politics in African countries today that have been ne-

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glected or inadequately conceptualized. It is also my belief that a clear concept of the state is being developed by African ruling groups and that many of them do approach their problems and develop their strategies from the perspective of a search for sovereignty and increased state power. Since the mid-1970s there has been a major and exciting resurgence of interest in the state and in state formation among both Marxist and non-Marxist writers.7 Much of the debate generated by this resurgence has centered on the nature and capabilities of the state and on the potential for and actual degree of the autonomy of the state from both societal groups and classes and from external actors and forces. I trust this book will be a useful addition to this new literature and the issues raised by it. The focus of analysis here will be the attempt at state formation and the resulting state-society struggle by the regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire. Many of the problems faced and strategies adopted by African rulers are similar to those that appeared during the formation of the modern state in Europe from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries and in early postcolonial Latin America. In all of these cases the major area of conflict is the location and distribution of political power and economic resources; it is a struggle between an emerging state structure and societal and external groups for power, sovereignty, and resources. Although concern for "development" or mass welfare may be a factor, even an important one at times, in the state's struggle for increased power, it is certainly not the primary focus of concern in most cases. Mass welfare concerns tend to become important only insofar as they directly affect the level of state power vis-à-vis external actors and in the consolidation and extension of political control throughout the territory. While doing preliminary reading and thinking about a major research project on Zaire, I reread Crawford Young's Politics in the Congo—the most impressive study of early Zairian politics. Writing before Joseph-Désiré Mobutu took full power in November 1965, Young noted that "the very nature of the Congolese political community is not entirely defined," and as a result, "at the present stage of knowledge . . . the primary challenge to the student of Congolese politics remains the basic task of providing a conceptual framework adequate to order the mass of disparate data

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available."8 I have tried to provide one such framework. In doing so, I have used a combination of comparative historical and contemporary analysis, Weberian political sociology, and selected notions from organization theory. This approach has its roots in older European traditions of political and social thought, and, in stressing comparative and historical analysis, it downplays the uniqueness of African events, but does so without removing them from their own historical context. From the earlier modernization and development perspectives it maintains a central role for ethnicity and other forms of particularism, personalized politics, and the importance of several key noneconomic social processes. Like the newer underdevelopment and dependency perspectives, it stresses domination, conflict, the clash of interests, the emerging importance of class factors, and linkages with international actors and structures. To provide a conceptual framework for Zaire is much easier now than when Professor Young wrote; the basic patterns are much more clear. The Mobutu regime will be portrayed here as an early modern absolutist state with a "democratic" facade of single-party corporatism and departicipation. The main field research in Zaire for this study was carried out between June 1974 and August 1975. We resided in Kinshasa, where I collected documentation and interviewed central officials and others knowledgeable about the regime. During three months as a staff assistant for the local representative of the Rockefeller Foundation, I had daily contact with the central Zairian state—a most instructive activity. Living in Kinshasa gives one a good feel for the hub of the Zairian absolutist state and its king— Mobutu Sese Seko. But, being particularly concerned about the nature of the state-society struggle in the "provinces," I also spent considerable time in three areas outside Kinshasa. For over six months I made weekly two- or three-day trips to Mbanza-Ngungu, the headquarters of the Cataractes Subregion in Bas-Zaire Region, between Kinshasa and the coast. I did some interviewing of administrative officials, but most of my time was spent in the relatively well organized archives or records room of the subregion. I was able to see almost anything I wanted, including classified material and daily cables and correspondence. The records were nearly complete for the 1967-1975 period, but uneven for the colonial and 1960-1966 periods. They covered all aspects of

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politico-administrative life and all jurisdictions. From these documents a rich, detailed, and complex picture of the state-society struggle and rural absolutist administration emerged. Like Tocqueville in his study of Old Régime France, I have "given much time to studying records that, while less known . . . , throw perhaps more light on the true spirit of the age." In a country where a strong central administration has gained control of all the national activities there are few trends of thought, desires or grievances, few interests or propensities that do not sooner or later make themselves known to it, and in studying its records, we can get a good idea not only of the way in which it functioned but of the mental climate of the country as a whole. 9

In addition to the administrative archives, I was able to observe the day-to-day operation of the administrative offices and to get to know the clerks and lower-level officials—both very enlightening activities. I also observed mass popular meetings, "animation" sessions, and Salongo (collective work) activities. I was able to travel to various areas of the subregion, including Matadi, the Bas-Zaire regional capital. Finally, in the Hotel Cosmopolite, where I regularly stayed, I was able to observe the social mixing of the local state, private, and religious elites. I also made three trips to the Kivu Region—to Bukavu, its capital, to the Nord-Kivu Subregion and its headquarters in Goma, and to three of its six zones. Total time spent in Kivu was about six weeks. In Goma I started to do the same things I had done in Mbanza-Ngungu but was cut short after about three weeks of fulltime work. I was, however, able to collect sufficient data to write knowledgeably about Kivu. In addition, I also made two trips to Lubumbashi, the regional capital of Shaba (Katanga). Altogether I spent about six weeks in that region. In addition to personal observation, I spent most of my time systematically inspecting mémoires (theses) on the central and local administrations written by university students. A total of about three weeks was also spent during this period in Brussels and Paris collecting documents. Between 1978 and 1983 I spent considerable time interviewing officials of Western governments, international organizations, and private banks in New York, San Francisco, Washing-

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ton, D.C., London, Brussels, and Paris, focusing primarily on the regime's external linkages and its economic and debt crises. Although the end product of this work will be a book on Zaire's debt crisis as a way of showing how the Mobutu regime has related to external actors and forces, the results of it are clearly reflected here, both substantively and theoretically. Finally, I paid a brief research visit to Kinshasa in July and August 1982. The focus here will be on the nature of the Mobutu regime, with particular emphasis on the state-society struggle in the rural periphery. The external factors affecting this struggle are also treated, both theoretically and substantively. Thus I will examine the nature of patriarchal patrimonial rule in an early modern state and the extension of central control over a complex and turbulent society using a patrimonial-bureaucratic administrative apparatus of a prefectoral type. An administrative monarchy is engaged in a search for sovereignty, centralized control, and a more direct, unmediated state-subject relationship and pursues what I term a coverover strategy of state formation. In the coverover process, prefects struggle against local particularisms, societal groups, and emerging classes by seeking to emasculate the power of all intermediary authorities, usually, however, without being able or willing to abolish them fully. The coercive and extractive nature of this absolutist form of domination and its ultimately limited character are stressed. The organization of this study is as follows: part I addresses several analytic concerns. Chapter 1 examines the Mobutu regime in Zaire as an authoritarian, early modern, patrimonial administrative state from both theoretical and comparative perspectives, using Latin American and African experience as principal referents; chapter 2 discusses state formation processes and strategies using concepts from political sociology and organization theory; and chapter 3 introduces the concept of absolutism and uses seventeenth-century France as the comparative referent. I will use "the European experience as a guide and correction" , 0 to an analysis of the Zairian state. One compares in order to discover general properties of the items compared and to grasp more clearly the singularities of each case." The absolutist model is presented as a conceptual framework for the Zairian case that may help to bridge the gap between the abstractness of struc-

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tural-functional development and modernization theories, as well as the underdevelopment and dependency literatures, and the concreteness and minutiae of descriptive political history. Chapter 4, the first one of part II, presents a brief political history of the Mobutu regime, including its colonial and postcolonial roots and early development, and an analysis of the nature and structure of the absolutist state, its ruler or "presidential-monarch," his ruling class, which I characterize as a political aristocracy, and how they relate to external actors. Chapters 5 through 7 present a detailed examination of the state-society struggle in Zaire today, with particular emphasis on territorial administration and the coverover strategy of state formation. The conclusion delineates the major differences between the two cases of absolutism, assesses the normative consequences of absolutist domination, and speculates on the future of Zairian absolutism.

Acknowledgments

S

ocial research and analysis are truly collective enterprises. This work would not have been possible without the intellectual influence and assistance of numerous people and institutions. The ways that Carl Rosberg contributed to this study are countless and invaluable; he provided material and moral support, infinite patience, and considerable time and interest. The scope and depth of his knowledge about Africa were of great importance. The writing and teaching of Reinhard Bendix stimulated my interest in M a x Weber and comparative historical political sociology. T w o other teachers at Berkeley had a significant impact on my intellectual development by the breadth, freshness, and rigor of their thinking—Kenneth Jowitt and Robert Price. Funding for the field research in Zaire and Europe in 1 9 7 4 75 was provided by the Institute of International Studies of the University of California, Berkeley. The friendship and assistance of its splendid staff over the years are greatly appreciated. Field work in Zaire was facilitated by affiliation with the Université Nationale du Zaire ( U N A Z A ) , its Faculté des Sciences Sociales at Lubumbashi, and the Centre d'Etudes Sociopolitiques pour l'Afrique Centrale (CEPAC). The generous and gracious assistance of James S. and Ursula Coleman made the field research possible. Additional valued support was provided by Hilary Rees Frost, Françoise Lambinet, and others on three continents w h o must remain anonymous. Special thanks go to Michael Schatzberg for his valued friendship, advice, and criticism. Numerous Zairians furnished crucial support, access, and hospitality, often under difficult circumstances. I cannot thank them enough and wish that conditions in Zaire were such that I could freely identify them.

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The National Science Foundation (grant SES 80-13453) provided funds for subsequent research, and the Department of Political Science, the Research Institute on International Change, especially Marjean Knokey and her excellent and amiable staff, and the Institute of African Studies, all at Columbia University, provided a supportive and stimulating atmosphere in which to finish this project. Special gratitude is extended to our friends Richard Spielman, Valerie Otani, and Linda and Henry McHenry, who helped in more ways than they realize, and to John and Mary Ruggie for their friendship, support, and collegiality. Above all, without the love, companionship, and support of Jane, none of this would have been possible. It is to her that this book is dedicated.

The State-Society Struggle

Part I Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

7 Mobutu's Zaire: An Authoritarian State in Comparative Perspective n early 1972 Nguza Karl-i-Bond was chosen by President Mo/ butu Sese Seko to become his fourth foreign minister since he seized full power in Zaire in a coup d'etat in November 1965. Still intoxicated by the pomp of his swearing-in ceremony and cheered by the congratulations and encouragement of his family and friends, Nguza attended his first meeting of Zaire's Executive Council (council of ministers). He recalls the meeting vividly. As he did during every meeting immediately following a change of ministers, President Mobutu explained what the term "man of State" [homme d'EtatJ meant to him: " A man of State is one w h o knows how to keep secrets. If we decide today to kill someone for reasons of State [des raisons d'Etat], it must remain between us." Nguza recounts that this " M o b u t u i s t " definition of an homme d'Etat sent shivers up and down the spines of the new ministers, " w h i l e the older ones, having heard it before, did not seem to be particularly moved," as he was not to be under similar circumstances in later years. He maintains that the ministers never had to make a decision to kill anyone for "reasons of state." At the same time, however, he admits that, in what he now calls an "inhuman absolutism," assassinations and summary executions did take place, the reasons for w h i c h were explained to the ministers by Mobutu if he thought it useful.' After t w o years Nguza became the political director of the

4

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

country's only political party and one of the most powerful members of the Political Bureau—the most important of the "royal councils." In 1977 he again became foreign minister, but he was shortly arrested, tortured, tried for treason, and imprisoned following the first invasion from Angola of his native Shaba Region (formerly Katanga). After substantial external pressure and because Mobutu badly needed continued Western support, Nguza was released from prison and became foreign minister for the third time in 1979. During 1980-81 he served as prime minister before fleeing into exile, where he called upon the Western powers to overthrow this "regime of terror." What type of regime has such a definition of an homme d'Etat? What kind of ruler would recount such a definition to all of his new ministers? What variety of men would serve such a ruler? What notions of authority, power, and legitimacy are inherent in it? How do such a state and its leaders relate to society and to their "citizens," or rather their subjects? What structure of domination supports such rulers? What are its economic bases and consequences? How does it relate to external actors? What interests are served? This chapter will portray Mobutu Sese Seko's regime in Zaire as an authoritarian one by discussing the general nature of authoritarianism and comparing it with authoritarian regimes in Latin America and other regimes in Africa. But there are many types of authoritarianism, and most regimes are a mixture of characteristics given the complex interplay of specific qualities of social structures, the values and abilities of ruling groups and classes, the nature of historical and colonial legacies, the impact of a multiplicity of international actors and ideologies, economic factors (both generic and idiosyncratic), regional and international emulation, and resource base. So, to specify both the general and particular characteristics of Mobutu's state, we need to specify what Zaire is and what it is not. A comparative perspective should help us do this. In the process, we will confront several general issues about sociopolitical change in the Third World, such as the nature of the state and state formation, the relationship of internal and external variables, the interplay of political and economic factors, the role of classes, the degree of the state's autonomy, the

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

5

impact of various levels of development, and the role of emulation and eclecticism. Since this book is not meant to be a comprehensive or detailed political history of the Mobutu regime, the discussion in this chapter will be relatively general, the intent being to establish the basic tenor of the regime. The rest of the book will focus in detail on the state-society struggle in the "provinces," although the first chapter of part II will present a more detailed overall look at the Mobutu regime conceptualized as an African variant of absolutism. To do this, we will first need to conceptualize state formation processes, particularly in regard to the struggle for domination by a territorial administrative apparatus (chapter 2). We will then conceptualize an absolutist state by looking at seventeenthcentury France, with particular emphasis on the state-society struggle (chapter 3). Using a diachronic analysis, we can see how Mobutu's regime, responding to a severe crisis of order and authority in Zaire, evolved haltingly and unevenly, but steadily, between the coup d'état in November 1965 and the early 1970s, from a relatively typical military autocracy with striking caudillo and Bonapartist characteristics into an African version of an absolutist state with key elements of single-party corporatism and departicipation and military despotism. Mobutu's authoritarian regime is an early modern, neotraditional, patrimonial-bureaucratic state within an organic-statist tradition clearly distinct from both liberal democracy and totalitarianism, but p o s s e s s i n g pseudoelements of each. It will be argued that the extraabsolutist characteristics of the regime are weakly institutionalized, but nonetheless important, supportive elements of the regime. (See Endnote, beginning page 69.) This absolutist regime is an authoritarian early modern state organized around a presidential monarch who has adapted a colonial state structure and patrimonialized it by creating an administrative monarchy which is used to recentralize power. In so doing, a coverover strategy of state formation and prefectoral territorial administration are used to control a complex and fragmented society and extend the state's limited domain. The single-party corporate characteristics, which result in large part from existing African models, are employed primarily in an attempt to control a

6

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limited pluralism and emerging classes resulting from a modest level of socioeconomic modernization and an economy in the early stages of dependent capitalist development. The prefectoral administrative apparatus is used to cope with the dispersed power conditions of traditional political structures, which remain partially viable, and with intense particularisms resulting in large part from fluid but powerful ethnicity, localism, and regionalism as they merge in complex ways with emerging class structures. The inclusionary state party is a weakly institutionalized arm of the absolutist state and maintains only a very limited mobilization of the subject population. The most heavily institutionalized structures and processes are those of prefectoral territorial administration inherited from the colonial state but partially patrimonialized by the presidential monarch. Politics is highly personalized, and a ruling class, characterized here as a political aristocracy, is consolidating its power within the structures of the state while the stratification gap between the rulers and the ruled grows. Of increasing importance are emerging, but still very fluid, class structures that are influenced by both the state and external actors and forces. The colonial state has been adapted to new realities and is influenced by precolonial notions of authority and conflict, but it has not been basically restructured. The Mobutu regime has a vague and eclectic legitimating "mentality"—an eclectic and often haphazard blend of ambiguous, fluctuating, and often derivative legitimating formulas or doctrines (as opposed to a coherent ideology)—which includes notions from liberal democracy, revolutionary populism, even socialism. Above all, however, it is organic-statist in orientation, drawing on traditional African notions of community, equity, authority, and power, particularly precolonial concepts of kingship, chiefship, and the "big man." 2 The eclecticism results partially from competing traditions and legacies of the precolonial and colonial periods and partially from contending ideologies in the current international system. The process of establishing and consolidating this absolutist regime has been facilitated by an international state system that supports the primary existence of states, even keeping particular regimes in power, but without necessarily being able to dictate their nature and structure in any systematic way. The result is a

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

7

regime dominated by a new political aristocracy that is able to maintain partial autonomy from both infra- and suprastate groups and organizations. The degree of autonomy varies over time, however, according to the outcome of the ongoing state-society and state-external actor struggles.

Zaire and the General Notion of Authoritarianism The Mobutu regime fits within Juan Linz's broad definition of an authoritarian political system: political systems with limited, not responsible, political pluralism, without elaborate and guiding ideology, but with distinctive mentalities, without extensive nor intensive political mobilization, except at some points in their development, and in which a leader or occasionally a small group exercises power within formally ill-defined limits but actually quite predictable ones.3 Zaire does have limited political pluralism, particularly in the urban areas and the "modern" sectors of the economy, but, as we shall see, it also has intense particularism and emerging classes. This modest pluralism is not responsible because it is controlled by and enclosed within the corporatist structure of the single-party apparatus of the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR). The regime's official doctrine—referred to as Mobutuism since 1974—is clearly not an elaborate and guiding ideology, but rather a distinctive, if eclectic "mentality." The mobilization achieved by the state-party apparatus is relatively extensive, but it is certainly not intensive. Finally, President Mobutu definitely exercises broad power within formally ill-defined limits, but limits to the effectiveness of this broad personal power clearly do exist. Linz stresses that the key elements of this definition are the nature and degree of the limited pluralism and how it is mobilized, controlled or demobilized. He notes that the limitation of political pluralism and the political consequences of socioeconomic pluralism may be legal or de facto. As in most single-party regimes in Africa, pluralism in Zaire is controlled legally via the state party, but I argue that the single party is not the dominant

8

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

regime trait. The MPR is less institutionalized, less a political machine, and more a mere propaganda element of the state apparatus than in most African states. In the context of their work on Mexico, Susan and John Purcell provide a definition of an authoritarian regime that clearly fits the case of Zaire: To state it briefly, an authoritian system emphasizes the centralization of power, the flow of decisions from the top down rather than of demands from the bottom up, deference to authority, limited pluralism, and the use of violent repression when other methods of cooptation and control fail. 4

This authoritarian syndrome is frequently accompanied by "low subject mobilization of the population, and . . . the predominance of patrimonial rulership on the part of a single leader or a small group."5 One common result of limited pluralism in authoritarian regimes is that leaders of groups owe their primary allegiance to the regime's patrimonial leader or dominant group and are only secondarily dependent on the support of their membership. Interest group leaders who forget this fact frequently find themselves removed from power. Likewise, no direct relationship between expressed group demands and the patrimonial leader's decisions exists, as demands can be ignored, at least temporarily. The leadership has very broad discretionary power, and groups usually find themselves reacting to decisions rather than helping to make them. Individuals and groups are mobilized only temporarily, but often repeatedly, to ratify decisions and demonstrate support—another indication of low levels of actual participation. In Zaire, this is reflected in the use of mass meetings, marches of support, animation, plebiscites, and other pseudoforms of participation. Such forms of low and controlled subject mobilization significantly reduce the number of demands on the patrimonial ruler and reinforce the erratic relationship between group demands and regime responses. Occasionally, however, an issue will break through and lead to violence and protest, which is usually met with repression, the removal of group leaders, and their replacement by those willing to demobilize the group. Then and only then will the leader deal with the triggering issue. The primary concern of the leadership of authoritarian regimes is to avoid

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

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making decisions that might "permanently mobilize the opposition of a significant sector of the authoritarian coalition." 6 The mentalities of authoritarian regimes are usually an eclectic and often haphazard blend of ambiguous, fluctuating, and often derivative legitimating formulas that attempt to give the impression of being an ideology. In fact, however, they lack coherence, complexity, and clear articulation of specific assertions and explicit commitments. As a result, they also lack sustained mobilizational power. Linz specifically mentions African singleparty states in this context and notes the rapid decay of their mobilizational component. 7 The vague and fluctuating nature of the authoritarian legitimating package or mentality has its uses, however. It permits the strong personal ruler or ruling group wide discretion in decision making because limiting ideological commitments are few and unspecific, and it facilitates major and repeated changes in policy direction and the co-optation of opponents. Authoritarian regimes tend to incorporate into their legitimating mentalities elements of the dominant ideas of the time, especially those that appear to be congruent with the march of history. The two major post-World War II models for eclectic emulation have been liberal democracy and Marxist revolutionary doctrines. This has certainly been the case for African states, with their late colonial legacy of liberal democracy and the influence of socialism and Marxist-Leninist models of the mobilizational single-party state. In their formal legitimating elements, current authoritarian regimes tend to shift back and forth on a continuum between these two polar legitimacy models.8 Wherever a regime is on this continuum, however, the content of legitimacy doctrines is often highly populist in orientation, as it is in Zaire. But regimes with highly populist pronouncements often tend, in fact, to be conservative, hierarchical, and organic-statist in orientation, with nationalist and developmental ideas overlaying a vision of authority that implies reinforcement of the power of the state and a highly persona I istic ruler.9 In Zaire, the Mobutu regime uses its single-party apparatus in a very organic-statist manner in large part to propound populist and revolutionary transformation notions in its legitimating rhetoric, all the while maintaining that "democracy" exists. The "nation" is employed as the key focus of organic notions of consen-

10

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

sus and the minimization of conflict, but the determination of the substance of the consensus is left to the powerful and patriarchal presidential monarch. In Linz's categorization of authoritarian regimes, Zaire fits most closely with the category of "postindependence mobilizational authoritarian regimes," in which there exists a large gap between theory and practice.10 This category is almost exclusively derived from African experience. Rather than being genuine revolutionary mobilization regimes, such states in practice become loose political machines with limited penetration capacity; the semblance of charismatic leadership; derivative, ambiguous, and often contradictory ideological formulations; and low levels of socioeconomic development, which they are unable to alter. Linz usefully points to a general convergence of authoritarian states toward organic-statist formulas while maintaining single-party or military-bureaucratic regime structures, even alternating back and forth between them.11 In Zaire, single-party structures are even more superficial than in most other such African regimes. In large part, this results from the fact that the party did not emerge out of the struggle for independence as it did in most other African countries, but was instead created out of thin air as an arena for state-corporatist control of a limited pluralism and emerging classes, for modest mobilization of the subject population, and for both "revolutionary" and "democratic" legitimation purposes. The party has, for all intents and purposes, fused with the state administrative apparatus and has never performed political machine or "linkage" functions to the extent it has in other African single-party regimes. The creation of the MPR by Mobutu was in large part a natural reaction of partial emulation given the African context in which he was working when attempting to consolidate his regime. Before discussing the concept of organic statism, I need to introduce the notion of an early modern state.

Zaire as an Early Modern Authoritarian State Linz makes a distinction between traditional and modern authoritarian regimes that is unnecessarily arbitrary and confusing. Such

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a distinction plays down intermediary situations while overly stretching the modern authoritarian category. Linz discusses regimes with "traditional" or "sem¡traditional legitimate authority" as "premodern" political systems "in which there is the persistence of traditional elements, legitimation, and institutions."12 The key word here appears to be "persistence," as he spends considerable space analyzing Morocco as an example of a state in this category. He also includes Thailand, Nepal, the states on the Arabian peninsula, and nineteenth-century Latin American caudillismo in this traditional authoritarian category. According to Linz, these types of regimes should be "distinguished from those in which such elements have been mixed with nontraditional, generally Western institutions, often in uneasy coexistence." These he classifies as modern authoritarian regimes.13 Linz includes most African states in his "postindependence mobilizational authoritarian regime" subcategory of modern authoritarianism, although he spends most of his time talking about the enormous gap between "theory and reality." While Linz notes that "scholars focusing on the authoritarian structures at the center—single parties, military establishments, bureaucracies—risk underestimating the extent to which government and politics take place in traditional or mixed institutions according to traditional values . . . at the margin or outside the controls of central authorities," 14 he includes many regimes in his modern authoritarian category that are modern in only very marginal ways. To cope with these problems, the notion of early modern state will be used here as an intermediate typological category to refer to regimes that are neither persisting traditional ones nor truly modern authoritarian ones. Key distinguishing elements include: 1) the degree to which traditional or semitraditional forms of politics remain viable in the periphery, 2) the degree to which various types of particularism, as opposed to pluralist and class structures, remain a primary concern of central authorities, and 3) the degree to which central authorities themselves are neotraditional (particularly patrimonial) in character, structure, legitimation, and style. Most such states also have low levels of socioeconomic modernization, are primarily preindustrial, and many contemporary ones find themselves in the earliest stages of the delayed-dependent development syndrome or are

12

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

attempting to break out of it. Thus, as used here, early modern is a typological concept encompassing specific characteristics, not necessarily a historical or chronological one, much less an implicitly evolutionary one. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century absolutist states in Europe were early modern. Many current African and Asian states would be included in this category, as would most nineteenth-century Latin American states.15 Although many African states have, as we shall see, superficial similarities with current authoritarian regimes in Latin America, most of the latter would not be considered predominantly early modern in character. Despite Linz's formulation then, these African states are not modern states in any substantial way. Reinhard Bendix has clearly delineated Weber's notion of the modern state, which will be used here: According to Weber a modern state exists where a political community possesses the following characteristics: (1) an administrative and legal order that is subject to change by legislation; (2) an administrative apparatus that conducts official business in accordance with legislative regulation; (3) binding authority over all persons—who usually obtain their citizenship by birth—and over mosi actions taking place in the area of its jurisdiction; (4) the legitimation to use force within this area if coercion is permitted or prescribed by the legally constituted government, i.e., if it is in accordance with enacted statute. Legal order, bureaucracy, compulsory jurisdiction over a territory and monopolization of the legitimate use of force are the essential characteristics of the modern state.'6

Weber also sets forth certain preconditions for the existence of a modern state: These preconditions are: (1) monopolization of the means of domination and administration based on: (a) the creation of a centrally directed and permanent system of taxation; (b) the creation of a centrally directed and permanent military force in the hands of a central governmental authority; (2) monopolization of legal enactments and the legitimate use of force by the central authority; and (3) the organization of a rationally oriented officialdom, whose exercise of administrative functions is dependent upon the central authority.17

The modern state emerged gradually in an uneven pattern and is historically rare and distinctive. Weber was concerned with

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13

specifying this distinctiveness. A creation of European monarchs from the late feudal period in which they struggled against a "multiplicity of petty powers and competing jurisdictions," 18 the modern state eventually became an efficient instrument of wielding and maintaining power, of exercising domination. Emerging out of a severe crisis of order in the late feudal period in which conflict and insecurity were endemic, the modern state was the result of a long, violent, and uncertain struggle by European princes to consolidate their power at the expense of all other authorities. Some of the attempts succeeded and have endured, but as Charles Tilly has pointed out,19 many of these European attempts failed. Out of the cases that succeeded, a new, distinctive form of state was eventually created as a relatively pure form of legal-rational domination. The modern state, according to Weber, has the development of bureaucratic administration at its roots. It is a question of an effective centralization of power in a single authority that controls the localities and maintains a direct relationship between that authority and the individual, unmediated by all other authority structures; power is concentrated; administration is continuous, direct, and intensive; and a single set of laws exists for all individuals. There is a qualitative dissimilarity between the sociopolitical processes of modern states and those of nonmodern polities. A major characteristic of societies and polities that are not governed by modern states is that power is dispersed; where some concentration or centralization of power exists, it is only partial and inefficient. Direct state-individual relationships are limited because many authority relationships are mediated. Administration is intermittent, not continuous or highly regularized. Boundaries and populations are often ill-defined, and no single set of laws exists. Where state forms occur, there is often little manifest separation between state and society, especially in terms of administration, and many political, judicial, and administrative functions are fused. Lastly, political penetration capabilities are limited in power and in functional scope. Nonmodern politics are often mixtures of patrimonial, charismatic, and even some bureaucratic elements of Weber's three types of domination. Patrimonial (from gerontarchical and patriarchal through sultanist) forms of leadership, administration, and legitimation tend to predomi-

14

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

nate, however. "What is missing," as Bendix has put it, "is the continuous and direct penetration of a settled community by a single authority." Instead, "locality against center, weak and intermittent administration, multiple authorities, lack of coincidence of political, military, economic, and social capacities" are the hallmarks of nonmodern polities.20 Early modern states are ones that have made some progress toward acquiring the characteristics of a modern state as delineated above, but still have substantial distance to travel before becoming predominantly modern. Mobutu's Zaire is an early modern variant of an organicstatist regime—an African absolutist state with corporatist tendencies manifested in the pseudomodern ideological and structural forms of a single party. It is neotraditional because it is not the persistence of precolonial traditional rule, although it draws heavily on precolonial notions of kingly, chiefly, and "big man" authority. Rather, the latter are used to help consolidate a presidential monarchy, which emerged slowly out of a military coup d'état that took place in a situation of near total breakdown following the end of colonial rule. Pseudomodern authoritarian forms of rule only partially mask the solid neotraditional core of a patrimonialized colonial state structure that must contend with traditional and quasi-traditional politics, powerful forms of particularism, and emerging class consciousness and structures in the periphery.2'

Authoritarianism, Organic Statism, and Corporatism The nature of Zairian authoritarianism falls within the organic-statist vision of politics, which stresses the organic harmony and order of the political community as guaranteed and structured by a relatively autonomous state. Such an elitist and statist orientation adopts an intermediary position between liberal pluralist and Marxist views of politics by emphasizing the need for and legitimacy of unity in order to achieve the common good. In so doing, it rejects individualistic, autonomous group, and class-based forms of conflict in favor of state-structured and controlled interaction. The state is seen as necessary to regulate conflict, and this regulation is achieved in large part by the "architectonic action" of

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

15

the rulers.22 The state is not treated as a dependent variable as in liberal pluralism and classical Marxism (but not Leninism). Rather, the notion of the state is rooted in a tradition that views political institutions as natural and requiring order and power—political authority is both necessary and legitimate. The state takes on a moral te/os as it balances, harmonizes, and structures the relations between itself and society to ensure the integration of the parts with the whole. These ideas have their historical roots above all in Roman and natural law and Catholic social philosophy, especially the notions of political community, sovereignty, and the concession theory of association. They are central to absolutism, most Latin American forms of authoritarianism, and African notions of the single-party state. In the case of Zaire, they are likewise congruent with certain traditional notions of chiefly authority and the thrust of the Belgian colonial state, which had its own roots in Roman administrative law and elitist and statist views of order, authority, and harmony.23 While the state, in this view, needs to be relatively autonomous, strong, and interventionist, it does not abolish all component parts of society. In Leninist organic views, the state strives for the abolition or total penetration and transformation of all elements of society. This in part accounts for its totalitarian nature and the adoption of a breakthrough strategy of state formation. In organic-statist views, on the other hand, the "principle of subsidiarity" operates, in which intermediary authorities are to be tightly controlled but not abolished.24 In this sense there is an ambivalent attitude toward existing societal structures, which greatly accounts for the adoption of a coverover strategy of state formation and authoritarian rather than totalitarian forms of rule. Central to this position is the concession theory of association, in which societal groups are structured, chartered, or even created by the state, which supervises their activities.25 Within the organic-statist tradition or view of governance, a tension exists between the theoretical partial autonomy of groups and the statist drive for control, and the latter thrust tends to dominate in practice. This certainly is the case for European absolutism and has, likewise, been the tendency in Latin American corporatist regimes and in African single-party states. Achievement may be another matter, how-

16

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

ever. For Zairian absolutism, the gap between what I call theoretical and factual absolutism incarnates this organic-statist tension. Historically, organic-statist views of politics and domination have been linked with a wide range of regime types, including the Marxist "exceptions" of absolutism and Bonapartism, about which more later. One of the most discussed "modern" variants of the organic-statist model is corporatism, particularly in its many democratic, populist, personalistic, and bureaucratic-military authoritarian varieties in Latin America. In the African context, it is most clearly linked to the single-party state. Mobutu's Zaire is an absolutist state with a single-party corporatist overlay. Above all, corporatism "should be understood as a set of structures which link society with the state." Most simply put, corporatism is state structuring of group rather than individual or class interests in order to eliminate spontaneous, uncontrolled, or conflictual interest articulation, that is, to control and regulate limited pluralism. The state may charter, reorganize, or even create interest groups, thereby limiting and controlling their numbers and qualities and in the process granting them quasi-monopoly status and special prerogatives. These groups are carefully monitored so that they do not represent inappropriate and highly conflictual demands of whatever type.26 In the Latin American context this means primarily class-based demands; in the African context it means more of a mixture of ethnic, regional, religious, functional, and emerging class demands, and complex and shifting combinations of them. Corporatist structures are frequently a complement to and partial substitute for sheer administrative control often based on high levels of coercion. By controlling participation, actually by organizing "departicipation,"27 less outright coercion may have to be used. There are exclusionary and inclusionary varieties of corporatist structures, with the single party as the most common version of inclusionary corporatism.28 The attempted imposition of corporatist structures by ruling groups is often a conscious response to a perceived crisis of political and/or socioeconomic order, a reaction to fragmentation and breakdown or the threat of it. The rulers aim to restructure the relationship between state and society and emphasize the necessity and legitimacy of order and a strong, relatively autono-

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

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mous state in doing so. In the Third World, such crises have frequently arisen in the context of poorly functioning liberal democratic structures and/or of severe economic difficulties. The establishment of corporatist structures frequently draws on a strong centralist, authoritarian, and partially organic-statist tradition, especially the continuity of such structures and ideas from a colonial period. Although such a tradition may be deeply rooted, it is rarely unchallenged by contrary notions, usually of a liberal democratic, but sometimes of a totalitarian, nature. Within the Latin American context, a major debate rages over whether the current prominence of a variety of corporatist regimes primarily results from the historical continuity of the centralized colonial administrative state with corporatist characteristics and the patrimonial leadership patterns associated with it or is more a response to new crises, particulary of a developmental nature.29 It is most likely a combination of both—a response by relatively developed states to new political and socioeconomic conditions that draws on the centralist, organic-statist tradition of the colonial period for structural models and justifications for them. The attempted imposition of corporatist political arrangements results, however, from the choice of the rulers and is not determined or inalterably dictated by historical continuity, external actors, political or socioeconomic crises, the nature of societal structure, or combinations of them. It may certainly be facilitated by them, however. Likewise, the success of such efforts depends on the outcome of the state-society struggle, which is affected by a whole host of internal and external factors. The Mobutu regime in Zaire clearly emerged from the ashes of a severe sociopolitical crisis, an almost total breakdown coming on the demise of liberal democratic structures after independence. For Mobutu, the existence of both precolonial and especially colonial traditions of centralized rule and organic-statist orientations has provided a supportive environment for his efforts to create an absolutist state with heavily corporatist overtones. He has done so by patrimonializing the colonial state's apparatus of control. This was clearly a natural reaction in such crisis conditions, but it was not inevitable as there are both precolonial and late-colonial legacies that run against the centralist and authoritarian legacies of the colonial state. From the precolonial era, ele-

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

merits of the notion of stateless societies run against this tradition, although this notion does contain some important organic or communal orientations as well. More salient, however, is the latecolonial legacy of liberal democratic ideas and structures with which the Congo [Zaire after 1971] became "independent" in 1960. Certainly this tradition is much weaker in the Zairian context than in many other African countries primarily because of its late and stunted development in the last couple of years of colonial domination and the intermittent functioning of democratic structures during the 1960-65 period. There are also more corporatist strands in the French and the Belgian colonial traditions than in the British one. J0 The greater importance of liberal democratic elements in the latter is most clearly seen in the two African cases where they were most deeply rooted—in Ghana and Nigeria, both of which have alternated back and forth between democratic and authoritarian regimes. The organic-statist and corporatist elements of Mobutu's absolutist state are camouflaged by his eclectic blend of revolutionary, populist, and democratic legitimating verbiage. There is, however, little overt public reference to the truly organic-statist nature of the regime. In ways similar to several Latin American cases,3' there appears to be a private belief by the ruling group that authoritarian corporatist structures are the most appropriate ones for Zaire given its values and interests, but at the same time there is a public rejection of the corporatist label. As in Latin America, this is reinforced by the disrepute for such political arrangements held by key actors in the international system. In addition to assuming a middle-ground position politically, organic-statist regimes usually take an intermediary position economically, rejecting both the free-market operation of classical laissez-faire capitalism and the centralized, total state planning and control of command socialism. Their political economy is what Max Weber described as "political capitalism," or what historically has been referred to as mercantilism, in which the state has an important but not all-encompassing role. 32 This tendency is also commonly referred to as state capitalism, although there is great confusion over what actually constitutes this approach.33 The joint political and economic result, then, of recent regimes that have adopted organic-statist orientations is what Stepan has called

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

19

"authoritarian-corporatist capitalist regimes," 3 4 and Mobutu has an early modern form of this type of state. Finally, it is important to point out that corporatist elements in regimes are almost always partial, not extended fully to all groups, and exist side-by-side with other politically important, noncorporatist characteristics. This is particularly true with patrimonial leadership and behavior patterns, including heavily patron-clientalist political arrangements. 35

Absolutism: The Organic-Statist Tradition and Marxist "Exceptions" Current Latin American corporatism is a modern variant of the organic-statist model. Absolutism is an early modern form of organic-statist authoritarianism, and M o b u t u ' s Zaire is a contemporary form of absolutism within the organic-statist tradition that has the " m o d e r n " corporatist overlay of the single-party apparatus. The European absolutist state stressed the necessity for and legitimacy of order and unity in its search for sovereignty and autonomy in order to control and balance societal forces in the interest of the c o m m o n g o o d of all. It was a heavily elitist and statist view of governance in w h i c h the state closely controlled, but did not abolish, all intermediary authorities—particularistic, functional, and class. Absolutism was above all attempted state formation, a much more patrimonial form of domination in a society significantly less developed socially, economically, and administratively than in current corporatist authoritarian states in Latin America. A s a result, European absolutist states had to cope more with particularism than do Latin American states of the " n e w " corporatism. A s w e shall see, the absolutist state more closely resembles earlier colonial and postcolonial periods of Latin American history that constituted what Richard Morse calls a "model of the patrimonial state," the two principal elements of which were organicism and patriarchalism. 36 In fact, the most crucial structural administrative element of European absolutism—the intendant

20

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

system of field administration—was transferred directly to the New World in the eighteenth century by French advisers to the Spanish monarchy, and, as a result, it became a major element of the authoritarian centralist tradition in Latin America. 37 A more developed and bureaucratized version of this European absolutist legacy was transferred by Belgium to what is now Zaire. Also central to the Belgian colonial enterprise in Zaire was the organic-statist legacy of the administrative law tradition of chartered associations, the roots of which go back through seventeenth-century absolutism via Roman and church law to the Roman Empire.38 As John Lonsdale has noted, "The same emphasis on the continuities within change is emerging in the histories of African states more generally." 39 Alfred Stepan considers absolutism to be part of the organic-statist tradition and notes that in the Roman Empire, seventeenth-century absolutism, and the two Napoleonic regimes, "there was a major accumulation of power by the state at the expense of interest groups." 40 In these cases, the state played, in Marxist terminology, a "nonhegemonic" or balancing role between societal groups and classes because of the state's position of theoretical and substantive relative autonomy—a notion central to the organic-statist model of governance. The major Marxist "exceptions" to the rule of class dominance are absolutism, Bonapartism, and the Asiatic mode of production.4' We will briefly concern ourselves here with absolutism and Bonapartism. Marxist analysis of the state has long suffered from what Poulantzas has called "economism," 42 that is, from downplaying or even eliminating political factors and making the state a dependent variable, thereby denying any possible autonomy for it.43 According to Engels, however, there are periods of history in which the dominant class does not control the state—these are nonhegemonic periods. For France he lists "the absolute monarchy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries" and "the Bonapartism of the First and still more of the Second Empire." 44 These "exceptions" thus account for a substantial portion of the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries. It is imperative to assert theoretically the possibility of relative state autonomy and then to investigate it in each empirical case and over time, since

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ruling groups and the interests they protect may shift, often dramatically, over time. Lonsdale makes a similar point: If European history over the past two or three centuries shows two abstract types of state, the absolutist and the bourgeois, at war with each other within actual states from above and below, then the state at any one moment can scarcely be reduced to a necessary managerial level of its characteristic mode of production. The same must be all the more true of modern Africa in the past century. Past relations of power continue everywhere as ideological shadows over the present, fetters on new opportunities and expanding productive forces.45 Absolutism, then, could be considered the primary Marxist, early modem nonhegemonic exception, and it fits the conditions of Mobutu's Zaire more closely than Bonapartism primarily because socioeconomic and class development is much less advanced and patrimonial forms of politics, leadership, and especially administration are more important than in Bonapartism.46 The class situation is simply more fluid, more in flux, under absolutism, particularly the seventeenth-century absolutism used as the referent here, than it was under the Bonapartism of Louis Napoleon. In fact, the important classes are different in each case. In absolutism, there was a rising and consolidating, but not yet dominant, bourgeoisie, which was both protected and closely controlled by the state, and a very small, emerging proletariat. In Bonapartism, as Engels indicates, the bourgeoisie is well-consolidated and the proletariat has developed into the other economically and politically important class. In this sense, Bonapartism is more comparable to contemporary bureaucratic-military corporatist authoritarian rule in Latin America, where developed classbased politics is much more central than it is to the authoritarianism of most African states. In fact, Schmitter, O'Donnell, and others have suggested that the notion of Bonapartism is useful within the Latin American and broader corporatist contexts, especially to stress the relative autonomy of the state and the role of class-based, particularly working class, factors.47 This is not to say that Zairian absolutism has no Bonapartist elements. It does, particularly in regard to Louis Napoleon— his rise to power via a military coup (that is, the usurpation of

22

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

power rather than its traditional inheritance), the early presidentialism, the consolidation of power using plebiscites and other trappings of democracy, his personal despotism as emperor, and the political importance of the military, although I will argue here that Zaire is not a military regime per se.48 Despite these clear Bonapartist elements, Mobutu's regime is most accurately characterized as an absolutist regime, that is, a patrimonial monarchy in the context of attempted early modern state formation. Thus, an additional central difference between absolutism and Bonapartism is that the very nature of the state-society struggle is different. Political, territorial, and, above all, administrative unity and centralization of power are still being struggled for, are still problematic, under absolutism, while they are assured and assumed characteristics under Bonapartism. As Poulantzas puts it, absolutism is concerned with "the birth of bureaucracy," not its achievement.49 The state is still an early modern agent of unification, struggling for sovereignty in a context of relative autonomy. Poulantzas stresses this search for sovereignty by the absolutist state, connecting it with an organic-statist orientation: The sovereignty of the state, reflected in the works of Bodin, appears to be linked to the problem of the unity of "strictly political" power: a power w h i c h is seen as representing the unity of the subjects of the state to the public sphere. The state is held to embody the general public interest— a new theme on the agenda: this is the essential principle of the concept of reasons of state. This concept covers precisely the independence of a state power, unconstrained by any extra-political limit, inasmuch as it is the power w h i c h represents the general interest. 50

He also underscores the fact that the absolutist state is a "transitional state" linked to emerging capitalism which it both fosters and controls via mercantilist policies. The absolutist state "functions in favor" of capitalism which "is not yet dominant" or fully developed as it becomes under Bonapartism. In this respect, "the bourgeoisie is not the politically dominant class" under absolutism "and often not even the economically dominant class."51 We will return to this question in the African context later in a discussion of the concept of the neocolonial state.

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23

Zairian Authoritarianism and Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Corporatism in Latin America An effective way to specify the essential characteristics of a given regime is to compare it to situations that at first appear similar but upon further examination tend more to highlight differences. Such is the case with a comparison of Mobutu's authoritarian regime in Zaire with bureaucratic-authoritarian corporatist states in contemporary Latin America. The literature on these phenomena is particularly useful and welcome because of its renewed concern with the state as an important concept and the state-society struggle as a worthy focus of analytic attention.52 The major differences from the situation in Zaire stem from the fact that the authoritarian Latin American states in question (primarily Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Chile, and, to a lesser extent, Uruguay) are not early modern states. With independent political histories dating back to the early nineteenth century, they are significantly more developed than Zaire. As "late developing industrial states" in the throes of the third stage of the delayeddependent development syndrome, their orientations, problems, and tools and structures for coping with them are significantly different than in Zaire. First, I will summarize the delayed-dependent development syndrome and its consequences for politics in the countries just listed. The argument presented here is primarily that of Guillermo O'Donnell, but it has been elaborated and modified by others.53 O'Donnell delineates a historical sequence of political "constellations" for Latin America—the oligarchic, the populist, and the current bureaucratic-authoritarian, which is highly corporatist. In the oligarchic phase, the ruling group, which is a quasi"traditional" oligarchy, dominates the state, basing its power on the primary-product export sector (mostly minerals and agricultural products); political competition is limited; and the popular sector is still inert, that is, not politically activated in any major or permanent way. In the populist phase, the ruling group becomes a multiclass coalition of urban and industrial groups in the context of higher levels of economic development focusing on statepromoted early industrialization, primarily consumer-oriented im-

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

port substitution. The popular sector is substantially mobilized or "incorporated," but in a controlled way, in regimes that are competitive and democratic to varying degrees. Finally, in some countries, a new bureaucratic-authoritarian state emerges and expands in response to a perceived crisis of authority stimulated by the socioeconomic consequences of late delayed-dependent development, by a "deepening" of capitalism in the transition from import-substitution industrialization to major capital-good industrialization. O'Donnell focuses on the relationships between three principal elements of socioeconomic modernization: the "deepening" industrialization, the increased political activation of the popular sector, and the growth of technocratic groups in the military and in the public and private bureaucracies. The state expands in power and scope and increases its relative autonomy using bureaucratic, corporatist, and authoritarian techniques primarily as a way of controlling the activation of the popular sector and the growing importance of technocratic groups. This is done so that the process of industrial development may continue in an orderly way. It is to do so under the banner of nationalism and in partial, but tension-filled, cooperation with international capital. The latter is also to be controlled, however. In the process, a new ruling coalition emerges, comprising primarily state personnel (especially military and civilian technocrats) and elements of the local bourgeoisie, which is uneasily linked to international capital; the previously politically activated popular sector is deactivated and controlled, especially by the corporatization of class organizations and new societal groups that are viewed as threatening; democratic structures are eliminated, emasculated, or incorporated into a controlled single-party apparatus all in the context of increased ideological manipulation; the repressive capacity of the state increases under an increasingly professionalized military; the scope of state activity expands; bureaucratization intensifies; and the importance of technocratic groups and orientations increases. Now we can briefly specify how this Latin American bureaucratic-authoritarian corporatism differs from the situation in Zaire. While specific comparisons are made with the Mobutu regime, the differences hold broadly for much of black Africa. A list of the more important differences would include the following:

Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

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1) Zaire is still in the primary product, outward-oriented export stage of development; it does not have the important industrial sector of "deepening" capitalism which aims at advanced industrialization; one result of this is that the political economy of Zaire is more akin to early modern mercantilism than to the more advanced and effective state capitalism of the Latin American states;54 2) well-developed multiclass politics within a widely recognized national arena do not exist in Zaire; as a result, the pluralist and class structures that the ruling group confronts are not as complex, and various forms of particularism are politically more a concern than in Latin America; 3) Zaire has not experienced a previous populist regime that significantly activated and mobilized a complex but limited pluralism leading to a socioeconomic crisis of political authority; the emergence of an authoritarian regime in Zaire was the result of a crisis that was much more exclusively political (i.e., order-oriented) and particularistic in nature; 4) Zaire, as a result of its lower level of development, is not as integrated into the international capitalist economy, and, partially as a result of this, its bourgeoisie is not anywhere near as large, developed, cosmopolitan, or internationalized;55 5) Zaire does not have a significant, much less well-organized, working class that has been previously mobilized by a populist regime; 6) the ruling group in Zaire is not a multiclass coalition and is much less modernizing and developmentally oriented than in Latin America; 7) Zaire is not a case of military domination by a highly professionalized, bureaucratized, and developmentally oriented military; this partially accounts for the less well-developed repressive capabilities of the Zairian regime; 8) the administrative state in Zaire is not anywhere nearly as bureaucratized, functionally differentiated, technically oriented, or effective as it is in Latin America; patrimonial characteristics are more dominant in Zaire, although they are also clearly important in Latin America; again, as a result, repressive and policy implementation capabilities are much less developed; and, finally,

26

Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

9) sizable and professionalized technocratic groups, both civilian and military, do not exist in Zaire; this in large part accounts for the much less well-developed social and economic planning and implementation capabilities in Zaire and for a more personalistic approach to politics and policy making. Clearly, then, Mobutu's regime is not a bureaucratic-authoritarian one on the order of those currently in control of certain Latin American countries, but it does have some common characteristics with them in addition to those implicitly referred to above, even if only in embryonic or weakened form. These include the major task of the state as one of control, especially the deactivation and/or limited mobilization of the population using corporatist structures;56 a heavily statist, hierarchical, and repressive orientation; state personnel as a crucial regime support group; authoritarian rule emerging from the ashes of a failed or faltering democratic regime in the context of a perceived crisis; the use of pseudodemocratic and constitutional forms of rule; a nationalist mentality of grandeur and development; and some international linkage and political economy similarities to which I have already alluded. In addition, important similarities exist because current Latin American regimes have important legacies from and continuities with earlier periods and forms of rule with which the Zairian situation is much more comparable—particularly patrimonial characteristics. Chief among these is the predominance of patrimonial rulership by a single ruler (often a president) or a small group in which the leader grants power, privilege, and material goods ("benefices") to clients or subjects in return for acknowledged authority, support, loyalty, deference, and obedience. This pattern is replicated downward through a complex and often shifting patron-client system. Usually the president at the top of this apex of political relations is the "modern equivalent of the traditional patrimonial leader."57 Such a pattern of rulership tends to hinder the establishment of horizontal linkages among both individuals and, more importantly, groups, thereby facilitating the controlled mobilization of a limited pluralism.

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27

Zaire and Earlier Forms of Latin American Authoritarianism In many ways Zaire is most comparable to the early postcolonial period of Latin American history. This results from the combined effect of a centralist and organic-statist colonial legacy and patrimonial forms of rulership and politics overlayed by pseudoconstitutional forms of government in an early modern context of political breakdown, territorial fragmentation, strong particularism, and low levels of socioeconomic development in primary-product export economies. The Latin American experience is particularly useful here because of the much longer political histories and experience with socioeconomic development and its consequences that these countries have. The immediate Latin American postcolonial period of the early nineteenth century was strongly affected by the clash of two traditions: the authoritarian, centralist, and corporatist tradition of the Spanish patrimonial colonial state and the Catholic church; and the individualistic, liberal democratic, and constitutional notions of the Enlightenment, which had become the dominant idea set in the international arena of the time. A similar clash exists in Africa today. The dominant tradition was that of the Spanish patrimonial colonial state with its blend of organicism and patriarchalism with heavy absolutist and neoThomist influences. Clearly organic-statist in orientation, this Spanish colonial state was in many ways the European absolutist state exported directly to the New World. The focus and apex of the colonial state was the Spanish monarch, who was ever concerned with preventing the rise of autonomous political power in the colonies and used early modern forms of préfectoral administration to forestall it. Authority rested on a mixture of tradition and the full personal power of the monarch, who made law and turned most political and adjudication issues into administrative ones.58 By the 1770s the administrative bedrock of this system of patrimonial colonial domination was the French absolutist intendant system of territorial administration, transferred directly to the Spanish colonial empire in America in order to wage the statesociety struggle more effectively.59 Spain itself adopted the intendant system in 1718 based on advice and technical assistance provided by the French absolutist crown, but it did not export it

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to Spanish America until after the Peace of Paris (1763). Spain passed this centralist tradition on to the new Latin American republics after 1810. By the time the colonial state was transferred to the Belgian Congo in the early twentieth century, it had lost its patrimonial monarchical apex and was more fully bureaucratized;60 nonetheless it was still organic-statist, patrimonial, and authoritarian in crucial orientation and structural elements. Mobutu has adopted and more fully patrimonialized this similar centralist and authoritarian tradition in the consolidation of his absolutist regime in Zaire. But he, too, operates within a second, more international tradition, one which now stresses populist, revolutionary, and socialist ideas in addition to liberal democratic ones. The impact of this second tradition is seen primarily in the pseudodemocratic and revolutionary elements of the single-party apparatus and in his eclectic legitimating "mentality," labelled Mobutuism since 1974. Although the collapse of the colonial regime in Spanish America withdrew the remaining legitimacy from the patrimonial royal apparatus of domination, it was difficult to establish a new form of authority that was able to generate widespread support. Latin America had generated more anticolonialism than true nationalism.61 Every nineteenth-century Latin American country except Chile and Brazil moved relatively quickly from constitutional republicanism toward one form or another of caudillismo. The region underwent no major socioeconomic or political transformation during the early postcolonial phase. The collapse of imperial authority activated latent particularistic centrifugal tendencies—regional, cultural, racial, caste, and class—that had been held in check by the structure of colonial domination, and these new and arbitrarily defined republics quickly disintegrated along a myriad of internal lines of division and conflict into struggles for power, prestige, and control of the patrimonial colonial state structure. Upon independence, the new Creole political elites grafted "their stock of half-absorbed ideas from the arsenals of Anglo-French 'enlightened' thought" 62 onto the inherited colonial patrimonial state. In the process, they duly established constitutional party systems legitimated with the rheto-

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ric of liberal constitutional democracy then dominant among major world powers, but partially and shrewdly adapted to local conditions. Without nationally well-developed socioeconomic interest groups with a stake in such structures, these states ricocheted between periods of near total breakdown and personalistic despotism. Into this chaotic vacuum emerged the caudillo, who seized power and then helped to recreate the structure of the Spanish patrimonial state "with only those minimum concessions to Anglo-French constitutionalism that were necessary for a nineteenthcentury republic which had just rejected monarchical rule."63 Strong personalistic leadership using an eclectic blend of traditional, nationalist, and constitutional legitimating ideas was employed to reestablish order and stability. This process "represents less a breakdown of democracy into authoritarianism than a breakout from a grafted liberal democratic structure of an underlying mode of political organization."64 The similarity of this pattern to events in Zaire after independence in 1960 is indeed striking. In fact, Mobutu's role both before and after seizing power in 1965 has distinct caudillo characteristics in a situation highly reminiscent of the immediate postcolonial environment in Latin America. In a diachronic analysis of the consolidation of the postcoup Zairian regime, the period through 1967 can almost be characterized as a caudillo phase in the transition to the establishment of a single-party absolutist regime by 1974 65 Caudillismo may be defined as "any highly personalistic and quasi-military regime whose party mechanisms, administrative procedures, and legislative functions are subject to the intimate and immediate control of a charismatic leader and his cadre of mediating officials." 66 In its historical Latin American context, the caudillo was a self-proclaimed leader of personal magnetism, most frequently a military officer, who commanded a nonprofessional, often irregular army seeking to create basic order and unity in a country in which central authority had collapsed. In his efforts to contain centrifugal tendencies, the caudillo commonly represented an "oligarchy" of landed, export, and commercial elites whose power was based on primary-product export growth in the earliest stages of delayed-dependent development within the con-

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

text of a largely agrarian society penetrated only to a limited degree by capitalist relations and not possessing a unified national market. This highly personalist and quasi-military form of government was underpinned by extensive and complex patron-client relationships, which constituted the main form of societal articulation and the primary linkage between state and society. By promoting highly particularistic orientations, these patron-client relationships vitiated horizontal mobilization along lines of caste or class. The large bulk of the population was not mobilized in any sustained manner and remained basically inert politically except for occasional unorganized outbursts of protest, and, although the authoritarian state tried to project an image of strength, its systematic penetrative capabilities were distinctly limited. At the apex of the partially interlocking sets of patron-client ties was the caudillo, the "patron of patrons," and society was conceived of as a set of parts that related "through a patrimonial and symbolic center rather than directly to one another" 67 —an early modern organic-statist view. Mobutu's role and actions in the Zairian context closely fit this description of caudillismo,68 The main differences are that he really did not represent the interests of a landed oligarchy; he has maintained tight control over the emerging commercial elite which he has created to a large extent; he established a single-party apparatus to help routinize and institutionalize his consolidating regime; and his authority was only quasi-charismatic, being primarily patrimonial in character. The early modern caudillo regimes in Latin America were inherently unstable, and it became increasingly difficult to routinize and institutionalize them under the impact of socioeconomic change induced by export-based development after the turn of the century, especially with the growth of modern middle-class groups in the now rapidly growing urban areas. Mexico can be viewed as one successful attempt at institutionalization with its "revolutionary" single-party regime, which predates the rise of populist corporatism in the rest of Latin America. Partially as a result, patrimonial rulership and patron-client politics remain particularly strong in Mexico.69 Over time, "frock-coated bourgeois caudillos" 70 tended to replace the earlier, more traditionally oriented soldier

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caudillos in much of the rest of Latin America. The creation of an urban middle class in the context of heavily dependent development meant it w a s a strongly professional and bureaucratic class largely dependent upon the state. Statist, elitist, reformist, and corporatist populism emerged in the 1930s and 1940s in response to a general crisis brought on by the exhaustion of primary-product export-led development in the midst of the global crisis of international capitalism. In this situation, certain middle class groups sought to create multiclass coalitions to overthrow the old order by politically activating and mobilizing the growing popular sector in corporatist structures while simultaneously expanding social welfare programs and launching real industrialization of the import-substitution variety. There were both authoritarian and democratic populist regimes, with an amazing number of the latter.7' The situation in Zaire has only pseudosimilarities with this Latin American corporatist populism. The two principal ones are the existence of inclusionary corporatist structures (in this case, within the context of a single-party apparatus) and the ideological rhetoric of populism, social justice, nationalism, anti-imperialism, and autonomous economic development via an effective state capitalism. Even here, however, the differences are striking. For example, the inclusionary corporatist structures in Zaire are not used by a truly populist regime to politically activate and mobilize the popular sector, while establishing social welfare programs and launching real industrialization. Rather, these structures are employed to deactivate and tightly control the mobilization of a much smaller popular sector in the context of practically no social welfare activity. In such a situation, the ideological similarities also quickly evaporate. Zaire clearly has an early modern, quasi-traditional regime in the early stages of primary-product export-led dependent development, which is simply not comparable in any systematic way with corporatist Latin American populism.

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives Zaire, Authority, and Authoritarianism in Africa: The Patrimonial Administrative State

Authoritarianism is not the major issue in contemporary Africa; rather, it is the absence of central state authority and the resulting search for it.72 While the nature of the international system appears to maintain, with a few exceptions and alterations, the persistence of new states in their basically artificial colonial boundaries, the search for internal and external sovereignty, authority, and unity remains very incomplete in most African countries. For African ruling groups of all ideological and policy persuasions, the need and desire for greater authority over their societies and territories is a primary concern. State formation efforts and class formation constitute the most salient characteristics of the contemporary African condition. To a large extent, authoritarian forms of rule result not from high levels of power and legitimacy, but from the tenuousness of authority and the search for it. This point has been greatly underscored by Africa's economic and fiscal crises of the late 1970s and early 1980s.73 The search for sovereignty takes place within the context of weak, poorly organized and institutionalized states attempting to rule societies that are distinctly early modern internally and of dependent conditions externally. Affecting most of the continent, this generalized condition has continuously frustrated efforts to formulate grand, all-encompassing typologies of rule that productively differentiate between African states.74 The modal African state is conceived here as an organization of domination controlled with varying degrees of efficacy by a ruling group or class that competes for power and compliance, for sovereignty, with other political, economic, and social organizations both internally and externally. It is a partly autonomous, partly dependent structure of control in which a dominant group seeks to cope with constraints and uncertainty, to manage its dependence on all groups, internally and externally, in its search for sovereignty. This group, often a ruling class, struggles for unity and power simultaneously on two fronts in order to expand the power of the state at the expense of both infraand suprastate actors because increased state power reinforces its own power and is used in turn to defend its interests. Internally,

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the state must concern itself with ethnic, regional, religious, linguistic, and other particularisms, strongly rooted universalisée religions (Islam and Christianity), various pluralistic groups, emerging class structures, and the quasi-autonomous activities of a variety of external actors. On the external front, the state combats the universalistic legacies of the colonial state—strong linkages to the world capitalist system, which is increasingly dominated by transnational corporations; the pervasive influence of a wide variety of international organizations, particularly the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank; as well as the competing states, blocs, and ideologies of the international state system. Yet the international system also has important particularistic characteristics as its constituent states, corporations, organizations, and classes pursue their own ideal and material interests. This allows African states some relative autonomy. The external and internal fronts of the battle interact in complex, shifting, but persistent ways as the two sides of the same fragile coin for these early modern states. From this perspective, a central thrust of contemporary African reality is attempted state formation—the slow and uneven consolidation of central political and economic authority out of dispersed power conditions internally and dependent conditions externally by potentially semiautonomous organizations of domination. The degree of autonomy, both internal and external, must be empirically investigated in each case and over time, not dogmatically denied or proclaimed. The basic argument is that most African ruling groups, civilian and military alike, have responded to the early modern nature of their societies in the context of the first, or primary-product export, phase of the delayed-dependent development syndrome by relying on a centralist and corporatist colonial tradition and a wide variety of authoritarian techniques to create centralizing patrimonial administrative states with organic-statist orientations. In a sense, they have "recreated" centralizing administrative states with organic-statist orientations very similar to the colonial ones and patrimonialized them. The three major thrusts of this process have been: 1) the control of limited pluralism and emerging classes in small, relatively "modern," primarily urban sectors by depoliticization or departicipation using the inclusionary corporatist

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

structures of a single-party apparatus or exclusionary corporatist measures of military regimes without party structures;75 2) the attempted extension and strengthening of highly authoritarian and centralizing territorial administrative structures to control ethnic, regional, religious, and linguistic particularisms as they merge in complex ways with emerging class factors and the uneven effects of modest levels of socioeconomic modernization; and 3) both of these processes held together and guided by highly personalistic rulership and politics resulting in patrimonial administrative states using very eclectic blends of legitimating doctrines. This is a relatively generalized pattern of early modern authoritarian rule in Africa. It is similar in important ways to the early postcolonial period in much of Latin America and is not likely to disappear quickly. Neither totalitarian nor stable democratic regimes are likely in any number in Africa under current conditions. Variations on a common early modern authoritarian theme are more likely, "changes within the genus authoritarian."76 As noted previously in regard to Latin America, however, this argument should not be taken as deterministic, as regime structures emerge from complex state-society and state-external actor struggles. Kasfir has stressed that there is "nothing inevitable about departicipation."77 Liberal democratic ideas do have roots in the African soil, seen most clearly in opposition rhetoric and in a recent minitrend back to more open political structures. Democratic and quasi-democratic experiments are taking place in Senegal and elsewhere, and a few countries, such as Botswana, have managed to maintain open political structures all along. But, as Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda demonstrate, the harsh light of political and economic reality can easily shred democratic rhetoric and sincere intentions. Despite its early presumed atypical or extreme nature, Zaire falls well within this larger authoritarian trend in Africa, and its absolutist regime is portrayed here as one variant of this centralist, patrimonial administrative authoritarianism. I will briefly discuss each of the major elements of this configuration and Zaire's place within it: the lack of authority by weak states in early modern societies; a centralist and corporatist colonial tradition; organic-statist departicipation and control; centralization of power and administration making use of increasingly authoritarian mea-

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sures; the rise of the patrimonial administrative state; and the role of international factors in these processes. In early modem states, a single political system simply does not exist. Central authorities do not have binding, intensive, continuous, and direct jurisdiction over all persons and action taking place within a unified territory; they do not monopolize the means of administration, adjudication, and extraction within their territory. In short, power is dispersed; there are coexisting and partially competing traditional, quasi-traditional, even nontraditional political and legal systems in the local areas beyond the complete control of central officials. This situation is further complicated by a fluid class situation. A single "national" and "modern" political structure does not hold sway in a direct and unmediated way via a fully bureaucratized administration, unified legal system, and coercive apparatus over all people in all localities. In the typical situation, local decentralized, usually patrimonial, forms of rule compete with central authorities for compliance, legitimacy, and resources from the same set of people. Intermediary authorities of various types thus prevent the maintenance of a direct state-subject or "citizen" relationship. To conceptualize more clearly the basic yet complex and shifting nature of early modern societies, including African ones, it is necessary to make a distinction between particularism and pluralism. Particularism is a form of "primordial" differentiation (ethnic, linguistic, local/regional, or religious) that often, but not necessarily, operates outside an acceptance of a new "national" community as the legitimate arena of identification and action. Pluralism, on the other hand, is a "modern" form of basically functional differentiation whose arena of operation and very definition of community are "national." In terms of individuals, these are not necessarily mutually exclusive categories but rather different orientations. Pluralistic groups such as unions and professional associations, even some churches, are often composed of people from a multiplicity of particularisms. An individual can alternate back and forth between the two orientations. Which one is operational at a given moment or in a given context needs to be determined by situational analysis. It is this very behavioral fluidity of early modern societies, further intensified by emerging class consciousness and action, that poses such enormous uncer-

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

tainty for ruling groups and, in large part, explains tendencies toward authoritarian control and departicipation.78 Using this distinction, African countries can be conceptualized as early modern societies in which complex particularisms, primarily in the rural periphery, are controlled by using adapted forms of colonial territorial administration, and in which limited forms of pluralism in a relatively "modern," primarily but not exclusively urban sector are controlled using corporatist structures with or without a single-party apparatus. Both control efforts tend to be highly authoritarian in operation but are carried out by weakly organized and institutionalized "national" structures such as armies, bureaucracies, and parties. The authority of African states is incomplete even within the limited pluralism of their "modern" sectors, and the reach of their domains over the periphery is distinctly limited, maintaining only a tenuous authority. The rural periphery is composed primarily of ethnic, regional, linguistic, and religious particularisms that mix in complex and often fluid ways with the uneven impact of colonially induced socioeconomic changes and emerging class factors to produce a very heterogeneous, often shifting environment. Thus this sector is not just "traditional." It is composed of traditional and quasi-traditional politics and political elites, as affected by colonial administration, which still exercise considerable but uneven influence over local populations, and it is also composed of transitional local elites, usually individuals more heavily affected by colonial changes in economic activity, education, health, religious proselytization, and rural welfare services. It is with this latter group of "brokers" and their relationship with the central state that the complex interplay of local particularisms (especially ethnicity), modernization, and emerging class factors is most obvious. As Nelson Kasfir notes, "ethnicity is a salient and often independent factor in African politics, inter-relating with modernization and class in complex fashion."79 Individuals from this transitional group often become political entrepreneurs who, by playing on preexisting disputes that remained latent during the colonial period, the uneven impact of modernization, and emerging class factors, can activate ethnic or other forms of particularism. Since this is such a complex and fluid interaction process,

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"ethnicity must be considered as a variable separate from tradition, not as a synonym for it," 80 and the very unpredictability of the process makes it frightening to African ruling groups. This sector of African societies is usually controlled by an adapted version of the colonial territorial administrative apparatus, particularly as party and government merged with the decline of the "mobilization" and/or political machine aspects of the former. This control structure attempts to do primarily two things: to control and slowly to emasculate the powers of intermediary authorities, especially traditional and quasi-traditional ones which remain to a surprising degree beyond its control, but without abolishing them, and to remove all structural incentives for the politico-cultural mobilization of ethnic or other particularisms and emerging class consciousness. The state adopts an organic-statist "cultural neutrality," downplaying all forms of conflict while stressing unity and community, "oneness." Crawford Young argues that this authoritarian demobilization, which accompanies increasing state penetration of the periphery, produces a "tendency toward the enlargement of identity systems" whereby "the national polity becomes a relevant other, compelling a new selfdefinition."81 Such an enlargement of identity, that is, the partial diminution of particularistic orientation, may take place, but it is not inevitable and needs to be verified on a case-by-case basis. I would argue that, contrary to Young's belief "that there is a continuous process of broadening and consolidation of identities at the periphery," this process is very uneven, discontinuous, fragile, susceptible to reverses, and, above all, very lengthy.82 The relatively modern sector of limited pluralism is composed primarily of socioeconomic groups such as administrative employees, youth, unions, farmers' associations, national church organizations, and professional groups of teachers, journalists, lawyers, businessmen, market women, artists, even fetishers. These groups resulted in large part from colonially induced socioeconomic changes, particularly education, urbanization, religious proselytization, and the introduction of capitalist forms of economic activity. In the immediate postcolonial period, these groups made increasingly substantial demands on the new governments for the distribution of scarce resources. The political implications of this relatively uncontrolled, limited pluralism were aggravated

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

by liberal democratic structures, continued high birth rates, rapid urbanization, the increased production of educated individuals, expectations of rapid change generated by independence and the ideological and policy pronouncements of the new leadership, and, after the initial Africanization, generational disputes. Thus, despite the relatively low levels of development of most African states compared to the rest of the Third World, the negative consequences for new regimes of this quite limited pluralism proved to be significant, exposing their extreme weakness as the initial reserve of resources dissipated. Central authorities have tried to control this limited pluralism by using general authoritarian techniques of domination and organic-statist structures of corporatism, but again without fully abolishing these groups. After independence, most African regimes moved from the exercise of restricted but nonetheless real authority—that is, legitimate power—toward the use of distinctly authoritarian measures of control in response to this multifaceted crisis in both their urban and rural sectors, further aggravated by such uncontrollable external factors as fluctuating commodity prices and limited or unproductive foreign investment. In the process, the late colonial legacy of liberal democracy was rejected substantively, if not in rhetoric, as legal or de facto single-party regimes were created, often with heavy Leninist or "mobilization" overtones. In fact, over time most of these regimes became relatively limited political machines with distinctly corporatist control orientations, and frequently they eventually became military regimes as the instruments of coercion discovered their relative power. Beneath these often multiple changes in regime "type" can be seen the three key processes identified previously that lead frequently to the creation of centralizing, early modern, patrimonial administrative states. In responding to this societal crisis, African ruling groups employed a wide array of relatively standard authoritarian measures, such as co-optation, intimidation, exile, or detention of political opponents; modification of the electoral system to make competition impossible or at least unlikely; transformation of the constitution inherited from the European tradition to give wide discretionary authority to the executive and to restrict the activities of representative assemblies; the use of a

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criterion of political loyalty to select key administrators and division of the country into satrapies; administrative control over local government; reduction of the independence of the judiciary or creation side by side with it of dependable political courts; transformation of major voluntary associations into ancillary organs of the party or their political neutralization; control over written and radio communications; reduction of consultation within the party and of accountability of the leadership to the members, . . . institutionalization of adulation of the paramount leader or, alternatively, concentration of all effective authority in the hands of a few men while using the language of collective leadership. 83

Other measures included the "use of the military, of the police, and of political thugs to bulldoze dissidents into passivity, and passives into demonstrative supporters; creation of additional quasimilitary or quasi-police bodies to offset the questionable loyalty of the existing ones." 84 These techniques were imposed by modestly effective and weakly institutionalized parties, "bureaucracies," and military forces, and they were to a large extent the direct offspring of the authoritarian colonial tradition. In creating this authoritarian patrimonial administrative state, African elites have drawn on the infinitely stronger element of the dual colonial legacy—a highly statist, authoritarian, centralist, and corporatist colonial administrative tradition such that "on the whole the government continues to function much as it had done during the colonial period, as a centralized and hierarchical system of administration."85 The core of this clearly organic-statist legacy is the colonial structure of territorial field administration, a prefectoral form of domination, which has itself now become part of "tradition." But 'tradition' in today's Africa, does not merely refer to pre-European times. Many political institutions created during the colonial period have become, in the eyes of living men, part of the natural order of things: district commissioners, provincial commissioners, commandants and governors are offices hallowed by time; the African occupants of these offices derive their authority partly from the fact that they are legitimate successors to the original charismatic founders. 86

But this centralist colonial legacy is also highly corporatist in orientation, especially in regard to the notion of chartered associations and the belief that all political issues should become admin-

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

istrative ones because conflict is not healthy. Thus, after an initial period of political experimentation in terms of ideology, structure, and policy, much of Africa settled into the patterns of a patrimonial administrative state that is "a continuation of the structure of exploitation and domination established by colonial rule, which for the vast majority of the population meant a continuing prospect of hard, unproductive labour mainly for the benefit of others, accompanied by growing inequality, insecurity, social inferiority and the virtually complete absence of political rights." 87 The other element of the dual colonial legacy—liberal democratic constitutional rule—had shallow roots in most places due to colonial policy itself and quickly passed from the scene in substance, if not in rhetoric, to be replaced for the most part by various types of organic-statist authoritarianism with distinct limits. As I noted, however, there are some countertrends, if weak ones. Liberal democratic structures collapsed almost immediately in Zaire in 1960, to be revived periodically until their abolition by Mobutu in 1965. Pseudoconstitutional and democratic rule emerged with the creation of the single party in 1967, but it has proved to be only a facade for the recentralization of power along colonial lines. Thus, under a variety of different formal sets of structures and legitimating doctrines,88 authoritarian patrimonial administrative states have emerged in Africa that have a great deal in common. This type of early modern state is heavily organic-statist in orientation. It is worth quoting Zolberg at some length here as he describes these regimes as organic-statist without so labeling them, and to do so twice. First, a description that applies to civilian single-party regimes: From these different points of departure the five countries began to move toward a common focal point: a system of government with a monocephalic and nearly sovereign executive; a national assembly that is consultive rather than legislative and which is based on functional and corporate representation rather than geographical and individual; a centralized political administration that has been expanded to reach more minute local components and modified to be more exclusively secular; mechanisms of local government from which the "self" has been removed; and a governmental bureaucracy in which the criterion of political loyalty is given overwhelming weight. 89

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Now a description for military regimes: Whether they occupy the top political offices or whether they return to the sidelines, African officers are likely to remain important actors in the political game. Their outlook concerning the problems of political development does not differ very significantly from the outlook of the men they have replaced, or that of the men to whom they will eventually transfer the keys of the palace. They conceive of national unity as "oneness," defined negatively by the absence of social conflict stemming from regionalism and primordial loyalties such as ethnicity, or familial or religious affiliations. Integration, from this point of view, requires reinforcement of the tangible authority of the center and the elimination of the manifestations, if not the substance, of the autonomy of the periphery. Political competition is viewed as undesirable because it necessarily leads to disturbances; economic bargaining by occupational groups is also viewed as an obstacle to efficient economic allocation. 90

For both types of regimes, the "common focal point" is the effort "to assert more firmly than ever before the existence of a state which claims authority over the territory" but in an intermediate way that falls between democracy and totalitarianism, although at times it appeared the desire was for the latter.91 The major thrust of this organic-statist orientation is what Nelson Kasfir has called the "most striking feature of post-independence political change in black Africa"92—departicipation. He describes it as "the elimination of people from political life," "the reversal of participation . . . the reduction or elimination of political involvement" 93 most often by emasculating, but not abolishing, participatory structures such as elections, legislatures, parties, and regional and local self-government and reducing the autonomy of trade unions, cooperatives, and other types of associations. Drawing on Laswell's notion of "preventive politics," Kasfir deals more with reduction of participation than elimination because, as he points out, total departicipation is not usually a viable option—thus the corporatist control thrust of basically organic-statist regimes.94 In line with the argument above, he sees two major tendencies—"strengthening the central administration and the growing deusetude of participation structures." 95 In the African context, organic-statist tendencies are most clear in single-party or state-party regimes, and since Zaire has both important single-party and military elements to its regime

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives

structure, it is worth discussing the organic-statist ideological and structural aspects of single-party regimes—ideology first. Although the ideological doctrines of most African singleparty regimes have been very eclectic blends of nationalism, popularism, socialism, Leninism, antiimperialism, and pan-Africanism, with strong traditional, quasi-traditional, and personalistic overtones, they have a heavily organic-statist core. The party, or fused party-government, is seen as the expression of the unity and general will of the nation, the people; it represents the organic moral community whose interests it interprets. Therefore, order and unity are paramount and all cleavages—particularistic, pluralistic, and class—and all conflicts are illegitimate. This heavily statist view has an inclusive, incorporatist definition of community, which requires a strong state (party-government) with relative autonomy from all groups to interpret the general will and achieve unity by controlling all conflict. Since, in most versions of the single-party ideology, there exists a basic ambivalence toward "traditional" social structure and values, and since representation is to be primarily functional and corporatist, societal groups are not to be abolished or completely transformed as in the Leninist organic orientation, but rather incorporated and controlled. As such, this organic-statist view does assume a middle ground between the individualistic orientation of democracy and the focus on class conflict, totalitarian control, and societal, as opposed to economic, transformation of Leninism.96 Structurally, the African single-party apparatus did not, despite some use of Leninist models, prove to be a strong mobilization and transformation instrument. Rather, the party-state has been authoritarian within its domain, but its domain has been relatively limited. In fact, the party-state has in many cases more closely resembled an organic-statist political machine with varying degrees of representative, communicational, and distributive content. For example, Henry Bienen has portrayed the Kenya African National Union (KANU) as a corporatist, yet relatively effective, political machine within the larger context of a centralized, patrimonial administrative state. In a situation of lively ethnic particularism and emerging class consciousness, KANU, according to Bienen, should simply be seen "as an institution which provides

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numerous arenas for [controlled] political competition and also which in given places and times transmits demands upward and sometimes provides support for Government."97 It also, of course, extracts resources and maintains order, thereby serving state, ruling class, and some external interests. Thus, as with the earlier touted mobilizational thrust of the party states, the degree of political machine content must be carefully investigated in each case and not dogmatically proclaimed or assumed. As weakly institutionalized structures, the single-party apparatuses tended to atrophy relatively quickly and fuse with the government to form state parties. In this fused situation, the party became "a sort of public relations agency for the central authorities"98 for propagating organic-statist legitimacy doctrines and spreading the gospel of the highly personalistic political religion of the patrimonial state. More certainly, however, the party became the primary vehicle for performing departicipation and corporatist control functions. Departicipation has usually meant the emasculation, but not necessarily the elimination, of liberal democratic structures with the use of party plebiscites and other forms of controlled elections, consultative assemblies, etc. Drawing on the colonial tradition and using organic-statist legitimating doctrines, the party has become the corporatist structure for controlling the limited pluralism of the relatively modern urban sector by consolidating and incorporating unions, producer cooperative associations, the press, and business, youth, sociocultural, and, even occasionally, religious groups within the party structure. The party usually grants them monopolistic representational rights while closely controlling their leadership and representational functions. Such is the case in Zaire. The corporatist structures are clearly not particularistic or class-based, but rather functionally based, and the focus is on harmony, not on conflict.99 As we have already seen, African military regimes are also frequently organic-statist/corporatist in orientation, at least those with some organizational underpinning to them. Clearly, this does not apply to the highly sultanistic and despotic warlord regimes like those of Amin or Bokassa. On the whole, however, the corporatist and departicipation aspects of African military regimes are more exclusionary in character than those of civilian regimes. It is the authoritarian, exclusionary organic-statism of "the 'admin-

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istrative state' which resembles in many respects the colonial regimes during their terminal phase of 'welfare colonialism/ " 1 0 ° but with distinct patrimonial aspects. African militaries are clearly early modern in character; they are certainly not the relatively professionalized, bureaucratic, and development-oriented militaries of the "new" authoritarianism in current Latin American states. Instead, they have more resemblance to the early Latin American caudillismo discussed earlier. As Decalo illustrated, "many African armies bear little resemblance to a modern complex organization model and are instead a coterie of distinct armed camps owing primary clientelist allegiance to a handful of mutually competitive officers of different ranks, seething with a variety of corporate, ethnic, and personal grievances"; 101 they snould not be seen "as modern corporate hierarchies under a single command but . . . as autonomous, only quasi-modern, tenuously interlinked, personalist pyramids clashing over the allocation of promotions, commands, and patronage." 1 0 2 These distinctly early modern, weakly institutionalized military forces are, however, relatively powerful in the African context of early modern states and societies. Coming to power in a rash of coup d'états beginning in the mid-1960s as a combined response to the weaknesses of civilian regimes facing societal crises, threats to their corporate or status group interests, and contagion, military regimes have basically "not proved to be significantly different from civilian rule," making only a "limited modification of existing arrangements."'03 Like their civilian predecessors, they maintain authoritarian, patrimonial administrative states aimed at controlling ethnic and other particularisms, a limited pluralism, and emerging class factors. These regimes have not been more conducive to socioeconomic development, less corrupt, more stable, or more distributively just than civilian regimes.104 As with African party states, it has proved difficult to talk about significant type differences among African military regimes. Decalo prefers to talk about "modalities of military rule" instead. The early optimistic projections for military rule in Africa were unduly based on Latin American experience 105 and clearly show again the dangers of comparing too closely regimes at very different levels of socioeconomic development. Here we are clearly dealing with early modern militaries in early modern states.

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Although it had a military genesis and Mobutu was the longstanding head of the Zairian military at the time of the coup in 1965, his regime is not a case of military rule. General Mobutu successfully transformed himself first into a politician and then into a presidential monarch with some tyrannical overtones. His regime clearly has important military overtones, however. The Zairian military has, despite years of significant external financial, technical, and even actual combat assistance, a distinctly early modern character.106 While the internal coercion it supplies is a crucial pillar of the organic-statist absolutist regime, the Zairian military has distinct limits to its coercive and combat capabilities as well as to its influence on regime structure and policy. The military has, however, very early modern consequences for the subject population. This said, however, Zaire is still commonly characterized incorrectly as a case of military rule. Decalo so classifies it and links it to his "managerial brokerage" modality with a low "personalist concentration of power." Zaire is evidently so classified in large part because the regime established a single party to help consolidate its authority—another example of misreading form for substance. Decalo quite incorrectly claims that Mobutu's "tendency to accumulate power" is "reined in—or channeled into symbolic activities—by the other imperatives of military rule in Zaire." 107 Apparently he eliminates the possibility of a regime coming to power via a military coup and then transforming itself into another form of rule. A diachronic analysis of the situation in Zaire disputes this. As the postcolonial period lengthens, it becomes increasingly clear that what has emerged under the ideological and structural eclecticism of African regimes is an authoritarian, organic-statist administrative state drawing heavily on a centralist and corporatist colonial tradition that is held together, often loosely and in an unstable fashion, by strong personalistic rulership frequently enough for it to be considered a major trend for both civilian and military regimes. The result is an amazingly generalized organic-statist, patrimonial administrative state distinctly early modern in character. The major patrimonial elements of this state are as follows. First, broad and increasingly centralized executive authority is personalized, most commonly around a presidential

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monarch or military leader who controls the state.108 Second, the leader's position is legitimated by complex and shifting blends of charismatic, patrimonial, and legal-rational doctrines and beliefs, but particularly of a neotraditional, patrimonial nature (a political religion),'09 the aim of which is to attempt to "routinize" power. Third, the personal ruler is supported, in varying and often uncertain ways, by personal officials and new state administrative cadre whose positions rest in large part on political loyalty to and the good will of the ruler. Fourth, these officials control the inherited colonial administrative apparatus and a state-party structure where it exists, which they partly patrimonialize while appropriating its offices—for the state is the major avenue of upward mobility, status, power, and wealth in these early modern societies; this process is reinforced by statist views and policies on the economy (themselves part of the colonial legacy) which give them greater access to appropriable wealth. The result is often the formation of a new political ruling class. Finally, this largely patrimonial system is partially integrated and ordered and partially fragmented by sets of patron-client networks.110 This configuration of elements will be elaborated in more detail later, in the context of Mobutu's regime in Zaire, which is characterized as an absolutist version of this organic-statist, patrimonial administrative state.

The Patrimonial Administrative State, Class, and External Actors: Neocolonial Dependence or Relative Autonomy? Before moving on to the centralization of territorial administration and the state-society struggle in the rural periphery, the concept of the neocolonial state and its relationship to the model of the organic-statist, patrimonial administrative state sketched above needs to be discussed. This will be done by looking at Colin Leys' application of the concept of the neocolonial state to Kenyatta's Kenya in his Underdevelopment in Kenya and the subsequent development of his views as well as at Nzongola-Ntalaja's application of the concept to Zaire. This will also provide an opportunity to discuss the role of international and class factors in authoritarian politics and state formation in Africa.

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There are many similarities between Leys' description of the neocolonial state in Kenya and the model of the organic-statist, patrimonial administrative state, but there are also crucial differences. First the similarities. Leys describes "the assertion of state power" by a heavily patrimonial and authoritarian administrative state: "the real institutions of the state were Kenyatta and his court, the civil service and the armed forces, and the machinery of 'technical assistance' and 'aid.'" 1 " The patrimonial core was Kenyatta's court, Leys' description of which closely parallels Weber's analysis of patriarchal patrimonial domination. In the style of a powerful presidential monarch, "it was Kenyatta alone, with his inner court, who could make any important political decision" (p. 249). This patrimonial core controlled an administrative state and its "bureaucratic corps d'élite," "whose subordination to the authority of the Leader was particularly complete," by ties of personal loyalty and dependence organized by systematic "clientelism," by expansion of the state sector, and by rampant conspicuous consumption and appropriation (pp. 197, 249). This was an authoritarian regime with an "increasing reliance on coercion" in which the "state apparatus, as a system of domination was extremely important."'12 The apparatus of repression was used to control tensions and conflicts attendant with capitalist-oriented growth, "tribalism,"" 3 and political opposition and to consolidate the position of the ruling group. Corporatist control and departicipation measures (the "civil hegemony complementing the coercive use of state power") were used to "subdue the unions and to progressively eliminate political opposition" (pp. 252, 258). The regime operated under a pseudodemocratic facade (an "imitation bourgeois state") with the "myth of constitutionalism" and the shell of an atrophied single party. The system of authoritarian control was legitimated by an eclectic blend of doctrines and "ideological domination based on a mixture of tribalism, 'free enterprise' ethics and 'development' doctrines." In short, the entire structure of patrimonial administrative control "meant a continuation of the structure of exploitation and domination established by colonial rule."" 4 Leys' description of neocolonial Kenya is clearly patrimonial and early modern in character and has distinct similarities with Mobutu's regime in Zaire;" 5 as such, it appears much closer to that other Marxist exception—absolutism—than it does to Bona-

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partism, with which he partially compares it. Yet the notion of Bonapartism continues to be applied to Kenya," 6 and NzongolaNatalaja has applied it to Zaire. Mobutu is described as a "patrimonial leader" whose efforts have led to "the transformation of the form of the state, from a parliamentary-democratic state to an exceptional or crisis state of a Bonapartist variety . . . by unifying the bourgeoisie behind a heroic leader and by depoliticizing the masses." Mobutu has done this by "glorification of the leader, the recourse to traditional political symbols (including the notion of chief applied to the leader), . . . the endeavor to unify all social classes around the theme of national identity and pride," and by rewarding and punishing members of the "entrenched and privileged class through his power of appointment to state and party posts."117 At one point Nzongola refers to "Mobutu's kingship in Zaire" and notes that Mobutu "sees himself as a king whose person is sacred" and thus "maintains [that] 'le respect dû au chef est obligatoire et sacré (the respect due to a chief is obligatory and sacred).' " 1 1 8 There are, however, major differences between the approach here and the concept of neocolonialism as outlined by Leys in Underdevelopment in Kenya. They have to do primarily with the relative autonomy of the state—a notion central to organicstatist orientations—and the role of international actors and forces. Leys defined neocolonialism as "a system of domination of the mass of the population of a country by foreign capital, by means other than direct colonial rule. By its nature such dominance requires the development of domestic class interests which are allied to those of foreign capital, and which uphold their joint interests in economic policy and e/iforce their dominance politically." 119 By this definition and through the notion of a comprador regime, which is "a sort of subcommittee" of international capitalism, Leys implied that the international capitalist system somehow determines the structure, process, and policies of African states. While international assistance does indeed help to consolidate regimes that are viewed favorably (by states that are noncapitalist as well as capitalist), the notion that the very nature of these regimes is predominantly determined by or is the direct result of their place in the international capitalist system, and the theoretical assumption that these regimes have no or little rel-

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ative autonomy from that system, are false. There is no doubt that such regimes can serve the interests, at least in some sectors and for certain periods, of "finance capital" and "monopoly capital" and have done so and continue to do so in many cases. Evidence is now increasing, however, especially given the severe economic and financial crises experienced by Africa, that such regimes may not serve such interests effectively, and the ability of external actors to alter these regimes in any major way is distinctly limited.' 20 The patrimonial administrative state in Africa is not the direct creation of the international capitalist system, but rather the result of the complex interplay of historical and contemporary exogenous and endogenous political and economic forces and actors. Leys employed Marx's notion of Bonapartism to point correctly to the relative autonomy of many African leaders and states vis-à-vis all major internal societal groups and classes while criticizing Fanon for not viewing African ruling groups or classes as comprador elements.12' Using the notion of Bonapartism, Leys was willing to assume internal relative autonomy, at least in the shortrun,' 22 while rejecting out of hand even the possibility of the relative autonomy of the state vis-à-vis external groups, particularly from foreign capital. The African situation appears, in fact, more comparable to the Latin American one, although at an earlier stage of delayed-dependent capitalist development, in that state elites are clearly linked to international capital, but do not necessarily constitute comprador elements lacking their own autonomous interests, power, or policies.' 23 First, there is the need to admit theoretically the possibility of some relative autonomy, not deny its possibility. Then it is necessary to investigate the degree to which it exists in each case, especially since the degree of autonomy will vary over time as a result of a complex interplay of internal and external economic and political forces.124 Leys greatly altered his position in a 1978 article by showing how an "indigenous bourgeoisie" uses the state in Kenya to enlarge rapidly "the sphere and rate of indigenous capital formation"' 25 and in the process achieves some relative autonomy from external economic actors. This réévaluation brought Leys into line with the subtle analyses of Nicola Swainson, M. P. Cowen, and others.'26 In a careful historical analysis, which stresses

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changing patterns of power and dependence among both internal and external groups over time, Swainson notes that "simply to identify economic dependence on the metropole as the determinant factor in social relations is to bypass the relative autonomy of politics and ignore the particular characteristics of internal class formation." 127 This does not mean, however, that the state cannot also serve neocolonial interests. "The post-colonial state has also acted to ensure the conditions of capital reproduction in general by ensuring civil order and repressing the labour movement, which has obviously been to the advantage of both local and foreign capitalists" (p. 17). In the postcolonial period, "Kenya has exhibited two contradictory trends . . . nationalism and internationalism." After independence, "the indigenous bourgeoisie came to dominate the post-colonial state," which in turn served both to integrate different sectors of the bourgeoisie and to control any challenges, internal or external, to it. As a result, the "trappings of bourgeois democracy" declined and authoritarian tendencies increased (pp. 17, 185, 183). Swainson quite properly stresses that domestic capitalist groups do "not operate independently of international capital and there is a high degree of interlinkage between foreign and domestic capital in Kenya as in many other parts of the world" (p. 200). Thus, there exists a "high degree of interdependence between all capitalist countries—be they advanced or developing" (p. 287). In Kenya, this fact has brought local capitalists into both "collaboration and competition with foreign capital." In emphasizing the uneven development of capitalism, she underscores the need to investigate carefully the changing degrees of relative autonomy over time. Lastly, Swainson nicely reminds us that "throughout the history of capitalism, domestic bourgeoisies, have relied extensively on state support at an early stage of accumulation."' 28 An unresolved tension exists, however, in Swainson's position—an unwillingness to admit the possibility of equal weight to political factors. At the very beginning of the book she states that "it is important for our analysis of capitalism in Kenya to reiterate a fundamental proposition that the production and exchange of things is the basis of all social structures" (p. 5). Politics merely mediates. The portrayal that results from this position is that of an already formed indigenous bourgeoisie which captures

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and dominates the postcolonial state (which is seen as a "bourgeois state"), using it to further its ability to accumulate. The outcome is "the hegemony of the indigenous bourgeoisie since the 1960s" (p. 12). This tension between political and economic explanation is most clearly seen in a strained distinction she insists on making "with regard to the bourgeoisie between those individuals dominant at political and economic levels": "Individuals at the top of the political structure provide for the maintenance and expansion of capitalist relations of production. On the other hand, there are those businessmen who have organized politically to further their own economic interests" (pp. 183-84). The "political role" of what she refers to as "the ruling group" has been "to integrate different sections of the bourgeoisie through the state apparatus" (p. 183). She quite rightly, however, points to intense political splits within the bourgeoisie, but she asserts that they have been controlled. It might be a more viable explanation to discuss a political ruling class that emerges in part out of the nationalist struggle and in part out of the patrimonial administrative state in the years after independence. It in turn uses the state apparatus and patron-client mechanisms to build an economic base for itself and, as a result, slowly manifests increasingly genuine bourgeois characteristics. These genuine bourgeois characteristics are more developed in Kenya than in most other African states because of the greater degree of capitalist penetration. Swainson notes that "the state is able to support the interests of the internal bourgeoisie" (p. 290). I would argue that a political class has developed out of the patrimonial administrative state rather than an already formed indigenous bourgeoisie "capturing" the new state. This process in African states is uneven and varies in rate and quality given the specific historical and political economy conjuncture of a given state. In his new position, Leys also manifests a reductionist tendency. Despite his major, and commendable, change of views, he still refuses to admit the possibility of any autonomous political significance to the role of the state in political and economic conflict or class formation. These are somehow determined by preexisting forms of accumulation: In noting the important role of the state in facilitating this movement of African capital out of circulation and into production, we must avoid

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the mistake of attributing to it an independent role. Its initiatives reflected the existing class power of the indigenous bourgeoisie, based on the accumulation of capital they had already achieved. This is not merely an academic point. Unless the exercise of state power after 1963 is grasped as a manifestation of the class power already achieved by the indigenous bourgeoisie, it can lead to serious mystification. 129

Zaire and other African states clearly demonstrate that the conversion of political power and position (class and protoclass) into economic power and resources (although put to varying purposes) can have an independent political dimension. A political ruling class or protoclass emerges out of the patrimonial administrative state and creates an economic base for itself using the state apparatus, without necessarily having any major prior accumulation. For Leys, on the other hand, the state in Kenya is "the organization of the indigenous bourgeoisie," one which was already formed by independence, vis-à-vis both internal and external groups. As Leys admits, however, much of the accumulated wealth is not used productively to fulfill genuine bourgeois functions of expanding production: "Much of the capital accumulation in African hands in the last ten years will have been unproductively invested and much of what has been productively invested has involved the acquisition of existing assets, resulting in the transfer of capital into other sectors or out of the country" (p. 253). In fact, in a 1982 article Leys refers to the "so-called national bourgeoisie in Kenya." 130 As Swainson, Leys himself, and others have shown, there is some evidence in Kenya of a real bourgeois trend of moving from real estate and circulation into production. This process is more advanced in Kenya than in the political classes of most other African states; such a trend is almost nonexistent in Zaire's ruling class, which I characterize as a political aristocracy.13' In much of Africa, then, a patrimonial administrative state, not a "bourgeois" or truly capitalist state, permits, in fact facilitates, the creation of a political ruling class or protoclass (replete with internal contradictions and factionalism), which uses its control of the state to create an economic base for itself and to fight off both internal and external challenges of all kinds. Thus, state formation processes can have direct, independent effects on economic and class formation processes and on the relationship of

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internal groups to external ones. The degree to which this exists needs to be carefully investigated in each case and over time. These processes may, but do not have to, lead to the beginnings of an indigenous bourgeois capitalist class with autonomous power, all the while facilitating some neocolonial interests and thwarting others. It is also possible that such processes may be stunted or even reversed. As Swainson nicely shows, they are uneven and vary over time. What is needed is a broader conceptualization of the notion of class, especially a ruling one.132 Most African ruling classes have a "project"—what Frederick Cooper calls "the ruling class's project of self aggrandizement combined with enough redistribution to maintain its tenuous and vital hold on the state."133 This project cuts across a wide range of resources, internal and external, and leads to both collaboration and competition with internal and external actors. The degree to which this class will develop genuine bourgeois characteristics will vary greatly from state to state. To say that African ruling classes have such a project is not to say it is an easy or inevitably successful one: But it is not a project that has been altogether successful, and the very difficulties of transforming privileged access to resources into accumulation of productive capital have often fostered the tendency of this class project to take the easier forms of urban real estate speculation and compradorism. The class basis of state action has been compromised by the particularistic power base of its members and the high stakes of state control. 134

There exist both external and internal obstacles and tools, and the internal ones may be particularistic, pluralistic, or class. Given political classes can follow different routes in pursuit of their projects, resulting in different relationships to external actors and varying mixes of collaboration and competition and of capitalist and noncapitalist characteristics. Leys correctly notes that Zaire does not have a "politically cohesive production-oriented class of capital," and Cooper points out that "if the Zairois political class owes its existence to outside forces, it has taken off on its own internal mission."135 The patrimonial administrative state becomes the battleground for political, economic, and social struggles among inter-

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nal particularisms, pluralist groups, emerging classes, and a variety of external actors (states, corporations, banks, international organizations, and churches), and complex and changing combinations of them. The major form of class politics (which is not necessarily the only or even the predominant form of politics) is the effort of the ruling class to reinforce its position vis-à-vis all of these internal and external elements. Well-developed political struggle between politically conscious, organized classes in a nationally recognized arena such as exists in many Latin American states today does not exist in most African states. But class politics and struggle do exist—primarily that of the new and insecure ruling class to strengthen its position, to fulfill its project. As Adam Przeworski has so elegantly put it, "political class struggle is a struggle about class before it is a struggle among classes." 136 By 1982 Leys had developed a more subtle and complex, but no less important, view of classes in Africa and their relationship to other forms of identity and action. He notes that "classes are forming in Africa, whose struggles will shape the future development of the continent," but that "this process is incomplete, embryonic, and uneven," depending on the degree of capitalist penetration of the continent. He correctly points out that this was the case in historical Europe as well. Finally, Leys asserts that African states have developed a fragmented political culture, in which class ties compete with multiple other forms of consciousness—ethnic, local, religious and so on. Yet the economic evolution of the African countries has tended to throw their class character into sharper and sharper relief . . . The verdict is still open on . . . what forces determine the evolution of the balance between class consciousness and ethnic, regional, or religious consciousness.' 37

The rulers of patrimonial administrative states in Africa have thus been able to exert some relative autonomy vis-à-vis both internal and external groups, although the degree varies over time as a result of ongoing political and economic struggles with a variety of different types of actors and forces: This relative autonomy of the state has been the strength of African rulers: the power of the state itself gave them instant power to bargain with international capital and to influence the distribution of domestic re-

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sources. It was also their weakness: for they had fragile power bases, other than the state itself, from which to consolidate control. H o w particular ruling classes fared had much to do with the historical process that got them there: with the groups that supported them, with the regional, cultural, and religious divisions of the country and the degree to which such divisions represented rival power bases, with the ability of other individuals to develop clienteles, with the adequacy of resources to distribute, and with challenges from workers or peasants.' 38 Nzongola-Ntalaja continues to apply the concept of the neocolonial state to Zaire. In d o i n g so, however, he so stretches the concept to make it fit the case of Zaire that the argument bec o m e s both a m b i g u o u s and contradictory. H e begins his discussion of the African neocolonial situation by asserting that "the state continues to serve principally the interests of externally-based d o m i n a n t classes and their allies and agents o n the African c o n t i n e n t . " ' 3 9 H e maintains that the class in charge of the neocolonial state becomes an element, however small, of international capital—and hence, a capitalist bourgeoisie—and constitutes its own capital, collectively as well as individually, through the medium of the state—and hence a state bourgeoisie. A stratum of the international bourgeoisie, this new dominant class is both a comprador bourgeoisie and a lumpenbourgeoisie.' 40 A s such, "the African bourgeoisie . . . is capable of acting as a social force and of effectively exercising its ruling functions to exploit the dominated classes in its o w n right rather than as a simple intermediary" (p. 43). It controls the neocolonial state and "serves principally its interests as well as those of its senior partner, the métropolitain bourgeoisie." In short, he avers that "these two sets of interests are contradictory in a nonantagonistic mann e r " (p. 44). The neocolonial situation is thus one that involves the continuous exploitation of the country's population by the international bourgeoisie, but this time in collaboration with the domestic ruling classes, whose primary mission is to maintain the order and stability their senior partners require for their investments.141 N z o n g o l a flatly asserts that Zaire is such a neocolonial state—one that serves "the interests of M o b u t u , his class, and foreign corporations" (p. 44). "There is no doubt that the principal

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beneficiaries of Mobutu's rule are the two social classes controlling the neocolonial state; the international bourgeoisie and its junior partner, the Zairian bourgeoisie." 142 Having made those claims, however, Nzongola then immediately notes that Zaire has sunk into near total economic disaster brought on by Mobutu and his class, points to "the futility of internationally-imposed controls and reforms [which included an "IMF-supervised central bank"] in the face of the struggle of the Zairian kleptocracy to defend and promote its own vested interests" (p. 49), and avers, correctly in my view, that this state cannot be reformed in any meaningful way. According to Nzongola, Zaire is "a neocolonial state whose ruling class helps to block economic growth and development as well as the normal functioning of the state apparatus by depriving the state of those essential means and capabilities with which it may improve the living conditions of the population as a whole." 1 4 3 He notes that despite its vast potential wealth, the Zairian state is unable to satisfy even the vital minimum needs of its people, "unlike neocolonial states in other resource-rich countries like the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Gabon" (p. 44). He points, quite properly, to the disastrous "Zairianization" measures of 1973-75, to Zaire's huge debt owed to "the barons of international finance capital seeking to recover their loans," and to the fact that "the social and economic services left behind by the colonialists have deteriorated to the point where most of them exist in name only." 1 4 4 Is the Zairian neocolonial state thus serving the interests of its "senior partners"—the "international bourgeoisie"? Hardly, and this situation is a clear manifestation of what Weber called "the anticapitalist effect of patrimonial arbitrariness."145 To what does Nzongola attribute this "economic and moral debacle of Zaire"— "le mal Zairois'l It is "a function of the embourgeoisement of the country's leadership group, its insertion in the import-export economy, its execution of the neocolonial tasks of the postcolonial state, and its mismanagement of public resources."' 46 What in fact exists is an African patrimonial administrative state controlled by a patriarchal patrimonial presidential monarch and his political aristocracy, which pursues its own class project of self-aggrandizement. In the process, the Mobutu regime probably served some neocolonial economic interests (and politico-strategic ones) until 1975, but it certainly has not performed major neocolonial economic functions since that time.

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As was noted above, African reality is heavily state-centric, and the modal African state is a centralizing, but limited, organization of domination controlled by a new ruling class which struggles for unity and power simultaneously on two fronts in order to expand its power at the expense of both infra- and suprastate actors. The nature of society and the international system makes possible some relative autonomy, and the external and internal fronts of the battle interact in complex, shifting, but persistent ways as the two sides of the same fragile coin. The international system usually operates to maintain the basic integrity and boundaries of a state as they were agreed upon at the time of independence. Powerful actors in the international system can also work to maintain a particular leadership group in power or work to replace it, but the power of actors in the international system is much more restricted at the level of the regime, which can be conceptualized as the total set of operative norms and structures that characterize a given polity.147 In short, it is possible to keep a state together; it is even possible to help dictate who rules it. But it is very difficult to dictate effectively, even influence in major ways the structure and processes of a country. Major Western powers have repeatedly helped to keep Zaire together, have helped Mobutu to come to power and consolidate that power in important ways (while others have tried to overthrow him), and, along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, have helped to keep him in power. But as the current economic and financial crises show, they are much less able to affect the structure and processes, even policies, of his regime in any substantial way. The Mobutu regime would not exist today without external support, past and present, but the ruler of this patrimonial administrative state and his political aristocracy have successfully fought off challenges to their relative autonomy. External influence is important, but it has its limits.'48 An early modern, absolutist regime has emerged in Zaire as a result of the complex interplay of a multiplicity of internal and external political, economic, sociocultural, historical, personal, and idiosyncratic factors. This authoritarian and rather ineffective regime clearly served many "neocolonial" economic interests (but also politico-strategic ones) until the onset of the severe economic and fiscal crisis in 197 5.149 Since then it has not done so, and several different types of actors in the international system

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have attempted to change the very quality of the regime, with minimal results so far. The intent of the external actors has been to alter certain key characteristics of the absolutist state, but its core—Mobutu's personal discretion and the power of the political aristocracy—remains, thanks in large part to the assistance of external supporters, and despite their efforts to induce change in the nature and structure of the state. Nzongola is probably right that "a corrupt state apparatus cannot reform itself, even when it is placed under the tutelage of foreign experts." 150 At the same time, and for a variety of reasons, some of the major external actors fear the economic and politico-strategic consequences of any effort to replace the current authorities. From the logic of the neocolonial position, it might be possible to argue that, if "foreign capital" had been able to structure freely the Zairian regime, it would have designed something quite different from the early modern regime that now exists. The Soviets may now be learning some of these same lessons in Africa, particularly in regard to the creation of viable Leninist transformation regimes in Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, for example, they have been unable to convince Colonel Mengistu and the Dergue to create a viable party, much less an effective Leninist one. In a review of the recent world system literature, particularly the work of Immanuel Wallerstein, Aristide Zolberg suggests that it is unwarranted theoretically to contend that "the position of countries in the world economy determines the character of their political regimes," and he reminds us that the development of states is affected as much by a plurality of international politico-strategic actors as it is by international economic forces.151 The interplay of a multiplicity of economic and political factors and actors at multiple levels may provide interstices within which individual regimes can maneuver and achieve relative, but fluctuating, autonomy from both internal and external groups. In Africa, the most common form of political economy is what I have characterized elsewhere as neomercantilism.'52 It is conceived of as an early modern form of state capitalism. The form of political economy now so prevalent in Latin American states is state capitalism, but in a later stage of delayed-dependent development. For states in the first stage of delayed-dependent devel-

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opment, neomercantilism is an intermediate, statist alternative to both pure neocolonialism and socialism, especially since the latter has proved to be substantively very weak in Africa.153 It entails linkage with, but not complete submission to, international capitalist forces which themselves are a multiplicity of actors having to contend with important politico-strategic actors. From the structure of the neocolonial argument, any substantial moves in the direction of neomercantilism become, ipso facto, ritual or rhetorical forms of economic nationalism. While a steady inflow of foreign capital and a substantial expatriate presence can be crucial in helping to consolidate and maintain African regimes, I would argue that such assistance does not necessarily rule out other political economy alternatives. We need to investigate them empirically, not dismiss them theoretically. Mercantilism, both historically and now within African states, has been closely associated with state formation and a search for sovereignty—not with revolutionary change or welfare goals. Mercantilist policies are specifically designed to aid in the formation of stronger states, to help achieve unity, to centralize and concentrate power, and to struggle against internal particularism and external dependence. Mercantilism is not primarily an economic phenomenon: it is an attempt to force economic policy into the service of power as an end to itself.154 Like their early modern European predecessors, most African states today are centralizing, but distinctly limited, authoritarian patrimonial-bureaucratic states. They have low levels of development and penetration and limited coercive and implementation capabilities. Politics is highly personalized, and a ruling class is emerging, with the gap between the rulers and the ruled increasing. Mercantilist states are not welfare states: state power and the interests of the ruling group—not mass welfare or basic societal change—constitute the central focus of state policy. In many African countries, welfare-oriented development policies are talked about a great deal, but development policies that augment state and ruler power are the primary focus of implementation efforts. These states have predominantly agricultural economies characterized by low levels of development and technology, a central role for trade, and enclaves of capitalist commerce, manufacturing, and extraction.

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In the basic mercantilist equation of African state formation, the key element in the search for sovereignty and unification is power, the basis of power is wealth, and the foundations of wealth are foreign exchange and economic development. The crucial link between foreign exchange and economic development is external trade. Trade is pivotal to the mercantilist political economy because, in a period of relatively limited internal markets and low levels of economic development, it is the major source of foreign exchange. Thus, because it constitutes the foundation of state power and the ability to raise the level of economic development, African neomercantilist states seek to augment their supply of foreign exchange by attempting to increase the volume, terms, and types of trade. Development projects, in addition to fostering the well-being of the ruling group, are designed primarily to expand the control capabilities of the state, increase exports, regulate imports, and promote economic autarky. African neomercantilist states attempt to maintain a partially open, partially closed approach to penetration by external economic groups. The ruling group can increase state power and further its own interests (and the two reinforce each other) by encouraging regulated investment and development of new enterprises by external groups. Mercantilism is opposed to laissez-faire or autonomous capitalism, but not to political capitalism.155 As in early modern Europe, neomercantilism provides a favorable framework for the early development of politically regulated and controlled capitalism in Africa.' 56 The African neomercantilist state has an important role in the economy. Neomercantilist policies result in a mixed condition of state-regulated and coordinated capitalism and some state enterprise in the parastatal sector. The goal is not, however, the extensive state ownership and operation of the economy characteristic of socialism. The role of the state emphasizes direction and regulation with some direct investment in state enterprises. The state encourages trade, regulates imports and exports, grants subsidies, monopolies, and incentives for manufacturing and extractive industries, searches for new mineral deposits, improves the transportation and communications infrastructure, promotes inward technology transfer, establishes some state enterprises and participates in others, and seeks to create a unified internal economy.

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Such is the intent or thrust of African neomercantilist policies; successful implementation, however, is another matter. Like their European predecessors, African neomercantilist states do not engage in effective large-scale economic planning. Although there is much talk about and promulgation of economic "plans," they are seldom implemented in a serious way. Planning is indicative at best. Again, like early modern European mercantilist states, African neomercantilist states often seem to be in serious financial difficulty—even on the brink of bankruptcy. Regular sources of revenue are not adequate or are poorly organized; extensive borrowing and debt are common; corruption is rampant; scarce resources are squandered by ruling groups. A key characteristic of the limited patrimonial-bureaucratic states of early modern European mercantilism was the enunciation of elaborate and ambitious policies that were scarcely implemented. This is also characteristic of African neomercantilist states. They are not fully developed modern bureaucratic states, which is vividly attested to by the general failure of their implementation efforts. Eli Heckscher's assessment of early modern European mercantilism might well apply to contemporary Africa: "The ability of mercantilist statesmen to achieve what was required by their programs was very limited. . . . Generally it may be said that mercantilism is of greater interest for what it attempted than for what it achieved. It certainly paved the way for its successors."' 57 The medium-run future of most African states will probably be as weaker or stronger versions of neomercantilist states achieving, at best, moderate rates of growth and development.

The Patrimonial Administrative State and the Struggle for Territorial Control The last major elements of the authoritarian, patrimonial administrative state to be discussed are the centralization and consolidation of territorial administration and the state-society struggle in the mostly rural periphery. The leaders of the patrimonial administrative state in many parts of Africa have attempted to reinforce and extend central power and control by Africanizing, and, to a certain extent, patrimonializing a key element of the colonial leg-

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acy—a prefectoral structure of territorial administration, especially as the single party atrophied or disappeared altogether as a result of military intervention.158 In the periphery, state control is authoritarian within its domain, but that domain is limited, and it fluctuates back and forth over time given the outcome of ongoing local state-society struggles. There is some indication that now, with the severe economic, fiscal, and resulting infrastructure crises in Africa in the late 1970s and early 1980s, central control of the rural areas has eased somewhat in a number of African states. This is to be expected as state resources diminish and infrastructure declines. Such cycles of state control of the rural areas are part of the struggle for stronger central states and were evident in early modern Europe as well.159 Much of politics and government in the local areas exists at the margin or outside the control apparatus of the central state. In short, there rarely exists a direct statesubject relationship that is continuous and effective, and the statesociety struggle continues. The central apparatus of territorial administration attempts to cope with the uncertainty produced by a complex and shifting rural periphery. There are traditional, quasitraditional, and transitional local authorities and groups to deal with, all in the context of intricate patterns of local factionalism produced by the "interplay of identity and utility" and the patron-client and brokerage networks that frequently link the local area with higher levels.160 This is not a struggle of "modernity" with "tradition," but rather a struggle between central patriarchal patrimonial authority and dispersed local authority and factionalism resulting from a complex interplay of various patricularisms, uneven socioeconomic change and dependence, and emerging class factors. Despite all the recent and useful work on class formation in African states,161 traditional authorities continue to function with varying degrees of power and legitimacy and often fulfill important brokerage functions. Martin Staniland stresses the remarkable "resilience and adaptability" of chiefly authorities; tradition is indeed ever changing. John Dunn and A. F. Robertson refer to the "dynamics of chieftancy politics," as chiefs and other political entrepreneurs attempt to ward off and/or manipulate the encroaching central state, all the while engaging in intense local factionalism among themselves.162

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The préfectoral apparatus of control usually employs what I characterize as a coverover strategy for increasing central power, in which the power of local intermediary authority structures is slowly emasculated without abolishing the structures themselves. Such a strategy is congruent with the authoritarian, organic-statist thrust of the patrimonial administrative state. It must be remembered, however, that these structures of territorial control are themselves early modern structures, not fully bureaucratized instruments of either domination or development; "it would be much more appropriate in most cases to speak of 'government employees' as a categoric group than of 'bureaucracies' in the usual sociological sense of the word." 163 Kenya is an instructive example of the use of centralizing territorial administration by a patrimonial administrative state. A single political system does not exist in Kenya, as traditional intermediary authorities and local councils continue to exist with varying degrees of coherence alongside a new ruling class and other emerging classes. The chiefs remain the "grassroots agents" of the provincial administration. Bienen describes the increasing strength, wide powers, and centralized control of the provincial administration, which is "the main instrument of social control."' 64 The task of the centralizing provincial administration is to increase state power slowly in the periphery while maintaining basic order and extracting resources for both the state and ruling class projects. The chiefs are closely supervised as the provincial administration attempts to use them to control the local population. But all sources of uncertainty are to be controlled. So, beginning in 1968, the government took control of all local councils supposedly because they were in "financial disarray," but in fact, "it had become clear that central leaders preferred to end local autonomy over crucial areas."165 Any arena of local autonomy, uncertainty, and resources eventually becomes a target for central control. In this vein, Bienen describes the central control established over "Harambee" or self-help schools originally encouraged by the state. Among other difficulties, they cause concern "because they become the focus for political rivalries between leaders of local communities and because local leaders try to intervene with political leaders and the Ministry of Education at the center in order to strengthen themselves in their localities." 166 So,

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"after spending much time and effort promulgating the idea of local participation in self-help and Harambee schools, provincial and district commissioners now must act to control spontaneous activities."167 It is important to point out that in each of these three cases— chiefs, local councils, and self-help schools—the structures of local authority and uncertainty were not abolished, just tightly controlled. In a general assessment of the role of the provincial administration, Bienen points out that while control is the central task, the territorial administration also screens and communicates some demands upward: By virtue of being the agent for social control in Kenya, the Civil Service is involved frequently in curtailing political participation. When economic and social demands cannot be met, the Civil Service is given the mission of restricting political formations which push these demands upward. Or when political competition itself threatens stability, the Civil Service imposes limits on it. At the same time, the Civil Service itself pushes demands upward as it communicates grievances from below.' 6 8

The degree to which the centralizing territorial administration fulfills such a role needs to be carefully investigated in each case and over time. In the case of the territorial apparatus in absolutist Zaire, this role is much less important but still there, just as it performs a few "development" tasks, but not many. Thus, to understand and to conceptualize authoritarian rule in Africa better, undue emphasis should not be placed on authoritarian structures at the center—single parties, "bureaucracies," and military establishments—or such a focus should at least be complemented by a look at structures and processes of authoritarian control in the basically rural periphery. Centralizing patrimonial administrative regimes engage in a state-society struggle in this sector in an attempt to extend their authority, their limited domains. Resistance is common and varied.169 There is a slowly growing body of good monographs on local politics and "centerperiphery relations," but the focus is primarily on the "political machine" aspects of single parties, the nature of "brokerage" patterns, local factionalism, or rural class formation and emerging socioeconomic processes, not on the attempts to control them by authoritarian regimes using early modern forms of prefectoral rule,

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which are themselves a patrimonialized legacy of colonial domination.170 The literature on the operation of prefectoral territorial administration in Africa is spotty and partial, and much of what exists concentrates on "development" tasks rather than on domination, although the authoritarian attitudes, style, and behavior of these officials frequently show through.171 Detailed, systematic studies of the operation of prefectoral structures of domination in the postcolonial period are all but nonexistent. This study of authoritarian prefectoral domination in one African patrimonial administrative state will help fill this gap.

Conclusion In broad strokes, I have sketched the major elements of an African patrimonial administrative state, organic-statist in orientation and highly authoritarian in character, which attempts to increase its power internally via a state-society struggle in a very early modern environment, and externally against a multiplicity of economic, politico-strategic, and cultural actors in the international system. The two fronts of the battle interact in complex and shifting but persistent ways, such that they are the two sides of the same fragile coin. Underneath varying combinations of nonpatrimonial formal structures and legitimating doctrines, this early modern state is relatively widespread in Africa. Mobutu Sese Seko's regime in Zaire is an African absolutist variant of this form of state, especially in its patterns of authority and the structure, process, and style of its state-society struggle in the periphery. Attempts at state formation and the formation of ruling classes are two of the most important processes in Africa today, and they are closely intertwined. This chapter has stressed the complex interrelationships among patrimonial forms of authority, power, and administration; attempts at state formation; the formation of ruling classes; and the activities of a multiplicity of external actors. While external actors are important, internal processes do indeed have lives of their own. The ability of external actors to structure or restructure African regimes is limited. The relative autonomy of the state and its political aristocracy in Zaire

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is a fact, and an important theoretical one at that. In addition, it is one that holds for much of the rest of black Africa. Given the political and economic international context in which it operates, the most striking thing about the Zairian absolutist state is that it exists at all. Another important point that emerges from the analysis here is that basic socioeconomic and political changes take place slowly and unevenly. Unlike the case in most of Latin America today, the consolidation of viable state structures is still uncertain in much of black Africa, and patrimonial forms of rulership and administration are still dominant, only partially affected by intermittent bureaucratization and nascent class structures and struggles. Politically conscious and organized peasant and working classes are still in an early stage of development. In addition, genuine bourgeoisies remain very fragile creatures. Both capitalism and multiclass-based national politics are still in their infancy in Zaire and in much of the rest of black Africa. In this sense, the best part of the Marxist literature on Africa today is that which focuses on the articulation of modes of production and emerging class struggles, that is, emphasizes social formations and their interrelationships rather than Africa's full-fledged incorporation into a world capitalist system. In fact, incorporation, although important, is only partial, and, in this sense, the notion of Bonapartism is not at all appropriate to much of black Africa today. More systematic efforts are needed to merge Weberian notions of political authority, domination, and administration with much of the recent excellent material on class, dependency, and the structural bases of power and authority in Africa.172 While discussing the nature of authority in the West African party-states of the mid-1960s, that of Modibo Keita in particular, Zolberg noted: In spite of the use of modern Marxist phraseology, the mood is akin to that of pre-modern Europe. But where does this analogy lead us? Is it merely an entertaining historical parallel, or does it contain a serious clue to the understanding of the West African party-state? Beyond drawing attention to similarities in the behavior of rulers, the parallel suggests possible fundamental similarities in the very nature of the systems of authority which characterize these otherwise very different polities.' 73

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He goes on to point out that the resemblance between heavily patrimonial forms of rule in Africa and "historical examples drawn from Europe or elsewhere is thus far more than a fortuitous parallel but indicates that patterns of authority may be genuinely similar." 174 More importantly, however, Zolberg reminds us of several of the most crucial tenets of Max Weber's political sociology—that, in most cases, forms of authority are mixed between traditional (mostly patrimonial), charismatic, and legal-rational elements; that one pattern will generally predominate in a given situation; and that the mix may well vary over time. This certainly holds for current African authoritarian states that are heavily patrimonial at the core but also have varying mixtures of legal-rational and charismatic characteristics, particularly in the formal structures of the central regime, in legitimating doctrines, and in highly personalistic forms of rule. A crucial continuity element reinforces this blend of authority elements as the attributes of the administrative structure are also mixed; basically bureaucratic forms of administration inherited from colonial rule have been heavily patrimonialized.175 Mobutu Sese Seko's early modem regime in Zaire did not start out as a full-blown African version of absolutism overlaid with some charismatic and legal-rational elements. The authority mix has varied over time as Mobutu sought, unevenly and haltingly at first, to routinize his authoritarian regime. The first several years saw primarily a combination of the charisma or personal magnetism of a "man-on-horseback," reminiscent of early Latin American caudillismo, and quasi-legal-rational elements reminiscent of Bonapartism in the move toward a viable single-party constitutional "democracy" during the 1967-1970 period. By 1974, however, the legal-rational aspects had diminished as the already shallow roots of the single party atrophied. The MPR became merely another element of the state administrative structure with primarily propaganda functions for the political religion. The weak charismatic elements, likewise, diminished but did not die out. The personalistic authority elements moved in the neotraditional direction of the patriarchal patrimonialism of a presidential monarchy, drawing heavily on powerful precolonial notions of kingly, chiefly, and "big man" authority. Toward the end of Creating Political Order, Zolberg makes

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a plea that "the study of politics in Africa" become more comparative and suggests one interesting option: I believe that a promising approach consists of comparisons at a middling level of generalization between units that are not extremely diverse, such as contemporary African states themselves, or between them and historical states (in Europe and elsewhere) in which somewhat similar conditions prevailed. 176

This chapter has placed the current regime in Zaire within the context of authoritarian rule generally, and within the Latin American and African contexts in particular. With this base, the rest of part I will consist of a conceptual discussion of state formation and the state-society struggle in the periphery from the perspectives of Weberian political and historical sociology and organization theory (chapter 2). Then a model of early modern European absolutism will be elaborated based on Louis XIV's paradigm state in seventeenth-century France, with particular stress again on the state-society struggle in the periphery (chapter 3). Part II will combine the analytic perspectives of part I in a detailed look at the state-society struggle in Mobutu Sese Seko's Zaire.

ENDNOTE

It is useful at this point to specify the meaning, at least in a preliminary fashion, of some of these descriptive terms. Organic-statism: Organic-statism is a vision of politics that stresses the organic harmony and order of the political community as guaranteed and structured by a relatively autonomous state. It emphasizes the need for and legitimacy of unity so as to achieve the common good, and the state is seen as necessary to achieve it. Organic-statism rejects individualistic, autonomous group, and class based forms of politics in favor of state structured and controlled interaction. Corporatism: Corporatism is a set of policies and structures that link society with the state. Most commonly, corporatism is state structuring of group rather than individual or class interests and representation in order to eliminate spontaneous, uncontrolled, or overly conflictual interest articulation. As such, it is frequently linked with organic-statist views of politics and society. This state-imposed corporatism should be distinguished from forms of corporatism which emerge "naturally" from society over time. In this latter case, the state ratifies the existence of, or "charters," corporatist group structures rather than creating and imposing them from the top. Departicipation: Departicipation is the systematic emasculation and/or elimination by central rulers of previously existing structures of political participation and interest articulation. As such, it is commonly linked to organic-statist visions of politics and corporatist policies and structures. Patrimonialism: Max Weber defined patrimonialism as any type of government that is organized as a more or less direct extension of the ruler's "household." He considered it a traditional form of rule but made it clear that all forms of rule can be, and usually are to some extent, a mixture of legal-rational, charismatic, and traditional characteristics. He applied the concept to a temporally and geographically wide-ranging set of historical examples and believed that many contemporary forms of rule have patrimonial characteristics. As a form of "extended patriarchal rule," patrimonial government is seen as the ruler's private domain; the ruler exercises authority as an aspect of his personal property. As such, patri-

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monialism is one form of personal rule. According to Weber, "the political administration . . . is treated as a purely personal affair of the ruler, and political power is considered part of his personal property." (Economy and Society, p. 1029; all citations are from Economy and Society unless otherwise indicated). In any attempt to extend the scope of domination, the "household" may grow to gargantuan proportions and require a body of officials and a military force. These officials are personal representatives of the ruler and are chosen more for their loyalty and dependence than for their training, expertise, or competence, and the military force is only semiprofessional in character and,often includes a mixture of mercenaries, aliens, societal marginals, and rural poor. The following aspects of patrimonial rule will be discussed briefly here: leadership, legitimation, administration, and economic underpinnings and consequences. Patrimonial Leadership. Weber stressed the mixture of traditionalism and arbitrariness that characterizes patrimonial regimes. The central tension in patrimonial rule is between the partially sanctioned personal discretion of the ruler and the limitations of tradition. The degree to which one or the other prevails depends on the administrative apparatus and military forces at the disposal of the ruler, along with his own capabilities as he seeks to increase his realm of personal discretion. The "nontraditional element is not, however, rationalized in impersonal terms, but consists only in an extreme development of the ruler's discretion. It is this which distinguishes it from every form of rational authority" (p. 232); "for the personal discretion and the favor or disfavor of the ruler are decisive as a matter of principle and not just as a matter of fact, as of course it does happen everywhere. This also applies to the relation between the ruled and the officials" (p. 1030). Weber distinguished between several types of patrimonial rule. In the increasing scope given to the personal discretion of the ruler, they are gerontocracy, decentralized patrimonialism, centralizing patrimonialism (patriarchal patrimonialism), and sultanism (a despotic form of patrimonial rule). Weber very carefully distinguished most forms of patrimonial rule from feudalism, which he considered a unique variant of decentralized patrimonialism: "Feudalism is estate-type patrimonialism, a marginal case that contrasts with patriarchal patrimonialism" (p. 1086). Centralizing patrimonial rule or patriarchal patrimonialism—"mass domination by one individual" (p. 1106) which requires officials and some force—will be the primary focus here. Thus "the arbitrariness of patrimonial rulership" (p. 1099) is one of its key characteristics, especially as the often unwritten and vague limitations of tradition become weaker. Patrimonial rulers are also not constrained by legal-rational limitations, and, thus, powerful patriarchal

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patrimonial rulers are not greatly constrained by restrictions from either end of the continuum of tradition and legal-rational authority. The decisions of the patrimonial ruler, the result of the exercise of his personal and arbitrary powers of discretion, are law. As a result, the personal abilities and character of the individual ruler are of utmost importance for the survival and consolidation of a patrimonial state structure. Weber noted that "in such an administrative structure the ruler's purely personal ability to assert his will is to a very high degree decisive for the always unstable content of his nominal power" (p. 1042). The ruler is at one and the same time the source of all law and above its influence. Weber also stressed that in patrimonial states power-wielders tend to create nonformal types of law and are not bound by "an abstract formalism of legal certainty," and they "may refuse to be bound by formal rules, even those they have made themselves, excepting however, those norms which they regard as religiously sacred and hence absolutely binding" (p. 1084). Patrimonial Legitimation. Given the inherent tension in patrimonialism between the demands and restrictions of tradition and the desire on the part of the ruler for more personal discretion, one of the crucial needs of the patriarchal patrimonial ruler or prince in his struggle for unity and consolidation of power is to enlarge his area of personal discretion while maintaining the aura of tradition. One way to achieve this is to propagate the doctrine of the "good king" devoted to the welfare of his subjects as "the ideal glorified by mass legend": Patriarchal patrimonialism must legitimate itself as guardian of the subjects' welfare in its own and in their eyes. T h e "welfare state" is the legend of patrimonialism, deriving not from the free camaraderie of solemnly promised fealty, but from the authoritarian relationship of father and children. T h e "father of the people" (Landesvater) is the ideal of patrimonial states, (p. 1107; emphasis added)

To maintain their subjects' welfare, the king must be able to act decisively and freely, above all to maintain the public order that is essential to the development and enjoyment of social life. "The patrimonialist theoreticians of the Occident in the age of enlightened absolutism" (p. 1050), as Weber referred to them, developed several interrelated legitimacy doctrines that justified the violation of tradition and the extension of the personal discretion of the ruler in the name of the common good. These doctrines, which mixed traditional, sacred, and newer secular notions, shifted the balance of the inherent tension in patrimonial rule more toward the personal discretion of the ruler: divine right dealt with the source of authority, sovereignty with its locus and nature, and raison d'état with its exercise.

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Patrimonial Administration. Extended patrimonialism requires an administrative staff and military forces, and they show the same combination of traditionalism and personal arbitrariness as the ruler himself. Patrimonial officials are personal or ruler servants, not civil or public servants or servants of an abstract state, and they are recruited primarily o n the basis of loyalty and dependence. In exchange for their dependence o n the ruler, they become extensions of his personal power and receive substantial privileges. These attributes can be withdrawn at any time, however. The patrimonial ruler may frequently and arbitrarily change the division of labor in the administration and its personnel: " B e c a u s e of its very nature patrimonialism was the specific locus for the rise of favoriti s m — o f men close to the ruler w h o had tremendous power, but always were in danger of sudden, dramatic downfall for purely personal reas o n s " (p. 1088). There is a tendency in patrimonial rule for officials to attempt to break their dependence o n the ruler by appropriating their privileges and power permanently, thereby weakening central patrimonial authority. The dependence of the official on the ruler can also be diminished by environmental constraints such as distance and poor transportation and communications capabilities. Patrimonial rulers fight the tendency toward appropriation, which fosters decentralized patrimonialism, by employing techniques such as frequent rotation of officials, excluding them from assignment in their native regions, the use of traveling inspectors and spies, and forbidding the sale or transfer of office to relatives or offspring. The outcome of this struggle depends a great deal on the forcefulness and persistence of the ruler and those around him. Administrative officials may be remunerated in kind, by fees, salary, property income, or by direct extraction from the population. Patrimonial officials are extensions of the personal ruler, and " i n contrast to bureaucracy therefore, the position of the patrimonial official derives from his purely personal submission to the ruler, and his position vis-à-vis the subjects is merely the external aspect of this relation" (p. 1030). Thus, "the ruler's personal discretion delimits the jurisdiction of his officials," and they "usually develop into a status group set off from the ruled" (pp. 1029, 1026). Patrimonial officials often treat the population with the same degree of personal arbitrariness that characterizes the behavior of the ruler. They are "permitted to d o whatever is compatible with the power of tradition and the rulers' interest in the preservation of the subjects' compliance and economic capacity to support him. Absent are the binding norms and regulations of bureaucratic administration" (p. 1030). Patrimonial administration is on a case-by-case basis, and most problems of law and adjudication become problems of administration.

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In fact, any distinction between administrative and judicial functions becomes very blurred. According to Weber, "the patrimonial office lacks above all the bureaucratic separation of the 'private' and the 'official' sphere," and this "derives from the treatment of the office as a personal right and not, as in the bureaucratic state, from impersonal interests— occupational specialization and the endeavor to provide legal guarantees for the ruled" (pp. 1028, 1029). In short, patrimonial administration "lacks the objective norms of the bureaucratic state and its 'matter-offactness,' which is oriented toward impersonal purposes. The office and the exercise of public authority serve the ruler and the official on which the office was bestowed, they do not serve impersonal purposes" (p. 1031). The loyalty of patrimonial military forces is maintained by material rewards and payments and by chances for direct extraction from the population. As a privileged status group, the leaders of these forces may pose a threat to the patrimonial ruler, especially as he attempts to extend his personal discretion to its outer limits (the paradox of sultanism). In large patrimonial states, central administrative control is difficult to maintain on a regular and intensive basis. As a result, the patrimonial ruler uses his instruments of rule—"personally loyal officials and soldiers" (p. 1055)—in a "continuous struggle of the central power with the various centrifugal local powers," but "the patrimonial ruler cannot always dare to destroy the autonomous local patrimonial powers" (p. 1055). In short, centralizing patriarchal patrimonialism struggles against decentralized patrimonialisms. The shift in either direction that results from this struggle depends greatly on the nature and capabilities of the administrative apparatus and coercive force which the ruler needs to begin establishing direct linkages with his subjects. In pursuing what I characterize as a coverover strategy, in which the administrative apparatus is laid down on top of preexisting authority structures and used to emasculate their power slowly, the centralizing ruler may have to make some compromises with "these autonomous local patrimonial powers." As a result, the tension between tradition and arbitrariness is pervasive and never fully resolved. (On the coverover strategy, see chapter 2.) In the process of this struggle and as a result of the patrimonial stress on glory and external concerns such as war, "patrimonial officialdom may develop bureaucratic features with increasing functional division and rationalism, especially with the expansion of clerical tasks and of authority levels through which official business must pass" (p. 1028). This was the case during "the rise of the Occidental patrimonial-bureaucratic state" (p. 1041, emphasis added), which is the focus of chapter 3. According to Weber, "ever new and impelling administrative tasks ere-

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ated the princely bureaucracy, which was destined to dissolve the Ständestaat." Although he cautioned that "this process must not be understood too mechanically" and that "the transition from the patrimonial to the bureaucratic is fluid," he noted that "at first this led to a renaissance of patrimonialism, which remained dominant in Continental Europe up to the French Revolution, but the longer patrimonialism lasted, the more it approached pure bureaucratism" (p. 1087). The modern state, according to Weber, has the development of bureaucratic administration at its root, and "the progress toward bureaucratic officialdom . . . has been the unambiguous yardstick for the modernization of the state" (p. 1393). Such a conceptualization stresses the autonomy, sovereignty, and separation of the modern state from society and the depersonalization of domination: These distinctions [between bureaucratic and non-bureaucratic administration) presuppose the conceptual separation of the "state," as an abstract bearer of sovereign prerogatives and the creator of legal norms, from all personal authority of individuals. These distinctions are necessarily remote from the nature of pre-bureaucratic, especially patrimonial and feudal, structures of authority, (p. 998)

Weber uses the terms "absolute state" and "absolutism" when referring to these early modern European states and designates them as mixed "patrimonial-bureaucratic states" (pp. 1393, 1094, 1041). We shall be compelled again and again to form expressions like "patrimonialbureaucratic" order to make the point that the characteristic traits of the respective phenomenon belong in part to the rational form of domination, whereas other traits belong to a traditionalist form of domination. (H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, eds., From Max Weber, p. 300)

The administrative structures of these European patrimonialbureaucratic states thus manifested both types of characteristics. The emerging bureaucratic characteristics were more continuous and systematic administration in more permanent, organized, and specialized agencies and roles with the tasks increasingly delimited; agencies and roles arranged hierarchically to facilitate control and coordination; increasingly extensive use of written documents; effective authority that is deconcentrated territorially, along with the use of organizationally rational discretion which is both encouraged and controlled; administrative decision based on stipulated, formal rules and regulations which becomes increasingly depersonalized; staff recruitment based at least partially on knowledge and specialized training; the beginnings of set career patterns; increasing separation between private and official affairs and resources; the prevention of appropriation of office and resources;

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and the generally increased concentration of means, systematization, and procedural rationality which result from the above changes. In addition to the monarch as the patrimonial core of the state, however, many patrimonial administrative features remained important, either wholly or in part. Among the most important were rather dispersed and not fully organized means of administration; personalized, arbitrary, case-by-case administration based on personally motivated discretion or traditional norms; much personal, face-to-face administration not extensively utilizing written documents; personalistic staff selection; direct personal dependence of the staff on the ruler; supervision of staff based on personal preference and loyalty; fusion of private and official affairs and resources; tendency toward appropriation of office and official resources; and compensation at least in part from revenue derived directly or indirectly from the office or position. A distinct difference exists, then, between localized patrimonial politics in the absence of an adequately functioning central power and the existence of a patrimonial-bureaucratic state that competes with local patrimonial powers. In his book Patrimonialism and Politics in the Congo, Jean-Claude Willame uses the Weberian concept of patrimonialism only in the first sense. He deals with localized patrimonial politics. Unfortunately he does not apply the concept of patrimonialism to the Mobutu regime, which he characterizes as a "Caesarist bureaucracy." Here the Mobutu regime is considered a patrimonial-bureaucratic state that is engaged in a state formation struggle with, among others, local patrimonial interests. The full spectrum of the concept of patrimonialism is used to analyze recent Zairian political reality in which different types of patrimonial powers struggle for survival and power. For a similar criticism of Willame's book, see Robin Theobald, "Research Note: Patrimonialism," p. 552n12. Economic Underpinnings and Consequences of Patrimonialism. Weber pointed out that patrimonialism is compatible with many different types of economic structure: "Patrimonialism is compatible with household and market economy, petty bourgeois and manorial agriculture, absence and presence of capitalist economy" (p. 1091). He noted, however, that "both traditionalism and arbitrariness affect very deeply the development opportunities of capitalism" (p. 1094) and that "its opportunities for expansion are limited." This is particularly true for "production-oriented modern capitalism, based on the rational enterprise, the division of labor and fixed capital, whereas politically oriented capitalism, just as capitalist wholesale trade, is very much compatible with patrimonialism" (p. 1091). The development of strongly centralizing patrimonial rule is frequently dependent on trade, the proceeds of which are to a large

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extent seen as the private property of the ruler, and on the functioning of an increasingly, though still only partially, rational system of taxation: Scholars have often overlooked one constant that has been historically important in the development of strong, centralized patrimonial bureaucracies—trade. We saw previously that the power positions of all rulers transcending the level of the primitive village headman were based on the possession of precious metals in raw or finished form. They needed this treasure above all for the maintenance of their following, the body-guards, patrimonial armies, mercenaries and especially officials, (p. 1029) The major "retarding factor" in regard to capitalism is "the arbitrariness of patrimonial rulership" (p. 1099). As a result, "under the dominance of a patrimonial regime only certain types of capitalism are able to develop fully." Weber mentioned "capitalist trading . . . capitalist provision of supplies for the state and the financing of war, [and] under certain circumstances, capitalist plantations and other colonial enterprises": All these forms are indigenous to patrimonial regimes and often reach a very high level of development. This is not, however, true of the type of profit-making enterprise with heavy investments in fixed capital and a rational organization of free labor which is oriented to the market purchases of private consumers. This type of capitalism is altogether too sensitive to all sorts of irrationalities in the administration of law, administration and taxation, for these upset the basis of calculability. (p. 240) The "anticapitalist effect of patrimonial arbitrariness" can best be seen in that the patrimonial state lacks the political and procedural predictability, indispensable for capitalist development, which is provided by the rational rules of modern bureaucratic administration. Instead we find unpredictability and inconsistency on the part of court and local officials, and variously benevolence and disfavor on the part of the ruler and his servants. It is quite possible that a private individual, by skillfully taking advantage of the given circumstances and of personal relations, obtains a privileged position which offers him nearly unlimited acquisitive opportunities. But a capitalist economic system is obviously greatly handicapped by these factors, for the individual variants of capitalism have a differential sensitivity toward such unpredictable factors. Wholesale trade can tolerate them most easily, relatively speaking, and adapt itself to all changing conditions. Moreover, if the ruler does monopolize trade himself, as under simple and transparent conditions, his self-interest demands that he permit accumulation of wealth so that he can draw on taxfarmers, farmers of official supplies and on credit sources. The "financier" is already known in the period of Hammurabi, and the formation of trade capital is feasible under almost all conditions of domination, especially under patrimonialism. It is different with industrial capitalism, (p. 1095, emphasis added)

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Centralizing patrimonial states, then, are at best linked to emerging capitalism of a political character, usually associated with "the age of mercantilism, when the incipient capitalist organization of trades, the bureaucratic rationalization of patrimonial rulership and the growing financial needs of the military, external [foreign affairs] and internal administration revolutionized the financial techniques of the European states." Weber cautions, however, that "the bureaucracy of 'Enlightened Despotism' was still as patrimonial as was the basic conception of the 'state' on which it rested." The two major forms of this "patrimonial capitalism" (p. 1098) were "monopolies of their own" and "direct privileges for capital." Both are politically heavily determined as "the important openings for profit are in the hands of the ruler and of his administrative staff" (p. 238). Members and favorites of the royal family, courtiers, military men and officials grown rich, great speculators and adventurous inventors of "systems" of political economy . . . made up the economically interested groups behind the royal monopolies and the industries which were imported, founded or protected on that basis, (p. 1098)

The other major type was "politically privileged capitalism," which "flourished during the age of mercantilism in the Occident, when the modern power states entered upon their political competition": The privileges of private capital in patrimonial states were always the more developed, the more the power competition of several states made it necessary for them to woo the mobile money capital, (p. 1103)

But few of these patriarchal patrimonial rulers "succeeded in turning their countries into industrial states"—"the retarding factor was again the arbitrariness of patrimonial rulership" (p. 1099). Above all, "two bases of the rationalization of economic activity are entirely lacking; namely, a basis for the calculability of obligations and of the extent of freedom which will be allowed to private enterprise" (p. 238). Besides these problems and the "fiscal arbitrariness," another characteristic "which tends to restrict the development of rational economic activity" in "most patrimonial regimes" is that "there is a wide scope for actual arbitrariness and the expression of purely personal whims on the part of the ruler and the members of his administrative staff." Weber also mentioned "the opening for bribery and corruption," especially since "it tends to be a matter which is settled from case to case with every individual official and thus highly variable" (pp. 239-40). A final important constraint on capitalist development is that "in the interest of his domination, the patrimonial ruler must oppose . . . the economic independence of the bourgeoisie," as every autonomous

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group "must be suspected of hostility to authority" (p. 1107). As the history of modern capitalism shows, few patrimonial rulers have ultimately been able to achieve this. Many, however, have been able to slow or skew the development of an autonomous bourgeoisie. There are examples of both among current Third World states. Patrimonialization: Patrimonialization entails increasing the presence or weight of the above patrimonial phenomena in the authority/power mix that characterizes a particular regime at a given time. In the case of Zaire it is an important process in regard to the inherited colonial state structure, itself not fully bureaucratized, however, and applies to all of the four dimensions of patrimonialism discussed above—leadership, legitimation, administration, and economic underpinnings and consequences. Patrimonialization makes it clear that there is no necessary and irreversible trend toward increased bureaucratization that is often an explicit or implicit assumption in much of the literature on authority and administration. On patrimonialism, see the following: Weber, Economy and Society, ch. 12, "Patriarchalism and Patrimonialism," pp. 1006-69; ch. 13, "Feudalism, Ständestaat and Patrimonialism," pp. 1070-1110, and 2 2 6 - 4 1 ; Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber, pp. 3 8 2 - 8 4 ; Guenther Roth, "Personal Rulership," pp. 194-206; S. N. Eisenstadt, "Traditional Patrimonialism and Modern Neo-Patrimonialism"; Theobald, "Research Note: Patrimonialism"; Lloyd I. Rudolph and Susanne Hoeber Rudolph, "Authority and Power"; and Gerald Heeger, The Politics of Underdevelopment, ch. 3. For a fuller discussion of the patrimonial characteristics of French absolutism, see chapter 3, and of Mobutu's regime in Zaire, see chapters 4 - 7 . Absolutism: Absolutism is a monarchical form of centralizing patriarchal patrimonial rule which uses an increasingly mixed patrimonial-bureaucratic administrative and coercive apparatus to control a very heterogeneous society. See chapter 3 for a detailed look at the case of seventeenth-century France and chapter 4 for its specific application to the Mobutu regime in Zaire. Early Modern State: An early modern state is one that has some characteristics of a modern state, but is not predominantly or even significantly modern. It is a typological category encompassing specific characteristics, not necessarily an historical or chronological one, much less an implicitly evolutionary one. The seventeenth-century absolutist state in France was early modern, as were most nineteenth-century Latin American states. Much of contemporary Africa is early modern, and a few Latin American states remain so.

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Neotraditional: Neotraditional indicates the selective use of traditional notions of authority, power, and legitimacy and traditional policies and structures in regimes that are not continuously functioning historical ones. This can be in states that did not previously exist, such as those emerging new out of colonial rule, or historical regimes in which traditional structures had been previously overthrown.

2 State Formation and the State-Society Struggle

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his chapter identifies the key processes of state formation, discusses the relationship of external and internal factors in state formation efforts, analyzes the state as a ruling organization, explicates two basic state formation strategies of internal control—breakthrough and coverover—and examines the role of préfectoral forms of territorial administration in the state-society struggle.

State Formation State formation is the set of complementary and competing processes that deal with the creation, consolidation, and extension of an organization of domination over a population in a given territory using an administrative apparatus backed by a coercive capability and various legitimating ideas. State formation entails the initiation and protection of a new definition of authority in opposition to those that already exist. It is a struggle for dominance with internal societal groups and external groups, organizations, and forces for compliance, resources, and the fulfillment of ideal and material interests; it is a struggle for internal control, political unification, and external security. One can view the process of

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state formation as a search for sovereignty: "the idea that there is a final and absolute political authority in the political community and no final and absolute authority exists elsewhere."' The search for sovereignty by the state is a quest for separation, autonomy, and diminished dependence vis-a-vis internal societal groups and external groups in the world political and economic environment. Internally, the search for sovereignty attempts to achieve the "continuous and direct penetration of a settled community by a single authority," 2 the survival and consolidation of a territorial organization of domination in an uncertain environment. The initiation of state formation efforts is often the combined result of a will to dominate by a particular group, usually one that has nominal or theoretical claims to rule over a given territory, and a severe crisis of order and control that leads to great sociopolitical upheaval, especially one caused by the breakup of a former political authority structure. M u c h of the literature on "political development" and "nation-building" has stressed the role of "modernizing elites" fighting internal traditional authorities and external imperialist powers in order to lead their people to the blessings of "development" and "modernization." There is little in the recent political history of most African states that would verify such a portrayal of ruling groups. Instead, these rulers usually attempt to build stronger states because of a combined will to dominate and to pursue their o w n ideal and material interests while coping with severe crises of authority in the wake of the disintegration of colonial empires. Their ideal and material interests may include, often for reasons of international glory and prestige, certain development concerns, but they are usually directly linked to considerations of state power. State formation can be viewed as a three-way struggle among a ruling group, an official/administrative apparatus, and various internal societal and external competing groups, organizations, and states, each seeking to fulfill its o w n set of ideal and material interests.3 From the perspective of the would-be rulers, this state formation struggle has three fronts: the battle between the state and the society that it wishes to dominate; the contest with external groups, organizations, and states; and the struggle within the state between the ruler and the staff. In the emergence of a strong, sovereign state, the most important development is

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the separation of that organization of domination from both internal societal groups and external groups, organizations, and states, that is, the creation of that space or arena of partial autonomy that permits effective territorial domination of a given population. As the state becomes more coherent and autonomous, there is a move from intermittent, indirect, and extensive administration and dispersed power to more continuous, direct, and intensive administration and more centralized and concentrated power and resources. The power of intermediary authorities is emasculated. A direct state-subject relationship is established via a centrally controlled administrative structure and legitimacy doctrines, and there is a coincidence of political, military (coercive), and administrative capabilities. Finally, in both its internal and external aspects, this struggle for political primacy is highly dependent on the availability of extractable resources, especially financial ones. In the internal and external struggle and search for sovereignty, the major processes of state formation are: centralization, consolidation, and expansion of power and control; monopolization of decision-making and adjudication in a single legal system; territorial consolidation and unification; separation of state from society and recognition of this partial autonomy by societal groups; formation of coalitions of support with internal and external groups when necessary; penetration of society by continuous, direct, intensive, and centrally controlled administration; maintenance of staff control, especially the separation of staff from the means of administration and society; emasculation of alternative sources of power within the state, especially intermediary authorities; propagation of legitimacy doctrines; extraction and concentration of resources, especially financial ones; consolidation and monopolization of coercive force (standing army, professional police force); functional expansion of state activity, regulation, and control of society; and, above all, resistance to and manipulation of all these processes by societal and external groups in order to protect and fulfill their ideal and material interests.4 In the uncertain conditions that normally surround the formation of a new state, the above processes often have mutually reinforcing or disintegrating effects depending on the way the struggle is going. They do not have to be perfectly reinforcing or disintegrating; it is also possible that the strength of one may

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compensate for weaknesses in others. This would be especially true with the consolidation and monopolization of coercive force. Normally, however, an upward or downward spiral does operate from two tipping points—one where weakness generates more weakness and another where strength creates more strength.5 Between these two points, the effects of the leadership, political will, and creativity discussed by Machiavelli are felt as the motive forces behind political sculpture and as manifestations of the autonomy of things political. The state formation endeavor is usually characterized by intense and often bloody struggle; persistent and pervasive uncertainty; high cost; mutually contradictory policies and lack of implementation; reverses and unintended consequences; and partial achievement, concessions, compromises, even reverses, resulting from the struggle between conflicting interests, the idiosyncracies of rulers, and widespread corruption. It is a slow, gradual, and uneven process. A b o v e all, however, this disruptive, conflict-ridden search for domination is extractive and coercive in nature; but it is so within an environment that is usually riddled with slack and generalized insouciance. These characteristics certainly hold for state formation efforts in Africa today, and they are equally applicable to early modern Europe. 6 The state formation struggle, then, implies three sets of actors and three closely interrelated conflicts. The ruling group seeks to create, consolidate, and extend a structure of domination over a given population and to protect that domination from external influence and competition. To accomplish this task, the rulers attempt to use the staff of the state (political, administrative, and coercive) to penetrate and control society, as well as to limit the internal power of external groups, and to expand the power of the state in the international environment. To do this the central rulers must be assured that the staff effectively executes its dictates. The staff, o n the other hand, has its o w n autonomous ideal and material interests which it pursues. Some of these interests may be congruent with those of the rulers, others may be quite contrary to them. The staff will attempt to resist or ignore central dictates w h e n they are contrary to their immediate interests, and, in so doing, may attempt to form informal or formal coalitions with societal or external groups where it is in their interests to do so.

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Staff control is thus a major problem for the ruling group and involves predominantly normative and utilitarian (bargaining) forms of compliance, although coercive sanction may also be used. The state formation tasks of the staff are predominantly those of control, extraction, and regulation, although they usually also involve the propagation of legitimacy doctrines. As a result, they use mostly utilitarian and coercive forms of compliance in seeking to implement the dictates of the central rulers where they are congruent with their own interests (unless compelled to do otherwise). In the process of consolidating and extending state power, the primary tasks of the staff are the control and emasculation of the power of intermediary authorities, both external and internal, and the extraction of resources. While undertaking these tasks, however, members of the staff attempt to increase their own power and autonomy vis-á-vis both the rulers and societal and external groups. They attempt to control, use, and manipulate these group» to fulfill their own ideal and material interests. As Bendix has noted, "the use of political power involves organization and delegation of authority and hence dependence of the holder(s) of power, on other individuals. Organization is thus at once necessary and problematic."7 The struggle of the rulers also operates on another major front. On this front the ruling group deals more directly with societal and external groups. Here political action consists primarily of formulating and propagating legitimacy doctrines and a new definition of authority and establishing coalitions of support with both internal and external groups. These tasks involve mostly normative and utilitarian forms of compliance. Normative compliance is sought through the propagation of legitimacy doctrines, which attempt to establish the right of the central leaders to rule. It is a battle of belief, and one that relies heavily on Machiavelli's concern with illusion creation and manipulation. Legitimacy doctrines are problematic and unstable because their power stems from voluntary belief in their content. Another problematic aspect exists in that legitimating ideas have a way of becoming constraints on those who propagate them. The legitimacy battle is a crucial one because normative compliance, being voluntary, is much less costly and more effective than either utilitarian or coercive forms of compliance.

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The formation of coalitions, on the other hand, involves predominantly utilitarian forms of compliance, although normative legitimacy concerns may also be involved. Since the rulers cannot possibly do battle with all external and internal groups simultaneously, it is necessary for them to form mutually beneficial coalitions of support with both key internal and external groups. This coalition formation process involves bargained, mutually beneficial forms of support. Such coalitions may be dissolved by either side when they are no longer beneficial or when they are no longer needed. Like legitimacy doctrines and an organization or apparatus of power, coalitions are at once necessary and problematic. As a result, the politics of coalition formation and maintenance is a full-time struggle for ruling groups, especially as shortterm interests and needs shift. Also, since the rulers seek separation and autonomy, the formation of coalitions must be kept to a minimum in order to limit costly commitments that restrict freedom of movement and use up valuable resources. Lastly, the rulers of any state must constantly live with the basic and inescapable fact that people will demand access to power and/or will resist any form of political domination contrary to their ideal and material interests. Resistance by internal and external groups is the most essential reality of the process of state formation. In pursuing their interests, societal groups may actively resist state penetration, attempt to turn it to their own advantage, suffer under it and get along as best as possible, demand participation, and/or request that the state perform certain functions or services. Over time they probably utilize all of these various responses to increasing state penetration or various combinations of them. The history of most state formation efforts, however, is bloody, and resistance, be it overt and organized, spontaneous and ill-fated, or informal and passive, is the norm. Social groups may disbelieve or ignore legitimacy doctrines and at the same time attempt to resist, control, co-opt, and manipulate the staff of the state. As the rulers try to isolate the staff from society, subject groups attempt to subvert staff members from their assigned tasks of domination. A wide assortment of external groups usually also has linkages with internal groups and specific interests to protect within the emerging state. Likewise, as an emerging state increases and consolidates its power internally, it often poses problems for other states

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and organizations in the international environment. The rulers and staff must attempt to cope with these external problems as well. Thus in the three-way struggle for state formation, the emerging state must struggle simultaneously on internal and external fronts in its search for sovereignty. It must continually cope with the fact that all three of the major elements of domination— an administrative apparatus, legitimacy doctrines, and internal and external coalitions—are inherently unstable and problematic. State formation is a process of political and economic struggle that has both external and internal dimensions, the outcome of which is always uncertain and never completely determined, and where the possibility of failure is ever present.

External and Internal Aspects of Change Before examining state formation and state formation strategies from the perspective of organization theory, a brief discussion of external and internal aspects of change in states and societies is in order. Reinhard Bendix has stressed that "whenever it occurs, political change results from the confluence of internal developments and external developments."8 One cannot explain political change in states solely or even predominantly by internal factors as the old evolutionary theories did and as much of the recent comparative politics and political development literature, based on structural functional systems analysis, has tended to do. It is necessary to take into account both external and internal variables. Otto Hintze consistently affirms the significant extent to which the structure of societies is shaped by the external relations between states. Although he also carefully treats internal processes of change, Hintze emphasizes the importance of the particular world historical situation in which a state is formed and develops. This is as true for the development of the modern state in Europe as it is for new states forming in the postmodern world context of today. Hintze distinguishes two major types of state formation processes—the extensive, which consists of "the influence of universal state structures," and the intensive, which is primarily internal in nature.9 The formation of all states is affected simultaneously

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by both processes; what needs to be determined in any given case is the balance and interpénétration of the two sets of influences. European states have played a major role in the creation of the contemporary international state system and in so doing have spread, through imposition and emulation, certain of their political institutions and structures. The major legacies are essentially organic-statist authoritarianism and democracy, and in various ways and at different times, European states have attempted to diffuse both of these types of political structure. During eighty years of colonial rule in Africa, European states imposed the former model, but, in the mad rush to independence in the late 1950s and early 1960s, European states, in a major shift, abruptly insisted that African states emulate the democratic model, which the Europeans saw as the highest expression of their unique civilization. In analyzing state formation processes in the Zairian state, a major concern is with the legacy of the colonial state, which was diffused to Africa by European powers through conquest and imposition. The colonial conquest state has had a dual and decisive effect on the new states of Africa: it has greatly influenced their internal political structure and has linked them intimately with a new world politico-economic system. The consequences of the first effect have not been adequately or empirically investigated; this study hopes partially to eliminate this lacuna. The consequences of the second effect have been more carefully investigated recently, but the results are controversial and hotly debated. Generally, the thrust of the literature is to emphasize the weakness of these states and their extreme dependence on the world politicoeconomic system. A more balanced view would indicate that the involvement of these new states in the current world historical situation has both political and economic aspects, and both negative and positive effects from the perspective of the ruling elites, whatever their ideological position. Certain aspects of the current international situation tend to weaken these regimes; others tend to strengthen them. The bias toward internal factors inherent in the older evolutionary theories of political change and in the recent comparative politics literature that uses structural-functional analysis has already been mentioned. A tendency now exists, however, to go too far in the other direction by overemphasizing the determining

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role of external variables. This tendency is most prevalent in the recent underdevelopment and dependency literatures. This body of literature not only overplays external variables by viewing them as the primary determinants of political change in new states; it also gives undue stress to socioeconomic variables while downplaying the importance and autonomy of the political sphere, especially at the international level.'0 A state, as an organization of domination, and its society do not necessarily form an integrated social system that can be analyzed from a closed structural-functionalist perspective; neither are they simply pawns of larger forces, classes and groups. Rather, the state is a political organization that struggles against, and forms coalitions with, both internal and external groups and uses both internal and external resources and forces in its search for survival, consolidation, autonomy, and power. The State-Society Struggle and the State as Ruling Organization There are essentially three views, historically and theoretically, of the relationship between state and society. The first is that the state controls society, that society is the object of the state or, more precisely, the object of statecraft.11 This view has its roots in the medieval literature of advice to princes and in the statecraft literature associated with Machiavelli, Guicciardini, and others. It can be linked to positions that view the state as an organization of domination and exploitation, as well as to Leninist views of Marxist social transformation. The second view is that the state, and politics in general, are the product of society. This view can be seen in theoretical writings from Locke and Rousseau to SaintSimon and Marx. The third view is that state and society are partly dependent and partly autonomous arenas of sociopolitical life. They are mutually interdependent spheres in which the degree of dependence and autonomy of each varies over time as the power relationships between them change in the struggle for control. The state and society are intertwined, and the struggle for dominance and autonomy is an ongoing process never to be completely decided one way or the other.

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The state may be viewed as a ruling organization that competes for power with other political, economic, and social organizations and groups. This position accepts the third view of statesociety relations. The state as ruling organization is a compliance structure. Weber called the state "a compulsory political organization with continuous operations."'2 There are essentially three types of compliance: voluntary normative compliance, usually due to consensus on values or outcome; utilitarian compliance, benefiting the individual or group; and coercive compliance, based on compulsion by force, violence, and terror or the threat of them.13 Any state relies on all three types of compliance, although the relative mix varies greatly from state to state and according to political and economic conditions. This section attempts briefly to expand this notion of the state as a ruling organization by applying insights from organization theory to the study of state formation.14 To escape dependence and establish its power, the coalition that controls the state struggles with groups in its environment (internal and external) for compliance and resources from the same set of people. In this competitive struggle the state must cope with the constraints, contingencies, and general uncertainty imposed on it by these groups. The dominant coalition of the state attempts to use its administrative staff and resources to lessen or manage its dependence on groups in its environment. Paradoxically, however, the dominant coalition must also reduce its dependence on this administrative staff. This is the search for sovereignty and the threeway struggle for state formation. Balancing these tasks is a tricky exercise. The new state must attempt to lessen its dependence by protecting its administrative apparatus from environmental influence, using it to acquire voluntary or nonvoluntary compliance and resources from groups in the environment (internal and external), and minimizing commitments to these groups. The state as organization must think simultaneously about rationality and indeterminateness, about certainty and uncertainty. New states in particular are partially open, partially rational structures acting in environments that pose great uncertainty, constraints, and dependence for them. But as organizations seeking to control their environments, these states need determinateness and certainty.

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James D. Thompson has indicated that organizations have three basic levels of control and operation—institutional (I), managerial (M), and technical (T).'5 The tasks and capabilities of managing dependence and coping with constraints and uncertainty are differentially distributed in organizations among the three levels. The institutional level (the top ruling group) is the primary guiding and control element of an organization. It delimits the major tasks of the organization, establishes and defends a domain of action, attempts to establish a domain consensus, makes the major decisions, and, above all, tries to co-align properly staff, structure, and technology with the environment so that the organization can effectively accomplish its tasks. In so doing, it must make the basic structural and commitment decisions that allow the organization to increase its power, that is, to lessen its dependence on the environment. The managerial level (the prefects and middle-level administrators) specializes in coping with day-to-day problems of control and uncertainty. It mediates between the basic guiding and decision-making actions of the l-level and the short-term operational needs of the technical level. By using discretion it attempts to cope with crucial internal and environmental contingencies and constraints so that the decisions of the l-level can be carried out as faithfully as possible and the technical level can perform its tasks in a more certain and controlled atmosphere. The technical level (lower-level administrators and technical personnel) performs the basic operational tasks of the organization; it is the functional core of the organization. The T-level specializes in technical rather than organizational rationality, and, for highest efficiency, it needs certainty of control, resources, technology, etc. One of the major tasks of the M-level is to supply the needs of the technical core and buffer it from disturbances so that it can operate at peak efficiency. These three organizational levels do not simply indicate different locations in the hierarchy of power and authority; rather, each level performs qualitatively different tasks. Like any organization, the state seeks to establish control over groups in its environment on which it may be greatly dependent and which may adversely influence it and its administrative apparatus (including coercive capacity). This administrative apparatus is the main "technology" that the state uses in attempting

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to extend its control. This technology is often very imperfect, and it too poses uncertainty for the state. The ruling coalition seeks to separate its staff from environmental influences. One possible way to do this is to create special cadre, such as prefects, whose main task is to manage the dependencies of the state on societal groups. These cadre seek to protect the rest of the administrative apparatus from environmental uncertainty so that it can carry out its functions in a more rational manner. The ability to do this is constantly being evaluated both by the dominant coalition of the state and by groups and organizations with which it is struggling for sovereignty. Because power in organizations flows to those who are able to manage dependence and cope with uncertainty, these cadre become very powerful in the state and are often very difficult to control. Besides protecting its administrative staff and using it to cope with uncertainty generated by the environment, the ruling group attempts to extend its domain by establishing a "domain consensus" with groups in its environment. Domain consensus is a set of mutually agreed upon expectations of what the state can and cannot do, which is based on ideological principles, bargaining, and/or dominance. A domain consensus is not the same thing as legitimacy because its establishment may not be the result of voluntary agreement by the population. There are three types of domain consensus: normative, utilitarian, and coercive. Once a relatively stable domain consensus is established, it tends to decrease the amount of coercion and conflict necessary to maintain the dominance of the state. The establishment and extension of the state's domain requires considerable effort. The state adopts its domain extension priorities based on the nature of its internal and external environments and the type of "technology" available to it. In attempting to sort out the crucial elements of its environment, the state will identify a "task environment," which consists of those parts of society and the world system that are "relevant or potentially relevant to goal setting and goal attainment."'6 The state has power over these groups when it is assured of their compliance and when it can operate without regard for their actions. When the ruling group takes up the complex and difficult task of state formation, it attempts to extend its domain, lessen its dependence on inter-

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nal and external groups, and restructure its society at least partially. State formation goals are future domains desired by the ruling coalition. Thus, from the perspective of organization theory, state formation would be defined as the process whereby a state's dominant coalition attempts to define, defend, and extend its domain, achieve domain consensus, and cope with the uncertainty generated by its interdependence with its internal and external task environments. It does so, in part, by developing a strategy to structure, control, and coordinate an administrative apparatus and a set of resources to achieve its tasks and adjust to the problems, constraints, and contingencies imposed on it by its environment. Both the administrative staff and the environment generate uncertainty for the dominant coalition so that the central problem is one of coping with uncertainty. The central paradox of state formation, for the state as a complex organization, is the dual and simultaneous search for certainty and flexibility.

State Formation Strategies A state has control over societal and external groups to the degree it can control their actions or act without regard to them. By extending and consolidating a domain, a state acquires dependence. As a result, the state as a dominance-seeking organization attempts to manage its dependence on societal and external groups and organizations; it seeks power vis-a-vis its domain. Domain creation and extension by a state reinforces its distinctiveness and its separation from and power over society. The acquisition of power usually involves conflict and struggle because ideal and material interests diverge. As organizations seek power over those on whom they are dependent, they develop strategies to manage their dependence. Thompson notes that there are two basic types of strategies for managing or coping with dependence—competitive and cooperative.17 The distinction between these two types of strategies is congruent with a distinction between cooperation/manipulation and domination as forms of control. Competitive strategies rely on

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coercive and normative forms of compliance to maintain a freedom from commitment. Cooperative strategies utilize primarily utilitarian forms of compliance based on the bargained exchange of commitments. Most organization theorists tend to ignore the coercive aspects of competitive strategies, focusing instead on devices for scattering dependence such as the search for alternative sources of needed capacities. The major element of cooperative strategies for acquiring power is the negotiated or bargained exchange of commitments that reduce uncertainty for both parties. For example, a formal or informal agreement between a state and a local societal group that the state will supply badly needed agricultural seed and technical advice in return for compliance with certain state taxation policies would mutually benefit the parties as well as reduce uncertainty for both sides. For any organization, however, commitments are two-edged swords because, while uncertainty is reduced, the organization's freedom of movement is also restricted. Thompson identifies three main types of cooperative strategies— contracting, co-opting, and coalescing or coalition formation. Contracting is "the negotiation of an agreement for the exchange of performances in the future." A central ruler, for example, would make an agreement with a local ruler to grant local rights of taxation in return for military service. In this sense, feudalism was a contractual cooperative strategy. Co-opting is "the process of absorbing new elements into the leadership or policy-determining structure of an organization as a means of averting threats to its stability or existence." Selznick has distinguished two types of cooptation—formal and informal. The two types differ on how much real power is actually shared, more power being shared in the informal type of co-optation.' 8 Mobutu's efforts to co-opt politicians from the 1960-65 era and ethnic authorities into the party constitute for the most part formal co-optation. Informal co-optation, however, has been resorted to with the most powerful traditional chiefs. The last type of cooperative strategy, coalescing or coalition formation, indicates a "combination or joint venture with another organization or organizations in the environment. . . [where] the organizations act as one with respect to certain operational goals." 19 A state, for example, may form a coalition with a church or religious organization that increases the power of both. Such

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was the case with the state and Islam during the jihad conquests of North Africa in the seventh and eighth centuries or with the Roman state and the Christian church in the later Roman Empire. Externally, states often form coalitions with other states for their mutual benefit as Richelieu and the Protestant powers of Europe did against imperial Spain during the seventeenth century and as Mobutu and certain Western powers have done. The distinction between competitive and cooperative strategies for lessening dependence and increasing power corresponds to Kenneth Jowitt's differentiation of revolutionary and reformist nation-building strategies (state-building strategies actually). 20 Jowitt focuses his attention on a competitive strategy of revolutionary transformation, which he terms the process of breaking through. The core of this effort is the creation of a state strong enough to alter the basic structure of society—our first view of state-society relations. As a competitive strategy, its central elements are the extensive use of coercion and the propagation of normative appeals in an effort to obtain voluntary compliance. The major thrust of this effort is the direct elimination of all political competitors of the new state, or all intermediary authorities: Breaking through means the decisive alteration or destruction of values, structures, and behaviors which are perceived by a revolutionary elite as compromising or contributing to the actual or potential existence of alternative centers of political power, (p. 7)

Society is to be restructured and redefined around new value premises. This breakthrough idea implies an antagonistic orientation by the ruling group to existing values, structures and behaviors, and to alternative centers of power. The object is to abolish or limit severely the influence of both these elements. The elimination or emasculation of the latter aids in the destruction of the former. There is a clear confrontational stance toward the "old data." The nucleus of such a strategy is the rapid establishment of a direct relationship of control and communication between the state and the subject. No mediating authority structures are allowed to exist. The object of a breakthrough strategy is to make sure that "old values and institutions lose their power to decisively shape social outcomes" (p. 65). The revolutionary breakthrough strategy emphasizes limit-

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ing commitments to groups, both internally and externally. A revolutionary ideology and intentional coercion are used by dedicated cadre to keep the commitments of the state at a minimal level and to break them after they have served their useful shortterm tactical purposes. Thus, a revolutionary approach is distinctive in its urgency, systemic focus, and purposeful use of violence—in some form—to minimize the number of commitments to the existing society and also to the possibility of counterelites' defining their opposition in politically relevant terms, (p. 9)

Direct, intensive state power, a coherent revolutionary ideology, and good leadership and cadre are the crucial organizational elements that foster the success of revolutionary competitive state formation strategies even in cases of severe environmental constraint. A successful attempt at revolutionary state formation must meet stiff tests. Most such breakthrough attempts fail. Some elites have partial success; others fail outright. The most common cause of partial or total failure is premature reconciliation with internal and external groups, usually resulting from goal ambivalence and/or lack of sufficient resources and coercive capacity or "slack." All attempts to implement a revolutionary strategy in Africa have failed or are in serious difficulty. Most African rulers, including Mobutu in Zaire, use what I will term a "coverover" strategy of state formation. Such a strategy was employed by absolutist states in early modern Europe and by European states in their colonial empires. It is an authoritarian mixture of cooperative and competitive elements that uses contracting, co-opting, and coalescing tactics plus moderate amounts of coercion and usually a loose, traditionally oriented legitimating mentality. A breakthrough strategy has a totalitarian orientation while a coverover strategy is authoritarian in character with a heavily organic-statist orientation. Rather than attempting to eliminate intermediary structures completely in order to create an immediate, direct state-subject relationship, covering over entails placing a new type of state cadre who have ideal and material interests that are relatively congruent with those of the center on top of existing intermediary authority structures in the periphery to control them and emasculate their power slowly. Although partially a competitive, confrontation strategy that seeks to centralize and consolidate all power in the political center, the cov-

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erover strategy attempts to do so without greatly altering societal structure, and, in this sense, it is clearly reformist rather than revolutionary. The basic thrust of the strategy is toward the general maintenance of order, centralized and consolidated control and autonomy, the achievement of the interests of the ruling group or class, and some limited alteration of society. Centralization and consolidation of power is a key goal, but it does not entail or envision major societal transformation. State formation elites pursuing a coverover strategy tend to develop commitments to societal and external groups that restrict the regime's freedom of movement to some degree. Centralized political order and control are usually achieved, but traditional authority structures continue to coexist with the state and often maintain a sizable degree of formal or informal autonomy and power. While the coverover strategy does not seek "the decisive alteration or destruction of values, structures, and behaviors," 21 it does seek to control and emasculate slowly alternative centers of political power. While the goal of the strategy is clearly competitive, the means are a mixture of cooperative and competitive tactics. Unlike a revolutionary strategy, it does not have a basic sense of urgency or the widespread and intense use of purposeful violence to limit commitments. For a coverover strategy, the goals are more restricted and the means more mixed and limited than those of a competitive breakthrough strategy. With domination rather than transformation as the primary goal, the strategy is to adopt and adapt an inherited political structure. The modified administrative and political structure is then laid over pre-existing traditional authority structures in order to control them and to emasculate their strength through gradual centralization and concentration of power. In other words, a gradual attempt is made to move from formal to effective power, from extensive and indirect control to direct and intensive administration. This is a process of state formation that may achieve a partial breakthrough in which the state is able to "critically reduce the influence of some traditional institutions but not all, at certain levels but not others, and the reduction is more often formal than real."22 The interdependence between state and society is to be slowly whittled away in the search for sovereignty, autonomy, power, and separation, i.e., for domination. State formation elites attempting to utilize a coverover

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strategy also have need of an "organizational weapon" or core of committed cadre, but theirs need not be as dedicated or effective as that required by a breakthrough strategy. The chief component of the organizational weapon for coverover elites is the prefectoral territorial administrative cadre of the emerging centralized state. These crucial M-level personnel do not, however, constitute a truly ideologically motivated, transformation-oriented deviant subculture as they do in the revolutionary breakthrough strategy. Coverover prefects are more open to societal influences and are much more difficult to control. Although not devoid of commitment to central political values, they are less committed than the revolutionary cadre of the breakthrough strategy. Although the adoption of a particular state formation strategy is greatly affected by the type and structure of the society to be controlled, existing state organizational capabilities and degree of autonomy, level of development, availability of resources, and mode of coming to power, the conclusive factor is ultimately one of value or interest. Stanley Hoffmann has noted that "any preference for a certain scheme of areal division of powers presupposes a decision on the ends for which power is to be exercised—a decision on the values power should serve and on the ways in which these values will be served. It involves a whole philosophy of government and society."23 Ultimately, then, the type of strategy chosen by a ruling elite is not determined by organizational or administrative capability or environmental constraints alone but rather by value commitments. Elites pursuing a coverover strategy normally have an ambivalent, rather than clearly antagonistic, orientation to traditional sociopolitical structures, values, and behaviors. As a result, their legitimacy doctrines are usually highly syncretic, inclusionary rather than exclusionary, diffuse and eclectic rather than coherent, and patriotic or statist rather than transnational in orientation. Although partially confrontational, legitimacy doctrines tend to be quasi-traditionalist rather than revolutionary in nature, and, as such, often glorify significant elements of the societal "old data." Linked with limited organizational capability and heavy environmental constraints and contingencies, such an approach usually results in slowly centralizing authoritarian regimes that exercise varying degrees of domination over society and manifest only partial au-

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tonomy from actors in the international system. Let us now turn our attention to a more detailed look at the key structural component of a coverover strategy.

Prefectoral Administration and the State-Society Struggle: Coping with Uncertainty Organizations attempt to structure themselves so as best to coordinate complex activity, to cope with internal constraints and contingencies, especially those posed by the technology, and to adjust to the dependencies, constraints, and contingencies that result from contact with the task environment. Organizations create special units to cope with the latter set of problems, especially to buffer and protect the technical core of the organization from harmful environmental influences and fluctuations. Thompson calls them boundary-spanning units. Staffed by M-level personnel, the task of these specialized organizational components is to adjust or adapt to constraints and contingencies that result from interdependence with a complex environment in order to achieve " b o u n d e d " or "organizational" rationality: Organizational rationality thus calls for an open-system logic, for when the organization is opened to environmental influences, some of the factors involved in organizational action become constraints; for some meaningful period of time they are not variable but fixed conditions to which the organization must adapt. Some of the factors become contingencies, which may or may not vary, but are not subject to arbitrary control by the organization. Organizational rationality therefore is some result of (1) constraints which the organization must face, (2) contingencies which the organization must meet, and (3) variables which the organization can control. 24

Thus, "organizations facing heterogeneous task environments seek to identify homogeneous segments and establish structural units to deal with each." 2 5 These specialized units are normally further subdivided in order to increase surveillance of local environment activity. Boundary-spanning units are of the utmost importance to states as organizations of territorial domination. I am referring in

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particular to field administrative units staffed by prefectoral personnel. The number and type of boundary-spanning units are determined in large part by the nature of the task environment (societal and external groups). Task environments can be distinguished along two dimensions—homogeneous-heterogeneous and stable-shifting: The more heterogeneous the task environment, the greater the constraints presented to the organization. The more dynamic the task environment, the greater the contingencies presented to the organization. Under either condition, the organization seeking to be rational must put boundaries around the amount and scope of adaptation necessary, and it does this by establishing structural units specialized to face a limited range of contingencies within a limited set of constraints. The more constraints and contingencies the organization faces, the more its boundaryspanning component will be segmented. 26

Emerging states tend to have heterogeneous-shifting task environments. This is certainly true for most African states, although the heterogeneity is somewhat more extreme in the Zairian case. States and other organizations facing heterogeneous-shifting task environments use boundary-spanning units to reduce the complexity of these major sources of dependencies. Under homogeneous-stable or heterogeneous-stable conditions, organizations work predominantly with constraints and can thus rely primarily on standardizing sets of rules in adapting to the task environment. When, however, the task environment becomes dynamic and contingencies as well as constraints are the rule, standardized administrative responses become inadequate and discretion must be exercised by local staff in response to changing local conditions. Success or failure is greatly determined by how discretion is exercised by local staff personnel. The need for discretion is differentially distributed in organizations, and task environment heterogeneity and dynamism cause the use of discretion to be concentrated at the boundaries of organizations. Because discretion is used to achieve bounded rationality in the face of task environments that are often dynamic and uncooperative and to cope with uncertainty of control, its proper use is very important for large-scale organizations like states.

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Prefectoral personnel specialize in the use of discretionary powers as they must make individual choices or judgments about how the organization should act in local situations given the goals, tasks, and capabilities of the organization as a whole. Such persons occupy highly discretionary positions, that is "positions containing discretion over structure, assessment systems, resource allocations, or domain commitments."27 For Zaire, state prefectoral personnel and their administrative units will be analyzed as examples of highly discretionary positions in boundary-spanning units that attempt to control society and pursue the tasks assigned by the ruling elite. The widespread use of administrative discretion is absolutely crucial to the process of state formation because of its highly uncertain and conflictual nature. Since power in organizations rests on the ability to solve dependency problems, highly discretionary positions are normally very powerful ones. To the degree that an individual can use discretion to cope successfully with crucial dependency problems of an organization, he becomes both important and powerful in that organization. Conversely, "to the extent that the organization gains power over task-environment elements, it reduces the dependence on the boundary-spanning jobs which deal with those elements."28 The successful use of discretion is determined by the individual's interests and abilities, the organizational resources at his disposal, and the power of the task-environment element in question. Since any complex organization like a state has a considerable degree of interdependence between its highly discretionary positions, these crucial and powerful jobs are also highly political in nature. The use and control of discretion and highly discretionary positions are major problems for state elites. Discretion is both essential and highly dangerous. States as complex organizations, then, can attempt to cope with uncertainty of control problems, both internally and externally, through various mixtures of structural design, classification and rule elaboration, and the controlled use of discretion. The more a large-scale organization like a state can increase its power over task-environment elements and handle environmental constraints and contingencies through structural design and rule elaboration, the less reliance it must place on the potentially dangerous and costly use of discretion in boundary-spanning units. For most

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emerging states, however, power is weak, resources are insufficient, structure is fluid, and rules are hard to elaborate and apply. Thus, great use must be made of highly discretionary positions in boundary-spanning units. The central problem becomes how to delegate discretionary power while still maintaining control over how it is exercised. Most organization theorists, including Thompson, maintain that a decentralized structure is the most rational under the highly uncertain conditions of a dynamic environment: "Where both internal processes and boundary transactions are highly variable, the bounding of rationality requires structural decentralization, the creation of semi-autonomous subsystems."29 However, the great bulk of empirical evidence from examples of state formation, both historical and contemporary, indicates quite the opposite thrust. Most emerging states attempt to consolidate themselves in highly uncertain and constrained environments, and most strive for a highly centralized politico-administrative structure, for a monolithic control network. As Fred Riggs, James Heaphey, and others have indicated, the track record of decentralization in contemporary developing states is poor.30 Is this tendency toward highly centralized structures wildly irrational behavior on the part of state formation elites? How is this apparent paradox to be resolved? Thompson himself eventually supplies the crucial part of the answer: Shortages of those equipped to [properly] exercise discretion result in a tendency for organizations in transitional societies to be centralized, bureaucratic, and inflexible. Frequently these complaints focus on the behavior of field offices as contrasted with headquarters (Gore, 1958). In contrast with organizations in fully geared societies, these characteristics appear irrational; in their contextual realities, however, they may be quite rational.31

In order for it to be a successful and "rational" approach, decentralization requires a sufficient number of highly skilled, motivated, and dedicated cadre with proper values and interests. Such conditions infrequently exist under state formation conditions. Organization theorists generally agree, however, that "there is no one best way to organize for the purpose of achieving the highly varied goals of organizations within a highly varied environ-

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ment," 32 and that this depends on the character of the organization and its relationship with its environment. We may continue to unravel this apparent paradox between the "rational" need for decentralization and the actual tendency toward highly centralized structures in emerging states by introducing a notion that has not received a great deal of attention in organization theory—that of déconcentration. One can identify an autonomy-hierarchy continuum that runs from complete decentralization through déconcentration to complete centralization. Hierarchy is used in organizations to assure adequate organizational coordination of internal interdependence and for the control and resolution of conflict. Decentralization is the delegation of discretion to local units over both the substance and application of decisions; déconcentration is the delegation to intermediate levels in a hierarchy of discretionary power only over the application of basic decisions taken by the central elite and the defense of organizational interests in the local area; complete centralization is the concentration of all discretionary power over both substance and application of decisions in the center. Devolution is another term used in this connection. It is an /nterorganizational delegation of almost complete control over substance and application to local units outside of the organization. As such it is a form of contracting and represents the most extreme form of decentralization. Confederation is its most common political form; feudal Europe, for example, was in many ways a series of loose confederations. Devolution thus implies the existence of boundaries, separate identity, wholeness, and almost complete autonomy. In some African states today, as in most areas of late medieval Europe, certain ethnic and regional authorities still operate under conditions of de facto devolution and the state formation struggle really intensifies when the central elite attempts to alter this situation by effectively imposing the centralized control of the new state. Déconcentration, on the other hand, is an /ntraorganizational method of coping with dependency problems through a hierarchical dispersal of administrative power while retaining ultimate decision-making control at the top. Centralized decision making and deconcentrated administration using highly discretionary prefect positions in territorial boundary-spanning units al-

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low an emerging state to approach bounded rationality in uncertain and complex environments. This approach is a hallmark of the coverover strategy of state formation. Fred Riggs has shown that attempts at both intense centralization and decentralization have been notable failures in most contemporary "developing" states primarily because there exists a separation of formal and effective power. Formal moves in either direction lead not to increased control of the periphery by the center but rather to the proliferation of formal administrative mechanisms that produce little while consuming scarce resources. Decentralization can only be permitted where local authorities have the same values, interests, and goals as the center—a rare occurrence indeed. Where these interests and goals do not coincide, central control must be bargained for, imposed, or a combination of both. Riggs correctly believes that efficient political control within the confines of bounded rationality requires a power structure that is neither highly concentrated nor highly dispersed, one which more closely unites formal and effective power.33 The ruling groups or classes in most African states probably desire complete sovereignty, autonomy, and centralization, but because of the strength and resistance of societal groups they are forced to accept a position of relatively centralized decision making and deconcentrated prefectoral field administration. I have repeatedly stressed the fact that state formation internally is a constant struggle between a centralizing, consolidating state and population groups that it attempts to dominate. As a result, the location of an emerging state on the autonomy-hierarchy continuum at any given time is the combined result of the desires and efforts to state elites and the reaction to those efforts by societal and external groups. The move from theoretical toward factual control in Zaire is the result of this conflict-ridden struggle between an emerging state and society, with each side using the assistance of sympathetic external groups. Since deconcentrated prefectoral field administration is a critical element in the state formation efforts in most African countries, as well as one of the most important colonial legacies, we now turn briefly to examine this form of state apparatus. The prefectoral is but one of two basic patterns of field services, the other being the functional pattern. The two patterns of

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field organization stress area and function respectively, and each pattern has a number of variations, with combinations of the two types common. Mixed patterns are more common in fully developed or rapidly developing states such as the USSR.34 Under the functional pattern, each state ministry, department, or service sets up, maintains, and directly supervises its own field representatives in territorial units chosen by that service and without any necessary regard for other services. No arrangement is made to have one overall state representative coordinate all services within a given area. The functional pattern works most effectively where basic order, stability, and consensus already exist, that is, where basic state functions are ordinary rather than critical concerns. The préfectoral pattern is distinctly different: The prefect represents the whole government and all specialized field agents in the area under his supervision. The several ministries either directly or through a central agency issue instructions to the prefect, who then instructs his specialized subordinates, after adapting his instructions to the conditions of his area. Similarly, communications upward to the ministries flow through the prefect. Although it is convenient to refer to this as a préfectoral system, it had many precedents before Napoleon, both in Europe [such as the intendants of absolutist France] and in ancient empires. It has been widely adopted in recent times and has been the dominant pattern in colonial administration. 35

This form of field administration is at the heart of the state formation struggle in Zaire. Two general, but not clearly distinct, types of préfectoral systems exist—the integrated and the unintegrated.36 Most African cases, including Zaire, are examples of the integrated version, in which the prefect is delegated general authority over all state activity undertaken by other state agencies within his area in order to coordinate and control their activities and adapt them to the general needs of the state and the condition of the local task environment. The prefect exercises a unity of command in his area, which is crucial to achieving bounded rationality. This form of control played an important role in early modern European states such as absolutist France and does so in Zaire today. The préfectoral pattern of administration is historically linked with the performance and coordination of a few basic but very

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critical tasks that directly affect the survival and stability of the state: establishment and maintenance of law and order, tax collection and resource extraction in general, control of basic judicial functions, supervision and control of local political authorities and groups. Prefects represent the center in their local area and attempt to impose the goals and tasks established by the ruling group on populations that are usually unwilling and who seek to subvert or manipulate the work of their local "little king." I previously noted that the selection of a type of areal political structure is ultimately a question of the values and needs of ruling elites. Historically, prefectoral rule has been closely associated with authoritarian political values and serious crises of order, stability, and authority: Decision-making, discretion, and commitments all take on distinctive importance within prefectoral field administration because of the characteristic purpose and structure of the organization. In the European experience, both in the development of centralized states and in the extension of colonial rule, prefectoral systems have generally been established against a background of political instability where there were perceived threats to the survival of the established regime and/or the compliance of significant elements of tiie society with its directives was in doubt. The initial purpose and defining commitment of prefectoral administration has been the conservative one of maintaining the existing regime in power and ensuring compliance with central directives through the exercise of authoritarian control. Prefectoral organizations are usually staffed by an elite cadre of generalist administrators who are expected to be skilled in the exercise of power, backing up their orders with force if necessary, and to literally "hold the line" for the regime and maintain a status quo in which the prestige and power of their organization is a critical element.37 In a political situation where consensus norms are weak, the resistance of societal groups is strong, and dependence and uncertainty are widespread, ruling groups use a prefectoral field structure to carry out the difficult and burdensome tasks of maintaining stability, assuming basic compliance with state directives, extracting key resources, curtailing overt revolt and passive resistance, and seeking out enemies of the state. The prefect is a basic incarnation of authoritarian values, but this is not to say that he does not also use persuasion, bargaining, and his prestige and style

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as the local "little king" to pursue his tasks. Such a political structure is perfectly congruent with the coverover strategy of state formation whereby the prefects attempt to control and emasculate slowly the power of pre-existing local political authority structures and various particularisms and control forms of limited pluralism and emerging classes via state corporatist structures. Finally, the préfectoral structure is considered to be more compatible with law and order tasks than it is with tasks of socioeconomic development. This is true for structural as well as value reasons. The préfectoral system usually manifests rather substantial capability to adapt and adjust to organizational environmental constraints and contingencies within a status-quo, order-oriented perspective, but it has more difficulty doing so under the complex needs and demands of a transformation-oriented approach. This is often true because of structural incompatibilities of mixed préfectoral and functional systems, which make planning and implementing programs more difficult. As both Hough and Fainsod have shown, however, the Soviets managed to succeed with a mixed system characterized by extreme centralization in decision making and deconcentrated, but tightly controlled, implementation backed up by a massive coercive capability. The exercise of discretion is absolutely essential to the very survival and efficient operation of a large-scale organization like a state, but it is also very dangerous. The proper exercise of discretion by M-level cadre is a major source of conflict and power struggles within organizations. Ruling elites in states must delegate discretionary power to prefects and then must be able to motivate and control its use. An inherent organizational tension exists between the I and M levels of an organization, between the conflicting tendencies and needs of déconcentration of discretion and the centralization of control. This crucial tension stems from the basic fact that M-level personnel have their own ideal and material interests, which may be only partially congruent with those of the organizational elite. This is directly related to Crozier's proposition about the behavior of key groups in an organizational hierarchy: Each group fights to preserve and enlarge the area upon which it has some discretion, attempts to limit its dependence upon other groups and

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to accept such dependence only insofar as it is a safeguard against another and more feared one, and finally prefers retreatism if there is no other choice but submission. The group's freedom of action and the power structure appear clearly to be at the core of all these strategies.38

The staff of a state thus pursues its own search for power and autonomy in order to fulfill its own ideal and material interests. This internal conflict is what makes state formation a three-way rather than a two-way struggle. The control of the exercise of discretion is a particularly salient problem in préfectoral forms of field administration, as such structures often permit a high degree of personalism, which may act to limit the state's effectiveness rather than enhance it. The basic goals and tasks oi the maintenance of political control and stability and the extraction of resources are sufficiently broad to facilitate great latitude in the exercise of a prefect's discretionary power. This tendency is reinforced by the complex and dynamic nature of society and the communications problems that often exist under early modern conditions. Bruce Berman has noted that "many of the techniques of inspection and enforcement for dealing with this fundamental center-periphery cleavage in préfectoral organizations did not operate in African colonies."39 As an example, he mentions that the control technique of frequent rotation of field officers was not widely utilized by colonial administrations in Africa primarily because of the lower danger of cooptation by local societal groups due to the cultural and racial differences between the rulers and the ruled. Now that the colonial préfectoral structures have been Africanized, however, many of the older, more historically prevalent forms of prefect control have reemerged in new African states such as Zaire. This makes the operation of these structures more comparable to those of early modern Europe. Drawing on a wide range of historical examples including ones from precolonial African states and early modern European monarchies, Fesler has enumerated the major control mechanisms used in préfectoral systems.40 The most important method has always been the careful selection of individuals. The two most salient criteria are having attitudes, values, and interests that are congruent with those of the ruling elite and not having a strong

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independent power base. The latter criterion demands not necessarily individuals of low status, but rather ones that will be dependent on the central elite. Lesser nobles and clerics, members of the bourgeoisie, and foreigners have always been common sources of ambitious, competent, and loyal individuals. Specialized training, in-service or institutional, has been another important control mechanism. Often training concentrates on the indoctrination of proper attitudes and values rather than on specialized administrative techniques. Central rulers usually also have an impressive list of formal and informal sanctions which hang like swords of Damocles over the heads of prefects. They range from fines and temporary suspension to loss of position, forcible removal, prison terms, and even death. The success of these sanctions depends on their periodic use by the central rulers and on the availability of adequate resources and mechanisms to impose them effectively. A wide range of material and status incentives are also normally used, including allowing various forms of corruption. Other common forms of control are not assigning an individual to his home area, frequent rotation, and periodic trips to the capital for evaluation, reorientation, and consultation. Hierarchical structures of inspection and/or the use of irregular traveling inspectors are also common. Lastly, prefects may be subjected to a constant stream of orders from the center, which reminds them of their tasks and responsibilities to the central rulers. Many of these methods of control have consequences that are harmful to the efficient operation of the field administrative structure, but central rulers usually feel that the benefits outweigh the costs. The costs remain, however, and become a constant preoccupation for ruling groups. These mechanisms are often difficult to implement, time-consuming, and costly in terms of resources consumed. In addition, staff personnel tend to find ways around the controls or ways to appear as if they are complying. In the final analysis, the ruler-staff struggle is a severe and continous problem for ruling elites who are determined to establish their control over societal groups. To control the internal task environment, they must delegate discretionary power to administrative personnel, but to do so is both dangerous and difficult to control effectively.

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Earlier I noted that prefectoral administrative structures were both a crucial legacy of the colonial period for Latin American states and for Zaire and most other new African states and central to the rise of the absolutist states in early modern Europe. Authoritarian colonial rule was essentially rule by prefect or district officer. The imposition of monarchical absolutism in France was in large part the work of the intendants. In both cases, heavyhanded, formal centralization of power on critical issues existed along with substantial decompaction of discretionary power over implementation and routine issues in authoritarian patrimonial states. Relatively little comparative study of prefectoral systems has been undertaken, especially across different historical eras: The literature on any one country rarely draws on the descriptive and theoretical contributions made by other countries' political situations. . . . For instance, the colonial-administration and French literatures are not brought together to explain the prevalence of the prefectoral pattern in both France and colonial areas; and the work on the currently developing countries and on the emergence of modern states in Europe is not correlated to clarify processes of national integration.41 The work that has been done, however, does confirm the similarity of structures, processes, and problems both for different states and different historical periods.42 The analysis of the actual operation of prefectoral administration in Zaire, portrayed as an African absolutist state, is a main object of part II of this study. It is to the notion of an early modern state and the concept of absolutism that we now turn.

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H

istorically the absolutist state proved to be a mixed, transitional state form in the emergence and development of the modern state in Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Above all, absolutism is state formation, "the assertion of the prime importance of the survival of the state as such."' The centralizing monarchies struggled for glory, unity, power, and security, for sovereignty, simultaneously on external and internal fronts against both super- and infrastate actors, and the action on the two fronts was clearly interrelated. The three passions of absolutist royal government were "ruling, building and fighting . . . both for prestige and power." 2 The absolutist monarchs were agents of unification fighting against the complex latemedieval mixture of universalism and particularism. Internally, the central thrust of the absolutist state was a slow consolidation and centralization of authority out of the dispersed power conditions of multiple and competing smaller authorities and jurisdictions and the internal power of universalistic forces such as the Catholic church, Protestantism, the Empire, and emerging international capitalism. Externally, it was expressed primarily in the search for security, power, and glory via war, diplomatic maneuver, and territorial aggrandizement (including colonies) within the rapidly developing international state system. The focus here will be on the

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internal aspects of absolutism and the external factors that influenced them. The "revolutionary" agents of this many faceted process of internal unification were the absolute monarch and his newly expanded staff of "royal servants." Simultaneously, if unevenly, they began to monopolize the means of administrative and coercive control by creating a more centralized and effective taxation system and a centrally directed, semiprofessionalized standing army, to make royal law more uniform and dominant and, above all, to create a centrally controlled group of dependent and effective royal administrators. Using a coverover strategy in the search for a more direct, unmediated state-subject relationship, the new prefects struggled against local particularism and organized societal groups by seeking to emasculate the power of all intermediary authorities, usually, however, without being able or willing to abolish them fully. In its conceptualization of community and sovereignty, the absolutist state was heavily organic-statist in orientation, and in its structure and behavior, it was distinctly corporatist. According to Roland Mousnier, absolutism expressed "the need for a strong state to arbitrate and coordinate in the interest of the common good": The French society of the 17th and 18th centuries was thus still essentially a society of corporations and communities, retaining their own powers, liberties, and privileges. The danger threatening a society of this kind was that particularism, fragmentation, incoherence, and the clash of interest groups might escalate to the point of separatism, civil war, dislocation of the state, and its dismemberment by neighboring powers. In order to survive, such a society needed to have a state that was especially strong.3 Finally, the highly coercive and extractive state formation efforts of the absolutist state were facilitated by the rise of a money economy, increased internal and international trade, multiplying technological improvements, and a complex set of sociocultural and intellectual changes.4 The major elements of an absolutist configuration of early modern state formation are: 1) the formation and rise to dominance of authoritarian, organic-statist, patrimonial-bureaucratic states using a coverover

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strategy that seek power, glory, and unity in an era of nascent nationalism and emerging secularization; 2) an early modern, predominantly agricultural economy characterized by low levels of development and technology, a central role for international trade, a move toward a complete money economy, and the rise of early forms of capitalism; 3) a distinct political economy, mercantilism, that fuses elements (1) and (2) and is characterized by a central role for the state in the economy, the search for increased economic and political power through internal economic unification and external trade, and the formulation and attempted implementation of economic policies such as direct state investment and regulation, fostering trade and maintaining a favorable balance of trade, protectionism, and related monetary policies; 5 4) a new concern with the rest of the world and the relationship of these states to it—especially a regard for identity, prestige, power, security, and glory—accompanied by the development of a competitive international state system in which zerosum perspectives prevail such that these states present two faces: one to combat external universal ism and dependence on other states, and another to combat internal particularism and control societal corporatism; 5) a large and often increasing stratification gap between rulers and ruled; the beginnings of a breakdown or at least alteration of older stratification patterns, especially with the emergence of new socioeconomic and political groups; 6 6) a style, mood, and texture to life that merges continuity and change, permanence and uncertainty, widespread corruption and inefficiency, lax implementation of state policy, predominance of personal politics, and a generalized and pervasive insouciance. The central element of this configuration is the drive by "new monarchs" to build stronger states. Absolutism embodies this basic thrust. Internally, in the face of highly dispersed authority, great heterogeneity, intense particularism, and periodic, and often severe, crises of order, the rulers' search for unification and centralized power and control, for sovereignty, leads slowly and unevenly from decentralized patrimonialism to the simultaneous rise of patriarchal patrimonialism and emergent bureaucratic forms of

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administration. Warfare and the search for external glory and security at the international level act as both cause and effect for these internal processes.7 The result is a mixed patrimonialbureaucratic, authoritarian state that is still far from being fully modern. In fact, its power is, despite the term "absolutist," relatively limited; it is an early modern state. What type of political structure emerges during this transitional period? Max Weber uses the terms "absolutist state" and "absolutism" when referring to the early modern European states and designates them as mixed "patrimonial-bureaucratic states" in which emerging bureaucratic forms of administration coexisted with the more predominant forms of patrimonial rule. He talks about the "bureaucratic rationalization of patrimonial rulership" but cautions that this administrative apparatus was "still as patrimonial as was the basic conception of the 'state' on which it rested."8 The referent here is the French absolutist state of Louis XIV as the classic paradigm of early modern European absolutism.9 The late seventeenth-century absolutist state in France was characterized by: 1) the central state as a newly emergent and increasingly dominant reality of sociopolitical life characterized by the simultaneous rise of centralized patriarchal patrimonialism and the beginnings of bureaucratic administration; 2) the highly personalized, semisacred leadership and rule of the monarch who was directly identified with the state, the focus of all political action, and the major source of political decision; 3) patriarchal patrimonial legitimacy beliefs plus the doctrines of divine right, ruler sovereignty, and raison d'état, all of which constituted a political religion and the core of a theoretical absolutism highly organic-statist in orientation; 4) a hierarchical and centralizing patrimonial-bureaucratic administrative apparatus—an administrative monarchy—built around a new official realm of prefects which manifested slowly increasing scope and effectiveness as it attempted to move from "theoretical" toward "factual" absolutism; 5) the use of a coverover strategy by the administrative monarchy to whittle away the power of intermediary authorities without fully abolishing them;

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6) an authoritarian control perspective emphasizing order, glory, and extraction with little welfare content, combined with a willingness and increasing ability to employ coercion using early modern, semiprofessionalized military and police forces; 7) highly constricted and controlled participation by societal groups, usually via state corporatist structures; 8) the rise to prominence and power of a new ruling state elite—the political aristocracy (noblesse d'Etat); 9) a complex, often chaotic, and inadequate financial structure, which kept the state on the brink of bankruptcy despite handling sizable revenues; 10) an internal task environment manifesting intense local particularism, limited societal pluralism, heterogeneity, uncertainty, and varied and pervasive resistance; 11) mercantilist economic policies in the search for greater state power; 12) a search for external security and glory using constant diplomatic maneuvering and frequent warfare in the context of great external uncertainty affected by the power and actions of other states in the emerging international system, the universalism of the Catholic church, Protestant groups, the Empire, and the rising power of international capitalist forces.10

Dual Tendencies The absolutist state is the result of the simultaneous rise of centralized patriarchal patrimonialism and the beginnings of bureaucratic administration. The kings attempted to establish two kinds of direct linkages between themselves and their subjects at the same time: a direct personal linkage via the legitimating and glorification doctrines of a political religion, and a direct administrative linkage via a new official realm, both of which would bypass intermediary authorities. The increasing personal power of the king as a patriarchal ruler and the growth and slow rationalization of an administrative apparatus combined to create a new phenomenon—an administrative monarchy—which gave the early modern state a new reality, a new power as a semiautonomous entity with which all actors had to contend. The expansion of the new

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official realm reinforced the patrimonialization of central power while concomitantly initiating the slow and uneven development of bureaucracy. The result was a highly complex regime of mixed imperatives. In the short run at least, these two tendencies were not mutually contradictory, as expanding personal power needed an increasingly effective administrative and coercive capacity in the attempt to move from theoretical to factual absolutism.11

Legitimacy Although it is a mixed patrimonial-bureaucratic state, the absolutist state is predominantly patrimonial in legitimation, and it is patrimonialism of the patriarchal type. The inherent tension in patrimonialism is between the demands and restrictions of tradition and the desire on the part of the-ruler for more personal discretion. As a form of "mass domination by one individual," one of the crucial needs of the patriarchal patrimonial prince in his struggle for unity and consolidation of power is to enlarge his area of personal discretion while maintaining the aura of tradition. One way to achieve this is to propagate the doctrine of the "good king" devoted to the welfare of his subjects; Weber notes that "the 'welfare state' is the legend of patrimonialism, deriving . . . from the authoritarian relationship of father and children"—a heavily organic-statist orientation.12 To protect the welfare of his subjects the king must be able to act decisively and freely, above all to maintain the public order that is essential to the development and enjoyment of social life. Absolutist monarchs developed several interrelated legitimacy doctrines that justified the violation of tradition and the extension of the personal discretion of the ruler in the name of the common good. These doctrines, which mixed traditional, sacred, and newer secular notions, shifted the balance of the inherent tension in patrimonial rule more toward the personal discretion of the ruler. In its purest and most secular form, this shift was indicated by Machiavelli's notion of raison d'état and its practical application by statesmen such as Richelieu, Mazarin, Colbert, and Louis XIV. Responding to the severe crisis of political order in Refor-

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mation Europe, Jean Bodin developed his theory of sovereignty, which maintained much more of a balance between traditional notions of legitimacy and newer secular notions of final authority.'3 Bodin's conclusion was that there ought to exist in every state a single recognized ruler, or sovereign, whose decisions were recognized by all groups as having final authority. Sovereignty for Bodin was not so much a question of power as it was of the political right that was needed to maintain a coherent order. As Mousnier notes, this was a highly organic-statist notion: "Sovereignty, as distinct from respublica, was needed in order to cause all the families, corps, colleges, and corporations to act jointly, to provide them with the same will, the same purpose, and the same means." 14 The sovereign was to have an almost unlimited right to make and enforce decisions within his state; the duty of the subject was to obey. Finally, these patriarchal patrimonial legitimacy doctrines reached their highest form in the notion of the divine right of kings. Although these notions were in many respects closely related and overlapped a good deal, each doctrine had a major focus. Divine right dealt with the source of authority, sovereignty with its locus and nature, and raison d'état with its exercise.15 Together they comprised a highly organic-statist vision of power.

Personal Rule Above all, absolutist rule was highly personal at all levels. The primary and almost obsessive focus, however, was the monarch and his personal discretion and decision-making powers. He was both the locus of political action and the focus of collective sentiment, both real and contrived. Stong monarchial rule was the backbone of French absolutism. In political practice as well as theory, there was complete identification of the state with the sovereign. Louis XIV expressed this with characteristic clarity: "When you are working for the good of the state you are working for yourself, the good of the one constitutes the glory of the other." 16 Four key words constantly appeared in his thoughts and writings: "my dignity, my glory, my greatness, my reputation."

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Internally, this primarily meant eliminating the "chaos" in his kingdom and assuring obedience to his will. Behind the allpervasive drive for glory and domination lay a powerful will and desire to be master of all things. The monarch and the state became one; Louis believed along with Bossuet, his chief propagandist, that "he was the whole state, and the will of all of the people were locked in his."' 7 Older images of the monarch merged and blended to form a new, more powerful composite image—that of the absolute monarch, the sacred, mystical, paternal, all-powerful sovereign. This too was a heavily organic-statist image: "The state is a person, a juridical person, an entity in law, which unifies the members of the community in a state corporation."'8 The near deification of the king in the new political religion drew on powerful traditional notions of warrior, hero, and "father of the people" who is head of the "corps mystique" and interprets its needs and wishes; on religious notions of "the very Christian king" and healer; and on elements of Roman law, which stressed the demi-god, the allpowerful and benevolent ruler. Using real and manipulated traditional notions, a new image of the monarch was created which placed much more emphasis on the unsupervised power of the personal ruler.'9 The king was the fountainhead of all authority. All depended on him; he was supreme, "sovereign." His decisions, the result of the exercise of his personal and near arbitrary powers of discretion, were the law. Clearly, Louis XIV desired to do more than merely reign; he wanted to rule, to govern, and to do so without being limited by the power of intermediary authorities. He personally organized and supervised the state apparatus at the center with "his" councils, ministers, and clerks, who were carefully chosen for their loyalty and devotion and were completely dependent on him. All decision making was centralized in this royal apparatus of patriarchal patrimonial power.20 Attempts by the monarchy to increase state power were in large part a response to a perceived crisis of order, to pervasive instability and uncertainty, in short, to a lack of authority. Stability was elusive in early modern Europe, and the promulgation of theoretical absolutism and efforts to move toward factual absolutism were a rejoinder to this severe crisis of authority. Breakdown

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and disorder built the case for centralization. A paradoxical link existed between doubt, uncertainty, grandeur, and glory. It was because the assertion of authority "so often sounded hallow that it was so grandiosely promulgated." The constant, almost compulsive display of grandeur and search for glory was in part an "attempt to belie the words of doubt and uncertainty that lay beneath." 21 In the move from theoretical toward factual absolutism, the centralizing monarchy was less and less constrained by most traditional bonds such as natural law, ancient customs, and the rights and privileges of social groups and institutions. At the same time, it was not yet constrained by modern legal norms. It was free from the constraints of both ends of the spectrum.

Socioeconomic Context In their search for order and power, the French monarchs confronted an internal task environment that manifested little sociocultural, economic, or administrative unity. Widespread particularism and heterogeneity, reflected in intense regionalism, localism, and isolation, were the rule rather than the exception. A French nation clearly did not exist. In fact, Eugen Weber has recently argued that a French nation did not exist until well into the nineteenth century and that, as a result, the process of "national" unification in France should be more accurately portrayed as a colonial process.22 Absolutism and the rise of the early modern state generally existed in a period of nascent nationalism, or what could be called elite nationalism or ruler patriotism. Nationalism, in the sense of widely felt "nationhood," was a slowly growing force during this period, but it was not a dominant political phenomenon at the mass level. More accurately, France in the seventeenth century closely fit Joseph Strayer's notion of a "mosaic state," or what Pierre Goubert describes as "the fragmentation and semilocation of the great peasant, provincial, uneven, uncoordinated mosaic that France then was." 2 3 Sociocultural, linguistic, even ethnic heterogeneity was high. Absolutist France was predominantly rural and agricultural, with over 85 percent of the population composed of poor,

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isolated, and oppressed peasants. Even the nobility was actually les noblesses, a complex set of diverse, privileged status groups (les Grands, noblesse de robe, hoberaux, and les bons menagers). Agricultural technology was backward, harvests were poor, and much sickness resulted from deficiency and malnutrition, even periodic starvation. The dependence of the peasantry, which was itself "less a social class than a complex group," 24 was reinforced by the marginality of agricultural existence and the encroachment of the state and the money economy via growing towns and cities and the emerging social groups that controlled them. This highly complex and particularistic peasant mass lived in a deeply rooted traditional and local world. Peasants had limited knowledge of the "outside" world, and "strangers," especially state agents, were distrusted and feared because they usually brought trouble. These outsiders normally spoke a foreign language—French. Linguistic diversity was high, as few subjects of the absolutist state spoke French, and in 1685 four-fifths of the population was illiterate. For the majority of subjects, French was the language of administration and to some extent of trade. It was "the language of the king, the state, the law, the court, high society, the academies, and the world of letters."25 Another important, but often overlooked, general characteristic of the task environment was the uneasy coexistence and mixing of traditional religious notions and beliefs about the supernatural, magic, witchcraft, astrology, sorcery, local spirits, talismans, and fetishes with the newer Christian beliefs and practices. Christian belief was elementary, but passionate nonetheless. Despite energetic efforts by often half-educated priests and sincere laymen, Christianity was still engaged in a constant struggle with older beliefs. And it was a struggle that the Church did not always or even often win.26 Related to this magico-religious context is a more general style, mood, and texture to seventeenth-century French life, which merged continuity and change, permanence and uncertainty, and a generalized and pervasive insouciance. The early modern European economy was predominantly agricultural, but trade also played a central role, the money economy slowly spread while barter remained important, and nascent forms of capitalism emerged haltingly. In the seventeenth century, France was an economically rich but technically backward coun-

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try. Industry was of growing importance, although general productive capacity was weak and not technically advanced. In the nonagricultural sectors, foreign goods predominated. During the absolutist period the economy as a whole suffered from sudden and often violent crises; stagnation and deep depression were frequent. These conditions made the maintenance of political order more difficult, especially since the king and his advisers did not understand changing economic conditions or the long-term importance of the extremes of affluence that existed. The monetary system was backward, even by the standards of the time, and extremely complicated. The credit system was primitive, and formal and hidden devaluations were frequent. The foreign international "financiers" and banks of Amsterdam, Hamburg, London, and Geneva played an important role in French private and governmental financial and trade affairs. In fact, foreigners generally wielded great power and influence in French economic and political life. This was particularly true because of the growth and consolidation of the absolutist state, with its three passions of ruling, building, and fighting. For these endeavors vast new resources were needed, and this need made the monarchy heavily dependent on foreigners.27 The fragmented nature of the task environment was also reflected in the chaos and complexity of the standards of weights and measures and of internal customs duties, and in the intricate merger of Roman law and the countless varieties of customary law.28 Above all, these factors were maintained and reinforced by the poor transportation and communications networks. Transportation was slow, inconvenient, dangerous, and costly. Roads were very poor, and maintenance, which was supposedly a local matter, was next to nonexistent. Finally, administrative uniformity remained very incomplete, especially in the periphery. Wide regional variations in central control existed. By the mid-seventeenth century, most provinces, called pays d'élections, were administered from Paris through the intendants. In the outer periphery, however, semiautonomous provinces continued to exist, where the power of the intendants and of Paris was less extensive. In these provinces, called pays d'états, traditional authority structures remained more coherent and powerful, and a strong sense of regional identity, customs, privi-

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leges, and loyalty existed, which greatly strengthened the tendency to resist encroaching central control. This was particularly true for Brittany and Languedoc where local particularism was very intense.29 These areas sought to protect their own domains, to maintain their autonomy in the face of encroaching royal power, to manage their dependence on the centralizing absolutist state. Even in the pays d'élections, traditional noble authorities attempted to protect their local power as well as privileges.

Strategy In their centralization efforts to assert "direct universal lordship" internally, the French monarchs encountered two major types of obstacles—local particularism and more formally organized societal groups and institutions, the intermediary authorities which were often highly corporatist in nature. As Hans Rosenberg has observed, "the New Monarchy, as it is sometimes called, modified but did not destroy the confused mass of jurisdictions which had been transmitted from the past."30 Not being revolutionaries, but rather deeply rooted in the past, the new monarchs utilized, consciously or not, a coverover rather than a breakthrough strategy in their slow, uneven move toward factual absolutism. The new centralizing state continued to coexist with traditional sociopolitical structures while endeavoring to subject them to central control. Structures for formal and patterned participation, such as the parlements and municipal "elections," are a good example. The forms were not abolished, but the substance was. For ail its apparent innovation, the French absolutist state was at heart a conservative creature anxious to avoid a complete and head-on collision with traditional patterns. The French absolutist state manifested what Jean Meuvret has called "a certain empirical opportunism, rather than true audacity."31 Louis XIV, like his father and Richelieu before him, used the system he had inherited; he adapted and partially rationalized it to fit new purposes which served and meshed with his own personality, outlook, needs, and interests. The absolutist state attempted slowly to emasculate the

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power of all intermediary authorities and groups while limiting commitments to them where possible, but by bargaining, manipulation, and forming tactical coalitions with them when necessary. The principal intermediary authorities were the parlements and other courts, regional assemblies, cities and towns, rebellious nobles and governors, the nobility generally as local political authorities, the Protestant protostate, the Catholic church and clergy, the press, intellectuals, guilds, local police and militias, and the corps of old venal officials—the officiers. As a general stance, the absolutist state maintained a universal distrust of all societal groups and adopted a clear political control perspective. It attempted to do so by sublimating all politics, by turning all political issues into administrative ones, by severely constricting participation, and by using coercion. On the cooperation side of the strategy, the centralizing royal state often made commitments, bargains, and compromises with important and strong societal groups. The usual bargain struck entailed an exchange of autonomy and substantive power and authority for the continued maintenance of social and, especially, fiscal privileges—what Tocqueville referred to as "grasping the substance of power, leaving only the shadow of it to its rivals."32 Key examples include continued venality for older royal offices; prolonged but supervised existence for some provincial estates and assemblies; maintenance of key social and financial privileges, but with greatly diminished political authority, for the nobility; some tolerance for Protestants, at least until the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685; official but closely supervised dominance for the Catholic church; and the maintenance of formal, but increasingly emasculated, substantive power for governors, cities, and parlements. The continued existence of these commitments rested on the level of interest convergence and the political and financial needs of the state, on the one hand, and the particular societal group, on the other. As the Revocation of 1685 shows, the state was not above breaking a commitment when it felt itself in a sufficiently strong position. On the competitive side, in addition to the use of divideand-rule tactics, the French coverover strategy entailed repeated attacks on the substantive power and autonomy, if not formal existence, of all the intermediary authorities. With the coverover

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strategy the dependence of the state on society was to be whittled away. The vital core of the coverover strategy was the struggle by the monarchs to superimpose a centralized but deconcentrated administrative system on preexisting "traditional" authority structures, thereby slowly and unevenly diminishing the substantive power and authority of these entities. This struggle was a protracted, conflict-ridden process, and it was clearly not a breakthrough attempt, because it was not a question of abolition but rather one of emasculation and reduction to impotence. Tocqueville shows "how the idea of centralized administration was established among the ancient powers, which it supplanted, without, however, destroying them." He describes how the intermediary authorities "were not so much expelled from their former spheres of influence as edged out of them" by "a single representative of government named the Intendant."33 The kings developed "their own competing systems of administration"34 in order gradually to strip intermediary authorities of effective power.

Administrative Monarchy Despite the extreme concentration of power in the person of the king, Louis XIV was forced to delegate administrative tasks and powers to his councils, to his ministers, and to his growing administrative organization based around the proliferating clerks and bureaus in Paris and Versailles and the intendants and their subdelegates and assistants in the periphery. The result was the creation of a newly powerful authoritarian administrative state—the administrative monarchy—which, haltingly and unevenly, became more bureaucratic over time. Louis ruled through his "grand conseil" (a series of councils, actually) and his ministers who were "des créatures du roi"—true patrimonial officials. He, however, personally controlled and directed his men and his administration. He attended and personally directed the proceedings of most meetings of the various conseils in the belief that the right of deliberation and resolution belongs to the head alone, and all functions of the other members consist in executing the orders given

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to them. Officials did not attend these meetings by right or office, but only on invitation of the sovereign. The royal officials were clearly patrimonial creatures of the king, on whom they were completely dependent for position and continuation of his favors to them and their families. The king rewarded them for their loyalty and faithfulness with all sorts of honors and rewards, but he also sought to control them by limiting their power, by allowing them to hold a plurality of offices which he changed frequently, and by encouraging rivalry among them. The patrimonial patronclient linkage was powerful and different in nature than the contractual feudal one; the royal official realm was in many respects a huge patron-client system with the king at the apex.35 At the heart of this new administrative monarchy was the corps of royal officials, both new and old. This official realm consisted of two types of royal officials: the old royal officers (officiers) who, through venality, had fully appropriated their patrimonial positions, and the new, fully dependent royal officials who formed the cutting edge of expanding royal absolutist power. In essence, the official realm was a dual princely "bureaucracy" with warring wings.36 The kings had long attempted to use the first group to break the local patrimonial power of the older nobility (noblesse d'epee), but these officers managed almost completely to appropriate their positions—so much so that they in turn became a barrier to the penetration of royal authority. With the emergence of the absolutist state in the seventeenth century, the French kings created a new group of more dependent patrimonial officials, and one of their main tasks was to control and emasculate slowly the power of all intermediary authorities in the periphery, including that of the older royal officers. This new group will be discussed in more detail shortly. Louis XIV used this consolidated administrative monarchy to attack the power of all major intermediary authorities: But with Louis XIV firmly in the saddle the monarchy raised itself, in its monopoly of power, above the princes of the blood, the great nobles and all the other notabilities, whom it pushed down into an equality of impotence with the masses of the nation. All the traditional checks on the royal power—the Estates General and provincial Estates, the independent powers of governors of provinces and the town councils, the political and administrative functions of the sovereign courts—all these

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were ignored or forced into the background to make way for the uncontrolled power of the king . . . while in the provinces the writ of the central government was translated into action by the permanent establish7 ment over the entire country of its agents, the intendants}

The Catholic church and what was left of the Protestant protostate should also be included in this list. Thus the absolutist state had raised itself above society to control it. Had it thus become a true Leviathan? No, the administrative monarchy clearly remained a centralizing, authoritarian, early modern state of mixed patrimonial and bureaucratic characteristics with distinct limits.

Political Aristocracy The patrimonial officials of the new official realm formed a "quasi 'classe politique,' " 3 8 or what I call a political aristocracy. This noblesse d'Etat was directly linked with the new absolutist structures of power. Above all, the members of this new political class, the new governmental aristocracy, were royal servants. They were not modern civil servants; they were early modern state officials, "regime" rather than "public" servants. The French absolutist state literally created this new political class, which in turn became a major bulwark of consolidating state power. The essence of this class was its connections with the monarchy, with the state, and with the practice of government: "class status flowed from that fact and did not cause it." 39 The major road to power, wealth, and prestige was through these new royal offices. The two processes of upward mobility and consolidation of state power merged and reinforced each other. The state was both the normative and the behavioral focus of this political nobility. So intimately linked to the state were the life chances and values of this governmental aristocracy that it developed its own official subculture, its own Weltanshauung. Armstrong calls it an "official esprit de corps," the heart of which was "the officials' self-perception as guardians of the royal or state interest."40 The development of this official subculture tended to reinforce the separation of this new ruling group from society. The members of

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this administrative elite had "a taste for hierarchy, ascending and descending, and what can superbly be called the 'sense of the state,' " of which they felt themselves to be the incarnation. Their ideal vision of the world entailed the direct transmission of royal orders to the smallest corners of the provinces and the complete compliance of all societal groups. Obedience and unity were the two key notions of this absolutist official subculture. Above all, however, a member of the noblesse d'Etat serves "the policies, the designs, the ambitions and the weaknesses of the king. He will always speak and write the arrogant formulas of the king's glory, the king's will, the interest of the state, and reason of state because, in spite of the precautionary distinctions of the jurists, he will easily confuse the state and the king, although the state will survive the reigning king." These new king's men sought the power and glory of the monarch, the state, the administration, their peers and family, and, finally, but importantly, themselves. They chose to serve "the desires of princes at one and the same time by conviction, by servility and by career interest."41 The political nobility was comprised of a series of partially interlocking, partially competitive patron-client networks which revolved around a number of core families. Many members of the state nobility were linked together through birth, marriage, or close patron-client ties. Most of the key families of this quasi-hereditary political class were also rich, often very rich. If they were rich when they acquired power, they became even richer. The "politics of appropriation" or "corruption" was pervasive, intensive, and accepted.

Early Modern Finances Finance was one of the areas that most clearly demonstrated the intensely patrimonial and early modern character of the absolutist state as well as its limits. It was the Achilles' heel of French absolutism. Ernest Barker flatly states that "finance was the weakest point in the structure of the ancien regime."42 The French monarchs had an insatiable demand for more revenue, but they also had a basic ambivalence toward this crucial resource in the search

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for sovereignty. The finances of the absolutist state remained amazingly precarious throughout the period. France was a wealthy country, one of most wealthy in Europe at the time, but the French state was frequently on the verge of financial collapse. The seventeenth-century French monarchs had a large and usually growing income, but they also operated with a weak, disorganized, inefficient, and massively corrupt financial system. Because of the voracious fiscal needs of the monarchy for war, glory, and domination and the inadequacies of the tax collection system, widespread use was made of extraordinary or expedient methods of financing, including confiscation, massive borrowing, selling state offices, and debasing coinage. These "extraordinary" measures were, of course, more routine than abnormal and had severe costs, the most common of which were perpetual financial chaos, near bankruptcy, and heavy exploitation of the peasant population. In their vast ambitions, the French monarchs were limited most of all by financial stringency. Although the administrative monarchy constantly tinkered with the financial apparatus, major reform proved to be impossible. The apparatus was always changing, but the more it changed the more it seemed to remain the same.43 Major reform was next to impossible because to carry out such reforms would have undermined the very essence of the absolutist state—the personal discretion of the ruler and the fiscal largesse and corruption that formed the glue holding the system together. Here the imperatives of calculability, or rationality, came into direct conflict with the personal; the bureaucratic came into conflict with the patrimonial, and the latter won out. The patrimonial element ultimately dominated the steering mechanisms of the absolutist state.

Absolutist Territorial Administration: The Intendants and the Coverover Process The move toward factual absolutism and ruler sovereignty in France was primarily the work of the intendants, their subdelegates, and other assistants. Wielding discretionary power, their basic task was

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to cope with control and dependency problems in the periphery by making individual choices or judgments about how the royal state should act given local conditions and the goals and capabilities of the centralizing state. These new royal officials were the crucial inner core of French absolutism.44 The intendants were the agents of centralization who represented the new power of the absolutist state in the farthest reaches of the realm. As mixed patrimonial-bureaucratic officials, they were early modern field administrators of a key transitional type. Loyal, dependent, and increasingly separate from society, the intendants clearly represented one of the key corollaries of centralization: "the development of a body of officials, whose recruitment and policy execution was separated gradually from the previously existing involvement of officials with kinship loyalties, hereditary privileges and property interests."45 In the search of the monarchs to extend and consolidate their power, the intendants were truly "agents of reason of state"46 who embodied royal sovereignty. They daily transformed royal authority into concrete acts by exercising relatively arbitrary power in the provinces. Their powers were broad, often modified, and expanding, but not completely unlimited. Delegated high levels of discretion, the intendants were empowered to deal with almost anything affecting the interests of the monarchy, but they were also closely supervised by Paris. The intendants were completely dependent on the king and his ministers for appointment, assignment, rotation, tenure, remuneration, and promotion. Formal and practical training in Paris was provided for future intendants. The office of intendant was nonvenal and revocable, and the intendants, unlike the royal officiers, were subject to recall and dismissal at any time. Paris sent inspectors and sometimes even used the subdelegates to report on them. In reality, the intendants were commissaires départis; their office was based on a commission and not a right of property. Jean Bodin made the distinction this way: "an office is like a lease which the proprietor cannot terminate until its term is expired; a commission is held at will, a precarious loan that the lender can call at any time he chooses." 47 The key characteristic of a commission is its revocability. There were inducements as well as sanctions, however. In addition to their extensive power, intendants were given very high status as the king's direct representa-

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tives in the province and special privileges including immunity from all ordinary judicial procedures and prosecution. A clear career path, which led to Paris and central power, also existed. Intendants were usually not assigned to their home regions or regions in which their families had roots. The lack of local roots was meant to facilitate the inclination to intervene decisively against local particularism. In addition, the intendants were rotated frequently and made periodic trips to Paris for both governmental and personal reasons. It was not rare for an intendant to be called to Paris for consultation. The rotation rule was three years, but it was frequently violated due to the need for expertise during crises in troublesome areas and due to the influence of patron-client ties. According to Mousnier, the average length of stay in a généralité in the pays d'élections before 1688 was four and a half years; after 1688 it was five years and two months. But it was longer in the pays d'état, where knowledge of the local task environment was more important—nine years and five months before 1688; thirteen years and three months after 1688.48 According to figures compiled by Armstrong, the average length in a given post between 1661 and 1683 was 5.3 years; between 1684 and 1715 it increased to 6.2 years.49 What then were the various tasks, duties, and powers of the intendants? The full title of these crucial royal agents was intendants de justice, police, et finances. Louis XIV wrote that the business of the intendants, who were instruments of his personal will, was to secure "the observation of our edicts, the administration of civil and criminal justice and police, and all things else which concern the prosperity and security of our subjects." 50 The intendant's powers were broad, and, as the seventeenth century progressed, they continually expanded, both through the initiation of the center and through the daily exercise of delegated royal authority by the intendants themselves. The intendant had the discretionary authority to intervene in almost any area that he deemed affected the power of the monarchy. One of his primary tasks was to oversee the promulgation and execution of royal edicts. In so doing he had the power to issue ordonnances of his own, which had the force of constraint and could only be appealed to the conseil d'Etat in Paris. These ordonnances were to facilitate the administration and execution of royal desires and laws, especially in adapting them to local conditions.

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The intendant was the eyes and ears of the absolutist monarchy. As such, he had important informational, intelligence, inspection, and reporting functions. They constituted a sort of "répertoriai bureaucracy," 5 ' but they were primarily agents of order and resource extraction. The intendants became the royal agents primarily responsible for ensuring obedience to royal authority, creating political unity, and coping with particularistic opposition. Maintaining order was a full-time job in itself. Under normal conditions, they had the power to use the maréchaussée, a mounted military force which provided police services in the rural areas, to keep basic order. When a serious revolt occurred, often tax related, the intendant had the power to call in and supervise the use of royal troops to put down the disturbance. In addition, he was responsible for investigating the cause of the revolt and punishing those responsible. In suppressing a revolt, the intendant worked closely with the local military governor. The intendant also had broad general police powers that were slowly absorbed from traditional local authorities and royal officers whom he closely supervised. He was responsible for assuring the execution of royal ordinances; maintaining the peace, which included controlling what were generally referred to as "les émotions populaires" (riots and other violent outbursts); suppressing brigandage on the roads, begging, and vagrancy; preventing the circulation of "mauvais livres" and pamphlets as well as other general censorship tasks related to public morals and manners; and supervising markets, taverns, and other places of public pleasure. As part of his police powers, the intendant saw to the provisioning of food and fuel for the towns. Closely related to his police powers were the intendants broad judicial ones. Generally he watched over the administration of justice to prevent abuses and to protect royal interests. In so doing, he supervised the activities of all local magistrates and had the authority to judge all royal officials. The intendants broad judicial power applied to both civil and criminal matters. As ex officio judge in all courts, he had the right to preside over any court in his area and, under certain conditions, even had the right to try cases himself. In particular, he presided over courts of appeal. Sentences imposed by royal and ecclesiastical courts were carried out by the intendant. By the eighteenth century the intendants had the authority to handle any disputes, controversies, or

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legal proceedings that arose from the enforcement of any royal decree, with appeal only to the Royal Council. Tax collection was one of the most important things that influenced the development and systematization of the role of the intendants.52 By the end of the seventeenth century the intendants had become the chief royal administrators in the area of finance, especially for tax collection. The intendants slowly replaced the traditional royal financial officers in their most important functions. Tax collection by the intendants was more efficient because the intendants did not have close ties with local elites. As we have already seen, the new intendants attacked the powers of all traditional intermediary authorities—governors, royal officiers, parlements, estates, clergy, and especially the nobles. Just as the nobility had lost its power in the central government, so too in the provinces the intendants took from the nobles almost all influence in local affairs, leaving only the forms of power and some status and privilege. In 1693, for example, nobles lost to the intendants one of their last traditional seigneurial powers—the right to appoint the village judge. They were harassed, spied upon, and subjected to arbitrary title searches, among other things. The intendants also attacked and absorbed many of the powers of the royal officiers, the other half of the dual absolutist bureaucracy. This was an extremely tough task, as the intendants had to rely simultaneously on these officials and attempt to control and weaken them.

The intendants were the principal instruments used by the centralizing absolutist state in extending its control over the cities and towns in the provinces. By their chaotic and extensive indebtedness, rampant fiscal mismanagement, corruption, nepotism, and active and passive resistance to royal authority, the cities and towns almost invited central intervention. By the end of the seventeenth century, the intendants supervised or directly controlled almost all aspects of municipal administration.53 Finally, as the principal agents of the new administrative monarchy in the provinces, the intendants were continually expanding their activities into new areas, particularly public works, roads, social welfare activities, and mercantilist economic regulation and development. In this capacity, they controlled the use of corvée labor.

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In this struggle for domination, it is not surprising that many intendants abused their power, at least from the viewpoint of the king's subjects, and that they—"hated and suspected from the first—have left legendary reputations for cruelty, injustice and rapacity." 5 4 Such abuse resulted from both the nature of the task of domination and the character of the individual intendants: You must understand how difficult the intendant's task was; he was very powerful but always caught between the precise instructions that the Controller-General sent him and local realities, which he knew well but the Controller-General had not foreseen. In the accomplishment of such a difficult task, it was inevitable that many errors were committed, many abuses even, which justified an impression of arbitrariness that the administration of the intendants produced among the subjects of the kings. . . . And was it not inevitable that the intendants had diverse values and that alongside good, zealous and active intendants were those who were not.55 Given the enormity of the task, the number of operational constraints, and the tenacity of local resistance, it is amazing what the intendants were able to accomplish. As Treasure tells us, the intendant knew at first-hand the limitations of seventeenth century government; the pedantry of provincial officiers, the chicanery of the coq de paroisse, the insolence of the hobereau, the tenacious conservatism of the métayer. We learn from the reports of the intendants how much, and yet by modern standards how little, the government was able to achieve.56 Barker nicely portrays the reality of absolutist administration when he says, "It is the ideal of absolutism that the absolute will should act freely, and come and go like rapid lightning. . . . Not the flash of an electric spark, but the slow transmission of impulse, from a mainspring which may become relaxed through wheels which may become clogged, is the true analogy." 5 7

Coercion and the State-Society Struggle The absolutist monarchy was clearly an authoritarian, early modern state. The slowly centralizing structure of princely domination

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was supported by an increasingly effective, but limited, coercive capacity. French historians have long stressed the coercive, authoritarian, some even say despotic, nature of seventeenth-century absolutism. Normative and utilitarian compliance were important, but coercive compliance was central. Michelet, Lemontey, and Pagès all highlighted the broad and deep coercive streak in French absolutism—its authoritarianism, intolerance, use of fear as a political tool, oppressive and arbitrary system of administrative controls, and use of force by the army and police to coerce and subjugate elements of society. Stressing "imposed obedience," Pagès notes that "one of the characteristics of the new regime was the continual use of armed force as a means of government." 58 Despite all the normative cant, the absolutist domain consensus was at its roots highly coercive. As Perry Anderson notes, "the ideological incense surrounding the monarchy, lavishly dispensed by the salaried writers and clerics of the regime, swathed the armed regression on which it relied, but could not conceal it." 59 The two main elements of the centralizing state's coercive apparatus were the army and the police, and neither was known for its tenderness. The main internal tasks of the army were to suppress all uprisings and revolts by nobles, peasants, and cities; control the "émotions populaires"60 including witchcraft panics; persecute religious dissenters; and facilitate resource extraction, particularly tax collection. The tasks of order and extraction were closely interrelated, as many uprisings were antitax in nature or related to food. Food was a factor that often complicated, aggravated, or sparked uprisings. Bad harvests, plague-related famine and disease, grain shortages, hoarding, and wildly fluctuating food prices produced unrest. Grievances about taxation and food were frequently directly related. The heinous tax burden and hunger went hand in hand, especially in years of bad harvest. Hunger and famine usually, but not always, hastened opposition. The military forces of the seventeenth-century absolutist state were distinctly early modern in character; modern forces they were not. This was a period of transition from feudal and mercenary armies toward more disciplined standing armies that were centrally controlled and supplied. In short, the king needed a profes-

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sional royal army—something which was lacking for most of the seventeenth century.61 I have already stressed that Louis XIV's external search for security, glory, and military aggrandizement was a major impetus to internal efforts by the absolutist state to centralize and consolidate its domination. France was at war for over thirty of Louis XIV's fifty-four years of personal rule.62 Under him the army was reorganized and greatly improved to create the first year-round standing royal army in Europe. Both the size of the army and its budget swelled. The number of troops increased from about 70,000 to close to 400,000, and the military budget expanded from 38 million livres (1683) to 100-145 million livres (1706). Discipline among both officers and men was greatly improved. New types of units and corps were introduced, especially the artillery and Vauban's engineers. Weaponry, tactics, and maneuver capability were all enhanced. For example, the flintlock and the fixed bayonet were brought into use and siege tactics greatly perfected. But above all, logistics were vastly ameliorated through the efforts of LeTellier and Louvois. For the first time the army had its own arsenals, magazines, and staging posts with regularized supply and provision procedures. Uniforms came into more general use, and pay became relatively regular by 1670. In short, the army became better fed, clothed, trained, paid, armed, transported, and disciplined. The main instrument for asserting central control of military administration was the intendant de l'armée, first used regularly by LeTellier. Like his counterpart in the territorial administration, the intendant de l'armée represented the king in the army and was particularly responsible for discipline and logistics. He was there to see that the orders of the king and his secretary for war were duly carried out.63 All of these efforts produced by the end of Louis XIV's long reign the best army in Europe. Despite these vast improvements, however, the army remained only a semiprofessional military force. It was still a long way from being a modern army. Goubert notes that "the people of the realm were not always bursting with pride in it." 64 The king's subjects constantly felt the oppressive presence of the army "in this society in which gentleness played so small a part."65

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Comparative and Analytic Perspectives Absolutism and the Limitations of an Early Modern State

The French absolutist monarchy of the seventeenth century was an early modern state, one that had real limitations.66 French absolutism was an ambiguous achievement, beset by paradox. Relative to where it started, the progress was immense; relative to the full development of the modern state, what remained to be accomplished was enormous. The administrative monarchy had initiated the move from theoretical absolutism toward factual absolutism, but it did not fully achieve it. Although much more "absolute" when compared to the dispersal of power in the earlier standestaat, the monarchy still had to act with considerable restraint. France remained a multiply-layered entity. The absolutist monarchy was not unlimited in its powers and capabilities, but rather unsupervised. The absolutist monarchy chipped away at traditional structures using a coverover strategy. A new form of authority was superimposed on older ones. The move toward factual absolutism was an uneven and protracted process. Although great progress had been made, France was far from being fully integrated, even politically by the end of Louis XIV's reign in 1715.67 The statesociety struggle was an ongoing, permanent phenomenon. The overall result was the curbing of much, but not all, of the power and authority of local and regional intermediary authorities. Absolutist state formation efforts slowly separated political authority from local sociopolitical entities and a central, more distant, state began to develop a direct, unmediated relationship with its subjects. The reach of the "absolute" state was slowly becoming more factual, more real. Although relatively slow, administrative growth was relatively continuous; bureaucratization, on the other hand, was much less so. A peculiar mixture of patrimonial and bureaucratic elements, the new central official realm developed unevenly, not directly or unilaterally. Reverses, lapses, and setbacks in bureaucratization were frequent and persistent. Likewise, bureaucratization was not intentional, but rather emerged out of the struggle by the monarch to centralize, consolidate, and increase his power. Thus, the absolutist monarchy was an early modern patri-

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monial-bureaucratic state. And as brutal as its domination was, it was not in any way the equivalent of a modern totalitarian state; rather it was a highly authoritarian one with a distinct organicstatist orientation. The imposing authoritarian façade had many gaps behind it; the lofty pretensions of Versailles did not match the dayto-day reality of absolutist domination. French absolutism was nonetheless a remarkable achievement. After examining the limitations of time and place, what it did accomplish becomes all the more significant. Ultimate royal authority was assured by 1715; great strides had been taken toward factual absolutism. Although the state-society struggle would continue, a new type of state had come into existence. A lame Leviathan yes, but Leviathans were new political realities in those days. And the similarities of this early modern state with some contemporary "developing" states is most striking. It is to one of these regimes that we now turn.

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Part II The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

4 Zairian Absolutism and the State-Society Struggle "Il se conduit comme l'auraient fait les rois de France s'ils avaient disposé des moyens de propagande contemporains." Peut-être le Zaire a-t-il trouvé un "monarque," mais il est une chose que les slogans du parti ne peuvent pas susciter: le sens de l'Etat qui a fait les "grands commis." —Jean de la Guérivière, Le Monde, 24-25 février 1974 He is citizen, chief, king, revolutionary. . . . He has occupied every ideological position and the basis of his kingship cannot be questioned. He rules; he is grand, and like a medieval king, he is at once loved and feared. The newspapers, diluting the language of Fanon and Mao, speak every day of the revolution and the radicalization of the revolution. But this is what the revolution is about: the kingship. In Zaire Mobutu is the news: his speeches, his receptions, the marches de soutien, the new appointments: court news. What looked obvious on the first day, but was then blurred by the reasonable-sounding words, turns out to be true. The kingship of Mobutu has become its own end. —V. S. Naipaul, "A New King for the Congo," New York Review of Books, June 26, 1975

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A father at his child's funeral . . . , addressing the child, said: "I don't know whether it was witchcraft that killed you or not, but if it was hunger may you follow Mobutu everywhere." —From Janet MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy: Businessmen and Businesswomen in Kisangani, Zaire," p. 146.

J ^ a i s e d high, Mobutu Sese Seko—the king—seeks to build a • » stronger state. Responding to a severe crisis of order in the early 1960s, he commenced a search for order and sovereignty with considerable international assistance. It is a search for direct, unmediated control, and it is a constant struggle. In the face of dispersed authority, great heterogeneity, and periodic and often severe disorder, the patriarchal patrimonial ruler created a princely "bureaucracy" and established theoretical absolutism. He then sought to move toward factual absolutism. The result is a mixed patrimonial-bureaucratic authoritarian state. In this early modern state, patriarchal patrimonialism and emergent bureaucratic forms of administration are both salient characteristics. But, like all absolutist states, Mobutu's kingdom has distinctly limited capabilities. Old forms and structures of authority continue to operate. Mobutu has increased his personal discretion beyond the confines of both traditional (precolonial) restraints and modern, legal ones. He has appropriated the coercive, administrative, and financial means to increase his patriarchal patrimonial power. Following a coverover strategy within an organic-statist orientation, he has used early modern police and military forces and a cadre of "new official realm" prefects—the king's men—to control all key societal groups and to emasculate the power of all intermediary authorities. With these coercive and administrative instruments, Mobutu has sought to "whittle away traditional rules and practices."1 This has been an uneven and halting process, but the distinction between state and subject has become increasingly sharp. This emerging early modern, centralizing state without a widely recognized sense of Zairian nationhood is the primary reality

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of the contemporary period for all societal groups. The appearance of the Zairian absolutist state has been a political change, not a major socioeconomic one, and it has emerged slowly and haltingly through caudillo and quasi-Bonapartist phases. The Zairian state consists of Mobutu the monarch, his patrimonial-bureaucratic administrative apparatus, and his princely armed forces. The state is identified with Mobutu; the two are fused. The newly proclaimed sovereignty of the state is embodied in the person of this presidential monarch. Zairian absolutism, "c'est tout d'abord l'expression d'une volonté de puissance qui s'est exercée dans tous les domaines." 2 It is a will to dominate, a desire for unification, obedience, and glory; it is an impulse to overwhelm doubt. Theoretical absolutism has been so grandiosely promulgated because the reality is often so shallow. As in seventeenth-century France, a key characteristic is the simultaneous growth of highly personalized rule and of some aspects of bureaucratic administration and penetration by patrimonial prefects. Mobutu adopted and adapted the colonial state by patrimonializing it. His administrative monarchy has modified but not destroyed a confused mass of jurisdictions that were transmitted from the past. Major internal resistance has come from two primary sources: local, regional, and ethnic particularisms, especially decentralized patrimonial authorities; and organized societal groups and emerging classes. The shift toward factual absolutism is a constant and difficult struggle. But Mobutu, like the kings of seventeenth-century France, has been lucky because his opposition has never been united or particularly effective, and he has been able to obtain substantial international support. Success has been both remarkable and limited. Basic order has been maintained, but the authority of the Zairian absolutist state often appears like "a sort of authoritarian bragging which drowns in an often mocking passivity."3 In the depths of the regions, the norm often is disobedience tempered by absolutism. Centralized administrative control has increased, but it is still far from being unlimited. It is just unsupervised. Authority relations are still mediated to a significant degree. Tocqueville's statement holds true for the Zairian absolutist state: "Centralized administration was established among the ancient powers, which it supplanted, without, however, destroying them."4 The Zairian absolutist state is

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an emerging organization of domination seeking to expand its domain in a very hostile and uncertain environment, both internally and externally. The survival of this early modern state never appears assured; uncertainty remains a pervasive fact for the rulers of this centralizing structure of domination.

The Task Environment of the Zairian Absolutist State Before proceeding, some comments about the Zairian internal task environment are necessary. The country is a little over 905,000 square miles in size, about the same as the United States east of the Mississippi River. At the time the field research for this work was done, in 1974-75, the population of Zaire was officially set at about 23 million people; by 1980 it was 27 million. The early modern task environment is characterized by socioeconomic fragmentation, intense local particularism, and shifting cultural heterogeneity. But, as in seventeenth-century France, there exists a basic, but often unrecognized, cultural unity.5 Zairian society is an uncoordinated mosaic of sociopolitical groupings most of which have direct roots in the precolonial period. Despite the uneven impact of colonial rule, the continuity of tradition remains powerful.6 The stubborn survival of traditional authority patterns and the deeply rooted local and regional particularisms are major obstacles for the centralizing absolutist state. There are over two hundred ethnic groups in Zaire, and Crawford Young has underlined "the fluid and situational character of ethnicity" in the Zairian context.7 The bulk of the subject population is rural and agricultural. Although urbanization is taking place at a rapid rate, 85 percent of the population are still peasants cultivating the soil by traditional methods (the same percentage as in seventeenth-century France). They are poor, isolated, and oppressed. In 1976 the per capita income was only $132, and the life expectancy only forty-four years. The rural dwellers live in a constant state of ecological, economic, and political uncertainty. Agricultural technology is primitive and harvests are often poor, which results in illness, malnutrition, and occasional fam-

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ine. Near famine conditions existed in Bas Zaire in 1978, for example. Health facilities are inadequate, scarce, and unevenly distributed. Malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, parasitic worm infestations, and nutritional diseases such as kwashiokor are prevalent. In 1978 and 1979 a major cholera epidemic spread over eastern Zaire. As in early modern France, this rural population is "less a social class than a complex group." 8 The rural dwellers view the agents of the centralizing state as outsiders or "strangers" who are to be distrusted. No widely felt sense of Zairian nationhood exists, and rural politics is local and highly personalized. About two hundred local languages and several hundred dialects are spoken. Two "trading" languages are widely used— Lingala and Kingwana, a dialect of Swahili. French is the administrative language of the absolutist state, but only a modest percentage of the population has a good working knowledge of it. Education is frequently poor, scarce, and unevenly distributed; the literacy rate is about 20 percent (15 percent for French). Thus, as in absolutist France, French is the "language of the king, the state, the court, high society." 9 Linguistic unity hobbles far behind the incomplete unity of the absolutist state, and it does not appear to be a major policy goal. Although about 65 percent of the population is at least partially Christianized, there exists an uneasy coexistence and mixing of traditional religious notions and beliefs about the supernatural, magic, witchcraft, fetishes, sorcery, and local spirits with newer Christian beliefs and practices. Where Christian belief exists, it is usually elementary, but passionate.10 Zaire has an early modern dual economy that is predominantly agricultural, but international trade also plays a central role, especially with copper, cobalt, and agricultural cash crops and products. A money economy continues to spread, and nascent industrial capitalism linked to state mercantilist policies is slowly and haltingly emerging. Like early modern France, Zaire is resource rich but technologically backward, with weak productive, as opposed to extractive, capacity. Transportation is backward, slow, irregular, unevenly distributed, inconvenient, dangerous, and costly. Almost all of the more than 21,000 miles of roads are unpaved and very poorly maintained. There are about 3,000 miles of railroad, but it too is in very poor and disintegrating condition. The

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8,000 miles of navigable rivers remain the core of the internal transportation network. Communications are not much better. In nonagricultural sectors, foreign goods predominate. And, like the French absolutist state, the rulers of Zaire have had to import grain and other food staples. Also like France, the economy suffers from sudden and often violent economic crises, and the financial structure of the state is chaotic. The ruler's understanding of economics is limited. There is also an important role for foreigners in the economy. What Goubert noted for France holds equally well for Zaire: "When the businessmen of the realm (a Jacques Coeur, an Ango) prove neither numerous nor strong enough, the vacuum is filled by foreigners. . . . These high-living 'colonists' helped the kings and their servants to collect money, start commercial enterprises, exploit resources, modernize and also to squeeze the people. They left disciples."11 Finally, the Zairian task environment has a general style, mood, and texture that merges continuity and change, permanence and uncertainty, and a generalized insouciance. All of the factors mentioned in this section then "foster the fragmentation and the semi-isolation of the great peasant, provincial, uneven, uncoordinated mosaic" that Zaire is today.12

Zairian Absolutism and the Colonial Conquest State The immediate and external antecedent of the Zairian absolutist state, and a major factor in its development, is the colonial conquest state. As such it was implanted as part of a world historical process of diffusion of European structures and institutions. In his search for sovereignty, Mobutu has adopted and adapted the Belgian colonial state structure and patrimonialized it. In a sense he repatrimonialized it because Zaire has its roots in a truly patrimonial state—King Leopold II of Belgium's Etat indépendant du Congo.13 Without the legacies of the colonial conquest state, the rapid rise of the Zairian absolutist state would not have been possible. As noted previously, the fully developed modern state emerged first in Western Europe. Was it this structure that was

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diffused by the worldwide expansion of European states? No, the colonial state was a product of the new historical environment that resulted from the development of the modern state, but it itself was not a fully developed modern state. The value and structural roots of the colonial state were firmly sunk in the prerevolutionary, predemocratic soil of absolutist Europe. As European imperial powers prepared to grant independence to their African and Asian colonies in the post-World War II era, they attempted at the last minute to introduce as part of the independence bargain democratic and fully legal-rational political structures. This attempt to plant a new and parting postrevolutionary European legacy failed. In the face of mounting problems of political consolidation, the new African states became more authoritarian and centralized, and political participation became departicipation, the ritual dances of the one-party state. And, as Southall notes: "There was little resistance to this on the part of leaders since, in fact, it conformed exactly to the colonial experience from which they had emerged. For the democratic models presented by the colonial powers for adoption at independence were a rather sudden and complete reversal of the highly centralized and administratively dominated system which had characterized the colonies for decades."' 4 Although basically a variant of the empire state, the colonial state had some of the characteristics of the fully developed modern state and many of the traits of the European absolutist state, including an organic-statist orientation.15 It was a highly bureaucratized absolutist state in empire form. Bruce Berman has commented on the values of aristocratic conservatism and an authoritarian paternalism that decisively affected the structure and dayto-day operation of the colonial conquest state: Analysis of the attitudes and values of field administrators reveals that colonial administration was in a very important sense a European atavism; an attempt to create in the African context a modern idealized version of traditional aristocratic authority in a state, hierarchically ordered society. Colonial rule becomes a middle class phenomenon only if we focus exclusively on the social origins of administrative officers. There is an unfortunate tendency to overestimate the dominance of bourgeois values and culture in Western European society and neglect the continuing vitality of earlier more traditional orientations, especially

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in the years of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which were the crucial formative period of colonial regimes.' 6

This "European atavism" is a manifestation of the continuity between the development of the early modern state in Europe and the consolidation of the new states in Africa today—"the impersonal absolutism of the colonial state."'7 In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, European imperial powers imposed on Africa a prerevolutionary, partially modified version of an early modern state that had been overthrown or outgrown in their own domestic political arenas. Several important legacies and characteristics of the colonial state were crucial, externally imposed antecedents of current African states. The colonial state established a hierarchical, authoritarian, loosely centralized, and extensive administrative network that ruled indirectly and maintained a precarious unity. By creating a new political arena for social groups that were often quite heterogeneous, it essentially became a "container state" that attempted to control a very particularistic society. The Belgian colonial state in Zaire included, or partially included, a wide variety of both stateless societies and segmentary states. It was clearly dealing not with a single social system, but rather with a multiplicity of sociopolitical groups, each trying to protect its precolonial autonomy. As an authoritarian administrative society, the colonial state in turn began to affect these particularistic, precolonial political patterns and structures by weakening and distorting them but usually without eliminating them. One of the most important effects was a partial desacralization of power and the resulting emerging secular patterns of authority. Authority relations between the colonial state and the individual remained indirect and mediated by these precolonial structures. In fact, it was these intermediary authorities and their attempts to protect their autonomy that posed the major political and administrative problems for the colonial state and continue to do so for its postindependence successors. The types of precolonial political structures and opportunities for economic exploitation that existed in a given area of the colonial state helped to determine the nature of dominance relations that existed between those groups and their external rulers.

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The resulting polity was an unintegrated one of imposed bureaucratic administrative structures which were laid over a multiplicity of preexisting authority patterns. A constant, pervasive, and inherent tension existed between the "layers" of this empire state, which was normally controlled by the threat of superior coercive power. Nonetheless, a constant struggle for control and autonomy existed between the two "layers." In terms of this bureaucratic authoritarianism, the core structural legacy of the colonial conquest state is the pattern of prefectoral field administration.18 This was a relatively centralized political structure with deconcentrated administration by local prefects who were directly responsible to the center but exercised a high degree of discretion in carrying out their duties. It was domination by district officer in an atmosphere that promoted the values of aristocratic conservatism and authoritarian paternalism. The colonial state, as an external structure of domination personified by the prefect, stressed heavily the basic separation between state and society that is one characteristic of the modern state, the distinction of the state as an autonomous structure of power and control. The prefects of the African colonial state were similar in many respects to the prerevolutionary prefects of absolutist France— the intendants. In Zaire today, it is the structure of the colonial conquest state that, under the influence of precolonial state patterns, becomes patrimonialized to form the full-fledged absolutist state under Mobutu, Zaire's presidential monarch. There are also, of course, the more general consequences of the imposition of the colonial state. Mostly of a socioeconomic nature and often classed under the general term "modernization," they include Christianity, educational systems, literacy, new medical technology, intensive urbanization, and other, more general technological, communicational, and cultural influences. Above all there is the introduction of European economic structures and modes of production with their attendant forms of economic exploitation and integration into a new world economy.19 Balandier, however, issues a useful cautionary note on the latter set of consequences: "Moreover, the relations of production (even the most modern ones) have not yet acquired in Black Africa the determining role they have in 'western' societies."20 On the more specifically politico-administrative side are the consequences of

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the important introduction and slow spread of Roman concepts of law, the use of a European language, and new emerging patterns of social stratification.21 The colonial state thus created a new political arena and structure within and through which other socioeconomic and cultural changes take place, but which remains in and of itself a major determining and sem¡autonomous factor in the overall outcome of social change. Probably the most significant manifestation of this fact, as well as one of the most salient and determining phenomena of the postindependence period, is the emergence of a new indigenous ruling class. It is created and sustained by the externally created political arena, the colonial conquest state transformed into an internationally recognized and supported independent state. Balandier is one of the few analysts who is perfectly clear and correct on this issue: The explanation for this lies in the political situation—at the level of the relations that exist with the new power; the establishment of this power— and the struggles it gives rise to—help to strengthen the only fully formed class, the ruling class. It is participation in the exercise of political power that gives economic power, rather than the reverse. In this respect, the young national state and the traditional state have a similar effect, since position in relation to the state apparatus still determines social status, the form of the relation to the economy and material power. 22

Thus this is another clear example of the continuity of pre- and postcolonial state formation processes. After the initial, passing postindependence phase of democratic politics, it is this ruling group, or what I call the political aristocracy, which, under the influence of precolonial state patterns and concepts of authority, reverts to the structure of the externally imposed colonial state and adapts it to its own interests essentially by patrimonializing it. The result is a full-fledged African absolutist state with a "democratic" facade. Speaking about African countries, Southall has noted "that the outlines of what may be a somewhat longer term pattern have only quite recently begun to appear."23 But begun to appear they have.

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The Prelude to Absolutism: Decolonization, Crises, and International Intervention (1957-1965) A severe crisis in political order existed in the period 1960-65 in which the very survival of the Zairian state was called into question. The reestablishment of political order and control was an immediate and pressing need, and one that has served as a direct stimulus to efforts to increase state power since 1965. The crisis included an army mutiny; political plots and assassinations; multiple, successive, and often competing regimes; political and administrative fragmentation; major ethnic violence; two secessions (Katanga, now Shaba, and South Kasai); two major rebellions (Kwilu and the eastern one); intervention by external groups, including the United Nations, Western and Communist powers, and mercenaries; economic breakdown; and famine. In short, civil war existed during most of this time, and the state was on the verge of complete disintegration more than once. Mobutu finally seized power in a military coup d'état in November 1965.24 The intent of this section is not to provide a detailed political history of the extremely complex 1957-1965 period, but rather to identify key processes and events, particularly those that led to and affected the emergence and character of the Mobutu regime as an early modern absolutist state. Of primary importance are an abrupt decolonization and the rapid rise and demise of liberal democratic political structures and parties; varying political manifestations of partially mutable regional, ethnic, and local particularisms, particularly as they merged with socioeconomic interests in the context of both a limited pluralism in the urban areas and the quasi-traditionalism of the rural periphery; territorial fragmentation, civil war, and complex struggles for central power; and the pervasive role of external actors in these processes and events, such that they had a good deal to do with who came to power, when, and under what circumstances. Independence came abruptly to Zaire. The growth of nationalism in the Belgian Congo had been deliberately stunted by the colonial regime's rejection of any sort of real politics for Africans. The only permissible activity was heavily corporatist in orientation—enclosed in state supervised and approved ethnic, educational, and professional organizations largely restricted to

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urban areas and controlled by a small group of évolués. In addition to the ethnic associations, there were organizations such as UNISCO (Union Nationale des Intérêts Sociaux Congolais), APIC (Association de Personnel Indigène de la Colonie), and ACMAF (Association des Classes Moyennes Africaines). Even these organizations were of relatively recent origin, unlike the situations in other areas of colonial Africa. The Belgians, however, were unable to keep the Congo fully isolated from the spread of anticolonial movements in other parts of Africa and from events in Europe. In reaction to and partial support of a call by a Belgian professor for independence for the Congo in thirty years, a group of Ngala évolués issued a manifesto in June 1956 calling for major political change.25 This in turn led to a competing manifesto issued in August by the Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), the important Bakongo ethnic association headed by Joseph Kasavubu. Ethnic mobilization had commenced, and in the urban arena first. In two sets of balloting in 1957 and 1958, the Belgians belatedly held elections for urban councils in the colony's seven major cities. The limited pluralism of the urban setting became the battleground for what was, by necessity, a rapid electoral mobilization. In such a situation the interplay of identity and the calculation of relative interest helped to make partially mutable ethnic perceptions the catalysts of political mobilization and countermobilization. Preelectoral maneuvering fostered ethnic politicization and polarization in the urban arena, but the results of the elections greatly reinforced it.26 Several external events helped to foster the late but rapid growth of a Congolese independence movement—Charles de Gaulle's offer of independence to the French Congo in a speech in Brazzaville in late August 1958, the Brussels World's Fair in the fall of the same year, and the first pan-African conference organized by Kwame Nkrumah in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958 attended by among others, Patrice Lumumba. These events were followed by bloody riots in Kinshasa (Leopoldville) on June 5, 1960, which accelerated both Belgian panic and the pace of events leading toward independence. The January 1960 Round Table Conference held in Brussels produced the Loi fondamentale, which provided a complex and, as subsequent events showed, unsatis-

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factory solution to a major issue facing the infant state—the question of a unitary, federal, or confederal political structure—set a date for independence, and left only about three months until the elections that would establish the balance of power. Real political parties now had to be established, and well beyond the earlier urban arenas. This had to be accomplished with almost no prior preparation, no established national elite, very little time, and very high stakes. The rural periphery now had to be linked to the urban centers, and the only viable way to achieve this was via ethnic mobilization organized by urban elite groups, or even by individuals. But, given the short time span and the far greater complexity and fluidity of regional and ethnic particularism in the rural periphery and of the issues around which such perceptions swirled, it is not surprising that more than one hundred political "parties" emerged. Urban anticolonialism thus established highly volatile and unstable links with mass cultural mobilization. Only Lumumba's MNC (Mouvement National Congolais) even approached a "national" movement. In this uncertain and frantic environment many wild promises were made, including resurrection of the dead, repayment of taxes collected during the colonial period, and mass and instant wealth and well-being. Political "parties" in the Congo existed only "at the level of symbolic manipulation rather than at the structural level." 27 After independence on June 30, 1960, these "parties" quickly fragmented into numerous competing factions often based around loose and shifting patron-client networks as the struggle for power focused now on parliament and the provincial assemblies. Almost immediately after independence, a near total breakdown of authority occurred as the army mutinied against its Belgian officers, a mass exodus of Belgian administrators, business people, and missionaries ensued, and Katanga and South Kasai seceded. In the process an intense struggle for "national" leadership—more accurately, for control of the weak structures of the political center in Kinshasa—broke out, and extensive internationalization of the resulting conflicts followed. Over the next several years, major external actors included the United Nations (along with all the squabbles within its leadership and among its members), Belgium, the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Portugal, small European states, Morocco, Afro-Asian groups, and

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several African countries themselves. The major powers in particular became directly involved in the turmoil in the Congo, often being able to influence who came to power and who stayed there. By way of illustration I will focus here on the American role.28 In the struggle between Prime Minister Lumumba and President Kasavubu during the first turbulent months of independence, the United States supported Kasavubu as its fears of Lumumba and his ties to the Soviets increased. First, American officials supported Kasavubu's dismissal of Lumumba on September 5; then they later helped to sabotage a reconciliation between them. U.S. diplomats and the CIA were also "heavily involved in the emergence of Colonel Joseph Mobutu and his College of Commissioners"29 as he seized power on September 14, 1960, in order to break the political stalemate. Mobutu, and the Binza group generally, had particularly strong support from Larry Devlin, the CIA station chief in Kinshasa. American officials worked to help consolidate and legitimize this first Mobutu government vis-à-vis the UN mission and other major external actors and via financial and military assistance. One of Mobutu's first actions was to expel all Soviet-bloc personnel. But by the end of 1960, and with the establishment of the Gizenga regime in Stanleyville (Kisangani), there were four governments in the Congo, and Mobutu and the Binza group maintained only a tenuous grasp on power despite considerable external assistance. Stephen Weissman notes both the power and limits of the American presence in the early stages of the Congolese conflict. The U.S. government "managed to buttress a politically weak pro-Western government. In fact, they probably kept it in power. . . . Still, it was unable to build a secure dike against any anti-Belgian, Communist-supported government in the Congo." 30 Uncertainty was a pervasive factor for all actors, internal and external. In February 1961 Mobutu's College of Commissioners was finally dissolved and a provisional government was formed by Joseph lleo. (Kasavubu remained president throughout the 1960-65 period.) The authority of the new government rarely extended beyond Leopoldville and Equateur provinces and a part of Kasai, especially after Lumumba's murder. Two conferences in March and April-May 1961 were unable to settle the unitary-federal-confederal issue. Parliament was able to reconvene in July, however,

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and a broad coalition government headed by Cyrille Adoula was formed. The new Kennedy administration extended its support to this new government. With substantial help from the UN military forces, the Congolese army (ANC) was able to end the Gizenga regime in January 1962 and in January 1963 terminate the Katanga secession, which had been led by Moise Tshombe and for a time unofficially supported by the Belgians. The South Kasai secession collapsed several months later. A shaky unity had returned to the troubled state, but it was not to last long. Part of the agreement leading to the formation of the Adoula government was a commitment to consider restructuring the provinces. As a result, the original six provinces became twentyone provinces, based on ethnic and regional criteria. In short, the structure of the political arena had changed again, forcing another partial redefinition of ethnic identity and loyalty and socioeconomic interests and the relationship between the two. The partial mutability and uncertainty of ethnic and regional particularisms were again underscored; their salience remained, but their form and impact had changed again. Unfortunately, the new provinces did not end the instability generated by these complex phenomena. In some cases they exacerbated it in the process of restructuring the political arena. By the middle of 1963, Adoula's government faced serious opposition, and parliament had become deadlocked during a constitutional debate. In September, Kasavubu prorogued parliament indefinitely and later decreed a state of emergency for six months. The Kennedy administration had consistently supported the Adoula government, but by mid-1962 American officials began to look ahead to the withdrawal of the UN forces and worried about the limited improvement of the ANC, headed by Mobutu. As a result, American military advisers developed the "Greene Plan" for substantial multilateral military assistance under UN auspices. The latter rejected the plan, and a scaled down version of it went into effect bilaterally with the U.S., Belgian, Israeli, and Italian governments. By July 1963 the ANC was receiving significant American assistance, including a small military mission and over 150 military vehicles and spare parts, plus communications equipment on the way. In addition, about a dozen ANC officers had received training in the United States. The most important

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training was provided by the Belgians, however. By the middle of 1964 there were 75 Belgian officers and advisers in the Congo and more than 300 ANC personnel had gone to Belgium for training. American economic and military assistance to the Congo by July 1964 totaled more than $400 million. 31 Despite this important external assistance, the ANC was still very far from a disciplined and effective fighting force. As events would soon show, it was still not really an army. As Adoula's power waned, Mobutu's influence as head of the army tended to increase proportionally. In January 1964 the rebellion led by Pierre Mulele erupted in Kwilu, and in April the Eastern Rebellion broke out in southern Kivu and northern Katanga. It became clear immediately that the ANC would not be able to cope with the uprisings, and the UN troops were scheduled to leave by the end of June. Just before the departure of the UN forces, Kasavubu dismissed Adoula and asked the former head of the Katanga secession effort, Moise Tshombe, to become the fourth prime minister of the Congo, underscoring again the Machiavellian nature of Congolese politics. From exile Tshombe had been seeking a return to political life, and almost all internal and external actors had become involved, trying either to prevent it or to bring it about. While the U.S. government (now the Johnson administration) continued to support Adoula and had quickly increased military support when the rebellions broke out, Mobutu, most of the rest of the Binza group, the Belgians, and the French favored Tshombe's return to the Congo as a transitional prime minister to implement the new constitution, which was to be signed in August. Mobutu clearly differed with the Americans on this crucial point, but they eventually acquiesced in the appointment of Tshombe.32 He formed a government on July 6, immediately opened negotiations with the leaders of the rebellions, and began hiring mercenaries. The rebellions were actually a series of overlapping uprisings, the intent of which was to seize central power. At one time or another, rebel control or influence existed in nearly two-thirds of the country. The entire northeast and the Kwilu area were beyond central control for quite some time. These uprisings fed on the widespread disenchantment with independence, especially among the youth and the rural population for whom any effective

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ties with political "parties" and their elites had evaporated. In addition, the memory of Lumumba and his ideas were a powerful symbolic force to be used for mobilization, especially for the Eastern Rebellion. But the rebellions lacked effective, unified direction and a coherent structure; internal factionalism was a significant problem. While ethnic and regional particularisms were not key causes of the rebellions, they were mobilized in ways different than in earlier periods. Ethnic particularism became the crucial lens through which local populations evaluated the rebels, calculated their interests, and decided whether to join the rebels, resist them, or attempt to ignore them. Uncertainty and fear were rampant in the land, and the stakes were very high if collaboration or resistance turned out to be the wrong choice. The new political context activated ethnic particularism on varying and often shifting levels rather than uniting groups in a challenge against a despised central regime. For example, once the Mulele uprising was generally viewed as a basically Mbunda and Pende movement, it became encapsulated, and ANC troops were able to isolate and control it without great difficulty. Particularistic perceptions quickly dissipated a rebellion that had much larger aspirations and ideological orientations. Thus, the rebellions underlined once again the changing political manifestations of the complex and partially mutable ethnic, regional, and local particularisms that pervade both the limited pluralism of the urban sector and the rural periphery of this clearly early modern state. Since the patterns of these particularisms are not rigidly established, the political context and level of identity activated are crucial, and the resulting uncertainty is a major factor for ruling groups who desire to maintain basic unity and order. Particularistic orientations and lack of organization also doomed to failure the Eastern Rebellion, which had spread rapidly, altering its ethnic composition as it expanded and faring well in different regions for different reasons. By early August 1964 the rebels had captured Stanleyville, and the ANC had almost completely disintegrated before them. So Tshombe and Mobutu quickly reinforced it with the former Katanga gendarmes and white mercenaries. With Belgian and American logistical support, the mercenary-led ANC forces pushed the rebels back. With the re-

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turn of an effective central coercive capacity, much of the local support for the rebellion quickly evaporated. A joint BelgianAmerican paratroop assault finally retook Stanleyville in November 1964, forcing the release of a large number of white hostages. Many others were killed in the process, however. Most of the remaining rebel forces were relatively quickly eliminated or controlled by a second paratroop drop on Paulis (Isiro) and in subsequent fighting.33 In the first weeks of Tshombe's government, rebel forces held substantial territory in Kwilu and almost the entire eastern portion of the country, except for Tshombe's South Katanga. Since a political settlement quickly appeared unlikely, especially with the fall of Stanleyville on August 4, Belgium and the United States decided greatly to increase military aid to Tshombe and the Mobutu ANC. Both countries concurred in the decision to hire mercenaries (about 800 at the peak), although some American officials were distressed by the number of South Africans and Rhodesians. The United States provided more C-130 transport planes with crews and fifty-six paratroop "guards," several C-47s piloted by Belgians, a large number of ground vehicles, heavy machine guns, ammunition, and communications equipment. Several American counterinsurgency advisers also played a role, especially in the defense of Bukavu, and American officers assisted the Belgians in organizing the ANC's Fifth Brigade. Financial assistance to support the ANC and the mercenaries was also provided, and the CIA created its Cuban-piloted "instant air force" consisting of four or five B-26 and several T-28 fighter-bombers for the defense of Bukavu. The Belgians coordinated the activities of the ANC and its mercenaries, who did most of the fighting, and undertook extensive training efforts both in the Congo and in Belgium. Finally, American officials worked on the diplomatic front to increase the legitimacy of Tshombe's government, vis-à-vis African states in particular, with very mixed results.34 Without this substantial external assistance, the Tshombe government would have been hard put to defeat the rebellions. Although the quality of the ANC improved only marginally, Mobutu reaped most of the benefits and credit for the military and political developments during Tshombe's particularly turbulent rule. By early 1965 Tshombe had antagonized both President Kasa-

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vubu and Mobutu, but his political alliance, C O N A C O (Convention Nationale Congolese), won a clear majority in the parliamentary elections of March 1965 (73 percent of the seats), which were a first step in implementing the new 1964 constitution. As a result, Tshombe emerged as a major competitor to Kasavubu for the new and stronger presidency.

Seizure and Consolidation of Power: Mobutu as Caudillo (1965-67) As he had moved against Lumumba five years previously, Kasavubu dismissed Tshombe at the opening of parliament on October 13, 1965, and appointed Evariste Kimba as prime minister. Because of CONACO's control of parliament, however, Kimba was unable to obtain confirmation for his government. The result was impasse and the deadlock of liberal democratic structures—again. The inherent tension between president and prime minister again led to complex maneuvering and behind-the-scenes intrigue that involved both internal and external actors. During this period, Mobutu was reported to have had frequent meetings with Larry Devlin, CIA station chief, who is quoted as saying that if Mobutu had to step in again, as he had in 1960, it would not be for only three months this time.35 Former CIA operations officer John Stockwell has also pointed to Devlin's role, noting that "he had shuffled new governments like cards, finally settling on Mobutu as president."36 While this statement probably overplays Devlin's ability to control events, it clearly indicates an important American role during this crucial period. As the deadlock continued with the possibility of renewed civil war in the background, Mobutu convened a meeting of the ANC high command in Kinshasa, and on November 24, 1965, it announced that it was seizing power in order to end the impasse. Mobutu became president, and he asked Colonel Leonard Mulamba to become prime minister. Key members of the Binza group also took important ministerial posts. Mobutu declared that his action was not a military coup, but instead a duty carried out "to secure the nation, to put an end to chaos and anarchy."37 For

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five years he would serve as president of a "government of national union" in which party politics would have no place. A state of emergency was declared, and the 1966 presidential election canceled. These moves were ratified by parliament on November 28 and appeared to be quite popular with the people. They were also approved by the United States, which welcomed the new government, recognizing it on December 7 and extending a new $1 million loan two weeks later. By that time it had also been recognized by Belgium, France, Great Britain, and fourteen African states. Since most of the political changes in the centralization, concentration, and personalization of power are discussed in the upcoming sections on Mobutu's state formation strategy and the development of absolutism, the focus here will be on his consolidation of power, especially the importance again of international assistance, and the caudillo characteristics of his role during this period. Mobutu set out to create a "new Congo," but he first had to eliminate all threats to his rule. Kasavubu retired to his home in Bas-Zaire, and Tshombe went back into exile in Spain. Evariste Kimba and three other politicians were arrested for "plotting" against the Mobutu regime and publicly hanged in early June 1966, but the major threats to Mobutu's rule were more territorial and military in nature. There were three such challenges, and the ANC—still poorly disciplined, organized, equipped, and trained— was of little effectiveness by itself. It was still only nominally a national army. The first challenge was eliminating remaining pockets of rebel resistance in Kwilu and the northeast. This was accomplished by the A N C by the end of 1966, but only with the crucial help of the mercenaries who were kept on by Mobutu. He announced in December that 800 simbas (rebel warriors) had joined the ANC. The second challenge came in July 1966, when 600 to 800 former Katanga gendarmes, who had been integrated into the A N C while Tshombe was prime minister, mutinied and captured Stanleyville. After holding out for two months while negotiations proceeded, the city was finally retaken by A N C troops spearheaded by 100 white mercenaries led by Bob Denard. The third and most serious challenge came a year later, in

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July 1967, when 150 mercenaries of a half dozen nationalities led by Jean Schramme and supported by about 900 Katanga gendarmes rebelled and captured Stanleyville and Bukavu. Most of the mercenaries had served both Tshombe and Mobutu effectively and loyally, but they were now about to become expendable for largely political reasons. Stanleyville was quickly abandoned, but the mercenaries held on to Bukavu. Using nearly half of the ANC's 32,000 men, Mobutu was unable to dislodge the rebels, and again the United States provided military and logistical assistance. Three air force C-130 transports and 150 supporting airmen were sent to assist the ANC in moving units and rescuing civilians. With this military help and diplomatic pressure, the ANC pushed Schramme and his men into agreeing to safe conduct out of Zaire. In early November they were evacuated into Rwanda, and the last American plane left Zaire on December 10.38 All of these incidents merely highlighted the desperate need to reinforce and reorganize the coercive capacity of the Mobutu regime, and this could only be attempted with substantial assistance by external actors. As Zolberg notes, Mobutu's "survival since that date [1965]—and, more abstractly, the sudden passage of the Congo from the unstable to the stable category of African states— cannot be understood without reference to the intentions of external powers." 39 Western assistance, both economic and military, to the Mobutu regime during this crucial consolidation period was substantial. For example, the United States provided $70.6 million in nonmilitary foreign public assistance to the regime in 1966 and 1967. In 1967 Belgium provided $70 million in economic aid and $3.5 million in military aid.40 Major military assistance was supplied by Belgium and the United States. The Belgians provided substantial personnel to train Zairian forces in the country, mostly at a training facility at Kitona and a commando training center at Kotakoli. In addition, between 1960 and early 1969, they trained about 1,000 Zairian military personnel at their own schools in Belgium. Besides a small number of military advisers, the United States provided considerable amounts of equipment and communications gear and training teams for it, as well as the logistical air support already mentioned. Between 1960 and early 1969, about 100 Zairians received military training in the United States. From fiscal 1960

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through 1968, the United States provided $170.7 million in military assistance to UN forces in Zaire, and $27.8 million bilaterally. This is a significant sum when compared with the U.S. military assistance to the rest of Africa. Italy helped to train and equip Mobutu's small air force; the Israelis provided paratroop instructors; the French supplied some equipment; and the British conducted some officer training. 4 ' Not all security assistance went to the military, however. One of Mobutu's first priorities was to improve internal security by establishing a centralized and more effective national police force. The National Police Service was created in July 1966 and placed under the Interior Ministry. The Belgians have provided the bulk of the assistance to the police, with about fifty police specialists in the country in early 1967 performing training and advisory duties, but the United States has also provided important help. The U.S. "public safety" program provided about $500 thousand a year from 1963 on, mostly for equipment, including vehicles, bicycles, spare parts, tools, communications gear, training equipment, textbooks, office supplies, and thousands of uniforms. Garage, storage, and maintenance facilities, police schools, and a new police headquarters were built. By late 1969 there were six American "public safety" advisers in the country working on administrative, communications, logistical, and training issues; and eighty-two police officers had received training in the United States.42 This period in Zaire is highly reminiscent of the immediate postcolonial situation in Latin America, which produced caudillo regimes in an early modern context. As in Latin America, the collapse of Belgian colonial domination in Zaire produced a situation in which it was difficult to establish a new form of authority that was able to generate widespread support. In similar ways, the Zairian independence movement produced more anticolonialism than true nationalism and quickly adopted constitutional democratic structures, which possessed legitimacy in the international arena of the time. The rapid and sequential collapse of imperial authority and the emulated democratic structures activated latent, particularistic, centrifugal tendencies that had been held in check by external domination. This arbitrarily defined state as arena then disintegrated along a myriad of internal lines of division and into

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complex struggles for power, prestige, and control of the remaining structures of the colonial state. Mobutu, as caudillo, then steps into this chaotic vacuum and seizes power using early modern military forces (supported by considerable external assistance—a key difference from the earlier Latin American situation) in order to reestablish unity and order. This self-proclaimed leader and military officer creates a highly personalistic and quasi-military regime held together to a large degree by patron-client networks while retaining somewhat the facade of constitutional rule. Mobutu as caudillo becomes the "patron of patrons." In the Latin American context, the caudillo moved to recreate the patrimonial colonial state; in Zaire, Mobutu moves slowly to recreate the administrative structure of the Belgian colonial state while patrimonializing it. As in Latin America, underlying modes of authority and control break through the poorly grafted democratic structures. As in Latin America, this early modern form of domination is basically unstable and difficult to routinize and institutionalize.

Toward Institutionalization and Absolutism: Presidentialism with Bonapartist Overtones (1967-1970) In 1967 Mobutu made his first real efforts to institutionalize his rule, and this initial attempt has some similarities with the formal politico-structural elements of Bonapartism, if not its societal underpinnings. In April 1967 he presented his country with a new constitution and a single party—the MPR; the result was to be a strong presidential regime with only the trappings of democracy. Departicipation was in full swing. The new constitution established that all executive power would be centralized in the president, who was to be head of state and government, commanderin-chief of the armed forces and police, and empowered to appoint and dismiss all ministers, provincial governors, and judges. His vast decision-making powers included the right to promulgate laws. The existing bicameral parliament was to be replaced by a single legislative chamber. In the structure of the new party all power was, likewise, centralized in Mobutu. This new constitu-

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tion was not to take full effect, however, until after legislative and presidential elections in 1970. During early 1967 parliament came under heavy attack by the press and radio and had only one session. A number of its members were accused of subversion and jailed. Parliament was not consulted about the new constitution, and when he presented it to the public in April, Mobutu declared that parliament would cease to function after its current session since the new legislature was to be unicameral. The constitution was approved by 98 percent of the voters in a referendum in June. During this transition period, old and new forms of political threat and opposition were dealt with firmly. The possibility of a legal opposition party was completely ruled out. Pierre Mulele returned to Kinshasa from Brazzaville in October 1968 believing he was to receive amnesty; instead he was publicly executed. In 1969 key members of the Binza group were first eased out of power, then later accused of plotting against Mobutu and arrested. Several of them have since returned to power, however. In June 1969 a major demonstration by university students was violently put down by ANC troops and a number of students were killed. The university was closed and about 500 students were arrested; some were tried and convicted for antigovernment activities. Most, however, were amnestied by Mobutu on his birthday in October. Finally, worker strikes in 1968 and 1969 were quickly repressed. In the fall of 1970 the "elections" to implement the constitution of 1967 were finally held. Candidates for the "legislature" were carefully screened by the party Political Bureau and only one list was presented to the "electorate," which approved it by a 98.33 percent vote. In a separate election, Mobutu was the only candidate for president; the ballots were green for hope and red for chaos. Mobutu won with a vote of 10,131,699 to 157. Earlier, in May, the MPR had held its first congress and declared itself the supreme political institution of the country, thereby theoretically absorbing the state and ending the political duality created by the measures of 1967. Thus, despite some formal similarities with Bonapartism, it was becoming clear by the end of 1970 that what had slowly and haltingly been emerging in Zaire since late 1965 was, in fact, an African version of absolutism with surface elements of single-party

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corporatism and departicipation. The next two sections will outline Mobutu's strategy of state formation and present in more detail the development of Zairian absolutism from 1965 on.

Mobutu's Strategy of State Formation: From Political Crisis to Absolutism State formation is both the chief goal and object of Mobutu's efforts; it is his central and preeminent policy concern. All other policy concerns revolve around and are subordinate to this desire to increase state power. By increasing state power Mobutu also reinforces his own position and that of the ruling class or political aristocracy that supports him. These two processes, however, are not reducible to the same thing because the structure he helps to create may well outlast him. Mobutu is not solely interested in his own personal power; he is interested in creating a strong, stable state that will outlast him. He is engaged in a search for sovereignty vis-à-vis both internal and external groups, and maintenance and consolidation of internal political order and control are key elements of this search. The period of civil war provided the initial impetus for the centralization efforts. The intense disorder and uncertainty of the first five years of independence generated both a need and a desire for order, and central control was to be the antidote to disarray. One Zairian scholar notes that "the reasons for the return to a strongly centralized state of a colonial type can only be understood by recalling that the fragmentation of authority, itself resulting in large part from a badly conceived decentralization, had threatened the very existence of the state."43 As Louis XIV was greatly affected by the Frondes, Mobutu is a product of this time of chaos. It has directly and powerfully influenced his political perspective and goals. He has not forgotten the turmoil, and he does not let his subjects forget it either. The lessons of the crisis of order and authority have become a key element of the absolutist domain consensus doctrines. Witness the following statement by a Bas-Zaire prefect in early 1972:

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When we look at the past, it is absolutely clear that the Zairian people, then Congolese, were very fed up with the total failure of the institutions of the period . . . tribal struggles, rebellions, secessions, massacres, famine, scarcity of basic goods, looting, inflation, black markets, etc. It was necessary on 24 November 1965 for the Army High Command, under the direction of Citizen MOBUTU SESE SEKO, to intervene to put an end to this tragedy.44 The Mobutu strategy of state formation is highly organicstatist in orientation. It entails (1) the consolidation and use of coercive force (with considerable external assistance) to reestablish general political order and prevent or contain overt political unrest; (2) an intense personalization (patrimonialization) of power; (3) a recentralization of power along the lines of the authoritarian colonial state using a territorial administrative apparatus to control and dominate the population, especially to control ethnic, regional, religious, and linguistic particularisms as they merge in complex ways with emerging class factors and the uneven effects of socioeconomic change; (4) the emasculation or elimination of all alternative sources of autonomous authority, traditional or modern, using a coverover process; (5) the maintenance of severely constricted and channeled political participation (departicipation) in which a highly corporatist single state-party is recognized as the only legitimate political arena; (6) the establishment of a domain consensus, which consists of the propagation of a set of expectations of what the state requires of its "citizens" (subjects actually) and a political religion built around the presidential monarch—a set of legitimizing principles and new definitions of authority and identity used in an attempt to diffuse ethnic identity and traditional authority as foci of political action; and (7) neomercantilist economic policies designed to increase the economic and political power of the state, its ruler, and his political aristocracy. The result of this strategy is an African absolutist state, a mixed patrimonial-bureaucratic state revolving around a presidential monarchy with a "democratic" facade. In pursuing his state formation strategy, Mobutu has both relied heavily on external support and sought to limit external influence when it impinged on his interests and those of his political aristocracy. In an amazingly frank speech to territorial cadre at the first session of the party school, the Makanda Kabobi Institute, in Sep-

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tember 1974, Commissioner of Political Affairs Engulu laid out in a remarkably clear manner the essentials of Mobutu's state formation strategy: a return of the centralized, hierarchical, authoritarian administrative structure of the colonial conquest state using a centralized, but deconcentrated, fused state-party; and the propagation by territorial cadre of the two elements of a domain consensus described above.45 In elaborating the evils of the colonial administration, Engulu unwittingly provides an accurate description of the current territorial administrative structure of the Zairian state. It is a hierarchical administration based on unity of command with decisions emanating from a single superior. The job of the territorial cadre of this administration is to create and maintain a unity of thought and action both within the administration and among the social groups it attempts to control: The administrative organization of the Colony, the hierarchical military type, was a heritage of the structure established by Leopold II for the occupation of Zaire. It was founded on the principle of unity of command which means that, for whatever action, an official receives his orders only from one chief. Wishing to create and maintain in the administration, as among the people, a unity of views and action, Belgium entrusted complete responsibility for the colonial enterprise to a single cadre: the territorial service. The real motivation for the concentration of functions in the territorial cadre was of a political order. It was necessary to indicate to the population that authority was one and indivisible.

A form of prefectoral administration is used to maintain order and political unity and to develop the territory. To accomplish these tasks two basic methods are used: an often brutal administrative and coercive domination, and psychological action. The purpose of the latter, however, is not dialogue with the people but the giving of orders. Also, the administration deals not directly with the people but rather through traditional authorities who are to undertake the daily mobilization of the people under the direction of the prefects. They are the ones who must supply men for work, seek out pockets of resistance, and collect taxes. After briefly discussing the crisis of authority during the 1960-65 period, in which "the departure of the colonialists led

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to the disintegration of the territorial service," Commissioner Engulu asserts that it was only the Mobutu regime that saved the day: "It was the Revolution of 24 November 1965 that liberated the people and brought peace and quiet." He examines this new regime under two headings: "the renovation of the territorial service" and "the mission of education and ideological indoctrination." This renovation entails the administrative reform of a fused state-party—the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution—of which the territorial service becomes the central structure. Despite the declarations of the 1971 party congress, the party is, in fact, integrated into the state, centralization of power under the president is emphasized, and stress is placed on unity of command in which the territorial agent "as representative of the Guide incarnates the party in his jurisdiction." The basic functions of the territorial cadre are seen to be primarily those of order, execution of "royal" commands, extraction, and propagation of the new political religion. In this way the two major state formation concerns, the maintenance of political order and domain consensus propagation, are fused into one centralized and hierarchically controlled organization under the direction of a presidential monarch. Engulu notes that the foreign-inspired notion of separation of powers is replaced by the traditional and authentic organic-statist notion of the unity of power, which is personified by President Mobutu. Concluding his speech with a frank discussion of the actual performance of the territorial cadre of the new regime, Engulu portrays the true relationship that exists between state and subject: By this reflex of fear, the population conveys a profound trauma and a lack of confidence in its leaders. Where do this trauma and this mistrust come from? No doubt from the brutal treatment suffered by the people in the interior. Let's look at some of the common charges aimed at territorial cadre. Most of them act in their jurisdictions as if they were in a conquered land. For the purported purpose of preserving their authority, they treat the population with arrogance and condescension. Distant, they approach the people only on the occasion of mass meetings. The welcome reserved for citizens in administrative offices is as indecent as the one reserved by the colonialists for the natives. Territorial agents love to threaten the population with arrest for any reason at all, large or small.

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Confirming this penchant for arrest, they like to surround themselves with uniformed body guards conspicuously armed with revolvers and rifles. Abuses abound.

The similarity of this state-subject relationship with the one that existed under colonial rule and in absolutist France is striking. Although Engulu decries the existence of such a relationship, it is not at all clear what the ruling group would do to correct this situation if it really became a high policy priority. Thus we can see that Mobutu's strategy of state formation entails recentralization and personalization of power and the resurrection of the colonial state in structure and spirit although shrouded in revolutionary language and mobilization rhetoric. Such a strategy has resulted in the emergence of an African absolutist state with key elements of single-party corporatism and departicipation.

The Development of Zairian Absolutism: Key Processes CONSOLIDATION OF COERCIVE POWER

A first major process in the development of Zairian absolutism has been the consolidation of coercive power undertaken with considerable external assistance. Mobutu has invariably maintained his direct and personal control of military affairs. The military has always been a major pillar of support, more prominently in the beginning, but still very importantly in the succeeding years. Immediately after the coup in 1965, states of emergency and exception were instituted, which allowed extensive intervention of the military into politico-administrative affairs. Initially the provinces remained effectively under military administration and control. Provincial police units were brought under the supervision of the army until 1966, when they were organized as a national police force under the control of the Ministry of the Interior.46 Right after the coup the Sûreté was reorganized and brought under the control of Colonel Singa, a close collaborator of Gen-

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eral Mobutu. In August 1969 the Sûreté was again reorganized, becoming the National Center for Documentation (CND). 47 The secret police have complete financial and administrative autonomy from the rest of the government and are directly controlled by the president. A National Security Council was also formed in August 1969 to assure coordination between all the forces of order. After the formation of the single party, the Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution, in 1967, some tension existed between it and the military. President Mobutu made increasingly persistent efforts in succeeding years to integrate the military into the MPR. The national police in 1972 were transformed into a gendarmery, which was integrated into the military structure. That year also witnessed new efforts to integrate the military into the party. Command structure and personnel underwent some modifications, but more important was the attempt by the party congress to give new social and educational functions to the military. A new command structure was instituted in July and August 1974 along with the creation of a general military intelligence service within the President's Office. Also, in August 1974 five military officers were appointed to the Political Bureau, thus giving the military strong representation in the highest circles of the stateparty. This substantial presence in the Political Bureau was only temporary, however. At the end of 1975, Mobutu severely attacked the military as a scourge of society because it consumed resources without being productive in terms of national development. Vague measures were announced that would give the military a more active social role. As a result, some unrest was generated in the military, which may have been manifested in the "attempted" coup of June 1975. A shake-up in the military resulted, and Mobutu's full control of the military appears to have been restored. Several alleged plots and purges have taken place since, especially after the disastrous performance of the army in the invasions of Shaba Region from Angola in 1977 and 1978. The military remains one of the most important pillars of support for Mobutu in his state formation efforts, but, as we shall see in a coming chapter, Mobutu's army is clearly an early modern one. In fact, he has had to rely on substantial support from mercenar-

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ies and foreign sources whenever confronted with a serious military threat. DISMANTLEMENT OF INHERITED STRUCTURES A second important process was the dismantlement of inherited structures, especially departicipation and depoliticization. One of the first moves in this direction was the emasculation of parliament by the removal of its legislative powers. On the executive side, the post of prime minister was abolished, thereby establishing unity of executive command.48 All political parties and political youth organizations were banned, and severe attacks were made on the corrupt politicians of the early independence period. This initial effort at departicipation ranged from their simple exclusion from governmental positions to exile, prosecution, and occasional execution. In recent years, however, some of these old politicians have been reintegrated into state positions. In a two-stage operation, the number of provinces was reduced from twenty-one to eight, plus the city of Kinshasa. Provincial governments and assemblies were abolished and provincial governors became state functionaries directly appointed and controlled by the central government. Their decisions could be nullified by central authority, and they were not allowed to serve in their region of origin. Subsequently, territorial administrators were also directly appointed by the central power. Complete loss of autonomy for the provinces and for the cities and towns took place in 1967 and 1968, respectively. The major territorial administrative reforms of 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1982 will be discussed in another section of this chapter. RECENTRALIZATION: RISE OF A PERSONALIZED UNITARY STATE A third prominent process was recentralization or the move to a personalized unitary state. Under the states of emergency following the coup, Mobutu ruled by decree. In 1966 he created the Corps of Volunteers (CVR), a quasi-political party, to begin institutionalizing his new regime. The creation of a full-fledged party, the MPR, came in April 1967, and the CVR was abolished. The

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new party issued the Manifesto of Nsele, which was to act as the major programmatic and ideological statement of the infant single party. The party was to be controlled by a Political Bureau and was to exist alongside the structure of the government. In a major state corporatist move, a youth wing of the party was also created, the Jeunesse du MPR OMPR), which was designed to integrate and control all youth political groups and act as the vigilance committee for the party. A new constitution established a unitary presidential state with Bonapartist overtones and only one effective political party. A Legislative Council was created, but it was designed to exercise very little real power. The prime element of this highly organic-statist new structure was the president, who acquired vast powers organized by a Bureau of the President, normally referred to as the Presidency. During 1968 attempts were made to organize the party better in the provinces, and measures were taken to assure the close integration of the JMPR into the party. In 1969 both the Presidency and the Political Bureau of the party increased in importance and scope of powers. The latter in particular began to assume ascendency over the governmental Council of Ministers. By the end of 1970 the major structures of the new regime were in place. The first party congress was held in May 1970, during which the MPR was designated the sole party and supreme institution of the country. In November, elections for president (single candidate) and the Legislative Council (single list) took place after much organizational work by the party, the administration, and the army. A constitutional reform in early December 1970 ratified the institutionalization of the dominant role of the MPR and of its president-founder, Mobuto Sese Seko. In early 1972 measures were taken by Mobutu against the selection of personnel in state agencies by ethnic ties. But the major activity of the year was called "radicalization," which entailed the refinement of the basic structures of the new regime. The logic of centralized and personalized power was pushed toward perfection. The final, formal fusion of the party and the state in organizational terms took place in this year of "radicalization" and was a key issue discussed at the second party congress in May. Between August and October, the Council of Ministers was abolished and replaced by an Executive Council, which exercised the

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same governmental powers, but as an institution of the party. In terms of policy formulation and decision making, the Political Bureau had clearly become the dominant element along with the Presidency. By November 1972 the fusion was complete and formally recognized. The state commissioner for information, Sakombi Inongo, noted: "Until recently, there was a real duality between the state and the MPR. . . . Today the fusion is complete: the M P R is the State. It is the State because it is the Nation organized, which is in fact the definition of the State." 49 In fact, the reality was not so clear-cut. At the center, in the high levels of power, the M P R may well have absorbed the state in terms of decision-making power. But in terms of the implementation of policy, even in the center the state structure remained intact. In the periphery where the party had not become well-institutionalized, the state administration clearly absorbed the party. The state apparatus remained, and state administrators took over all party functions. Also in 1972 an administrative reform commission was created, primarily to sort out the personnel problems of the now fused state-party. In addition, a major territorial administrative reform was decided upon, which was announced in January 1973. In September 1972 a special state security court was created, but it was not activated until 1974. The next major changes came in 1974. After a three-day meeting of the Political Bureau in July on the presidential yacht, several important measures were announced: a new official doctrine—Mobutuism, a new constitution, a major reshuffle and enlargement of the Political Bureau, and the creation of a party school—the Makanda Kabobi Institute. The new official doctrine of the country was to be Mobutuism—the teachings, thought, and action of the president-founder of the MPR. It is clearly a mentality, not an ideology. High party officials and state administrators were to take up the spread of this highly organic-statist gospel because "henceforth, the M P R must be considered as a Church and its Founder as a Messiah." 5 0 The new constitution simply ratified in law the results of past centralization efforts and gave Mobutu a preeminent position in the fused state-party as chief of state and president-founder of the party with full and direct control of the major institutions: the

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Political Bureau and the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Councils. The MPR was declared the sole institution of the Republic. Special clauses in the constitution concerning the removal of the president and the number of presidential terms were not to apply to Mobutu as president-founder. It was fully expected that Mobutu would become president for life in 1974. Although he seemed willing to accept it, opposition to it was voiced in the party and the issue was dropped. The Legislative Council was called into immediate special session to ratify the new constitution. A major reshuffle and enlargement of the Political Bureau took place, which underlined its central role in the new regime. Five military officers as well as representatives of the judiciary and the university were added, representing an "authentic" organic unity of power rather than the foreign conception of separation of powers. The party school, the Makanda Kabobi Institute, was designed as a propagation instrument for the domain consensus doctrines of the new regime, as an "ideological" training school for state and social cadre. The first session, beginning in August 1974, included high representatives from the administration, the party, the military, and from major social, economic, and religious groups. The second session, in early 1975, was for the JMPR, and the third session, in the summer of 1975, was for the magistrates. In early 1983 the school established the Study and Research Center on Mobutuism (CEREMO). In other moves in 1974, it was decided that the number of seats in the Legislative Council would be cut in half to 220 (later raised to 268), and in November the Political Bureau decided that state functionaries would become administrative agents of the party—a purely formal move. In January 1975 Mobutu decided that members of the Executive Council could no longer also be members of the Political Bureau, with the exception of the state commissioner for political affairs (and, later, the state commissioner for foreign affairs). Mobutu also created a more intimate group of close collaborators: an eight-member Permanent Committee of the Political Bureau. The Political Bureau in October 1975 selected 244 candidates for the new Legislative Council. The election was held on

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November 2, and the voting, in the true style of departicipation, was by acclamation at popular meetings throughout the country: This change [in the method of election] is an innovation justified by the desire for dealienation and affirmation of the personality of our people. It is a system used in traditional Zairian societies still operating in our rural collectivities. Our ancestors exercised democracy without using voting boxes or ballots. It is an authentic and dynamic method of vote by acclamation which has three primordial advantages: authenticity, speed and low cost.5' Thus, ten years after the coup d'état that brought Mobutu to power, the new regime had established the theoretical absolutism of a highly personalized and highly centralized African state.

CONTROL OF AUTONOMOUS SOURCES OF POWER: STATE CORPORATISM A fourth key process in the development of Zairian absolutism is state corporatist control of autonomous sources of power, especially in the limited pluralism of the modern sector. As shown in chapter 2, "organizations . . . seek to place their boundaries around those activities which if left to the task environment would be crucial contingencies." 52 This fact is as true for states as it is for corporations, and it is especially true for highly personalized and centralized states in the process of formation. Mobutu wanted to control all key intermediary authorities. Almost immediately after the coup in 1965, he took a series of corporatist and departicipation steps designed to assert organic state power. First he suspended the right of unions to strike. Then he abolished all political youth groups and created the JMPR. Voluntary women's groups were also merged into the party. In June 1967 all unions were forced to merge into a state-controlled union federation. All ethnic associations were banned in 1968. Student riots in 1969 led to the abolition of all student associations; the JMPR became the sole representative of the students. But the regime had major trouble with the students again in 1971, 1979, and 1980 when student demonstrations had to be put down with force. In 1971 this unrest led directly to the nationalization of the universities and

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much closer surveillance and supervision of the students by the JMPR and the CND. By ordinance in July 1971 organizations such as the Templars and the Free Masons, which were seen as threats to public order, were banned. (The Free Masons were reinstated in April 1972, but most of the other organizations remained dissolved). In a major state corporatist effort, a law (Law 71/012) regulating all churches in Zaire was announced in December 1971. By it the state recognized only three main churches: the Catholic church, the Church of Christ in Zaire (a grouping of various Protestant sects and denominations), and the Kimbanguist church. Islamic, Greek Orthodox, and Jewish groups were later also recognized. But all other religious groups were abolished in a major effort to control the proliferation of new religious sects, which the state saw as covers for political opposition to the new regime. The Catholic church is the strongest nonethnic intermediary authority in Zaire. It is so because it possesses a clear doctrine, a faithful who believe that doctrine, good organization throughout the country, a clearly established and recognized hierarchy, immense resources, control of much of the country's health, welfare, educational, and publications activities, and strong external ties. The new central elite began to view the church as a sort of proto-state. Given this situation, state-church tension was almost unavoidable. The state-church struggle will be discussed in chapter 6. Another major source of autonomous power—the press— was also attacked by the state. It was reorganized in a corporatist fashion in 1972 so that it would become a vehicle for the thoughts and ideas of the party and its president-founder. The number of periodicals was greatly reduced, and strict control was applied to those that survived. In Kinshasa the number of newspapers went from thirteen to four (later to two), and in the interior, from about twenty to two dailies and seven (later five) weeklies. A further shake-up in the regional press came in late 1975. In January 1974, it was announced that the "hypocritical distinction between information and propaganda" was to disappear in Zaire. In February 1973 measures designed to control sports were also announced. Similar state corporatist efforts were later tried for the arts, music, and literature, all to be directly controlled and chan-

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neled by the state and its president. That same month thirty-one religious publications were banned in Zaire. Although state attempts to lessen the autonomous economic power of internal and external groups will not be examined here, it is necessary at least to mention in passing several neomercanti list efforts, including the state takeover or "nationalization" of Union Minière, the Belgian mining conglomerate; the expulsion of Greeks, Pakistanis, etc.; the creation of a parastatal structure for the control or at least supervision of external economic groups operating within the country; and lastly, the various phases of Zairianization. Finally, in September 1975, the Political Bureau decided that there would be MPR committees in all large economic enterprises. So we can see that the Mobutu regime has attempted to extend state control over almost every type of autonomous socioeconomic group, and it has done so in a highly organic-statist manner. The regime's attempts to control ethnic intermediary authorities in the interior will be explored in subsequent chapters. DOMAIN CONSENSUS DOCTRINES A fifth major process is the establishment and propagation of normative domain consensus doctrines in order to obtain voluntary compliance with policies, increase the legitimacy of the state, and achieve an organic unity of political doctrine and belief. The latter is of crucial significance to Mobutu. He sees the importance, in an absolutist state, of the center being able to dictate the substance of political discourse. This idea achieved its ultimate expression in 1974 when Mobutuism was declared the national "ideology" (mentality, actually), thereby allowing Mobutu to change the substance of political doctrine at will. This is the optimum point of theoretical absolutism. The substance of domain consensus doctrines has varied over the years since 1965. Initial emphasis was on the need to reestablish order and to struggle against political fragmentation and the corruption of the old politicians. New themes added later were economic independence, African cooperation, and the struggle against colonialism. Authenticity began to become a major theme in 1970, with the major push coming in 1972. It has the distinct

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advantage of vagueness, which permits its manipulation to meet changing political needs.53 In a truly organic-statist vein, Mobutu declared in 1973 that the political doctrine of Zaire was neither right, left, or center, but authentic, that Zaire did not orient itself to set political theories or borrowed doctrines. Despite the vagueness and changing substance of Zairian political doctrine, Mobutu always couches it in revolutionary language. The belief seems to be that this in itself lends legitimacy to the substance of the doctrine. Another main function of domain consensus doctrines is to let the "citizen" (subject, actually) know what is expected of him. In August 1975, for example, Mobutuism provided such a list within the context of Salongo—collective work activities, in this case "le Salongo individuel": Individual Salongo therefore implies: the respect of working hours, the conscientious and devoted performance of one's work with constant improvement, the development of a family vegetable garden, the improvement of houses and lots, compliance with hygiene rules, voluntary payment of duties, taxes and the minimum personal contribution head tax; compliance with the authenticity decisions of the MPR as well as its laws and regulations.54

The successful propagation of domain consensus doctrines is thus very important to the attempt to move from theoretical toward factual absolutism.

PATRIMONIALIZATION OF CENTRAL RULE

A sixth key process has been the patrimonialization of central rule. The pervasiveness of this patrimonialization is truly remarkable. Mobutu has shrewdly played upon the widespread belief that only a strong personal ruler can guarantee order and maintain the unity of the Zairian state. He has indeed become a presidential monarch—a patriarchal patrimonial ruler—with the power and style of an early modern European absolutist monarch. As president-founder of the fused state-party, he has almost unlimited personal discretion in policy making and personnel selection and control. Mobutu "makes use of the country as his own private patrimony. He controls and distributes all the offices, all

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the posts, all the advantages linked to power. All revenue, ail nominations, all promotions ultimately depend on presidential good will. No fortune, no enterprise, no position is sheltered from a decision by Mobutu."55 Like Louis XIV, Mobutu "always reserves for himself the absolute power of decision, because the king and the kingdom are one, their advantage is joint and indivisible."56 One decisive indicator of the degree of this patriarchal patrimonialization of rule is the absence of any distinction between the man and his political role, just as there seems to be no distinction between his personal finances and those of the state. According to one rough estimate, Mobutu controls between 17 and 22 percent of the annual national budget for his exclusive personal use. In the 1970s between 15 and 20 percent of operating expenditures and 30 percent of capital outlay annually went through the Presidency without any budgetary control.57 One estimate of the 1981 budget allocation for the Presidency was 1.48 billion Belgian francs, plus 600 million francs for "personal expenses" of the president-founder. Pervasive corruption augments these sums. It is reputed that Mobutu is now the richest head of state in Africa, although the actual size of the royal fortune is subject to some controversy; one 1982 estimate put his overseas wealth at over $4 billion. He owns seven palatial residences in Belgium and France, and is reported to have his own bank in Switzerland. The internal patrimony is also vast, including his mini-Versailles at Gbadolite in his native region of Equateur. Mobutu had to form a holding company (CELZA) just to manage his holdings, which include numerous plantations and other businesses. CELZA employs 25,000 people, including 130 foreigners.58 Mobutu and the absolutist state are one and the same. The structure of political power exists because he exists; he created it. Mobutu the king not only reigns, he rules. He controls a highly personalized administrative monarchy, especially the royal councils and his "créatures" of the political aristocracy that staff them. A true court politics exists.59 To parallel Louis XIV's possibly apocryphal organic-statist remark, "L'Etat, c'est moi," we have Mobutu's succinct comment, "Je suis le Chef": "Cite me a single Zairian village where there are two chiefs, with one in opposition. It does not exist. For Zairians, two heads on one body make a monster. The notion of chief is beyond discussion."60 As su-

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preme head of all state-party organs—Political Bureau, Central Committee, Executive, Legislative, and Judicial councils,61 the military, and the territorial administration, all political power is centralized and concentrated in his person. This is not to suggest that Mobutu is invulnerable. As with all such rulers, he is subject to the possibilities of assassination or military overthrow. Opposition to him and his policies does indeed exist within the stateparty and the military, but the remarkable fact of his personal power, and indeed the basis of it, is his sophisticated ability to manage successfully the shifting international and domestic coalitions that give him support. Mobutu maintains direct patrimonial linkages between himself and the staff of the state-party. State-party personnel are completely dependent on him for selection, appointment, and maintenance in power. An oath of loyalty to the president himself is taken by all state-party personnel. The powers of appointment and dismissal that Mobutu wields create constant uncertainty for all officials, which helps to maintain their loyalty to him. To increase this personal dependence, Mobutu constantly rotates the membership of the highest organs of power. This is especially true for the Political Bureau and the Executive Council, the composition and size of which change frequently. Members of these two important bodies are constantly being appointed, dismissed, or rotated. A close body of relatively stable collaborators does exist, but they are often rotated from position to position. They live, however, with the constant possibility of falling from grace. Another important method used by Mobutu to maintain the loyalty of his staff is to allow their participation in the politics of appropriation. This pervasive elite corruption, formal and informal, allows extensive self-enrichment by this political aristocracy, which permits the lavish life-style that has become its trademark. This system has an added advantage in that, when necessary, any staff member can be removed for indulging in "pervasive corruption which harms the nation." Mobutu also makes use of awards and honors, and periodic amnesties for those that have fallen from grace. The fervent hope that a return to the good life is possible is a very powerful factor in controlling opposition. The constant and intense glorification of Mobutu is another key manifestation of the patriarchal patrimonialization of

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power. The glory of the nation: this proposition seems to be one of the cornerstones of Mobutu's political philosophy. Like Louis XIV, Mobutu is very concerned with "my dignity, my glory, my greatness, my reputation." 62 He believes that his will embodies that of his subjects. The president-founder has many titles (Guide, Helmsman, Father of the Nation, Savior of the People, Supreme Combatant, and Great Strategist) and is constantly glorified in the press, on radio and television, 63 and in animation sessions, mass meetings, and marches of support throughout the country. Even his name has political glorification uses. In 1971, when he declared that all Zairians must adopt "authentic" Zairian names, he changed his name from Joseph-Desire Mobutu to Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Ngbendu Wa Za Banga. The Ngbendu translation is: "The warrior who knows no defeat because of his endurance and inflexible will and is all powerful, leaving fire in his wake as he goes from conquest to conquest." The Baluba translation is more succinct but just as potent: "Invincible warrior, cock who leaves no chick intact." Indeed, the cult of Mobutu has taken on distinctly religious and neotraditional overtones: "Henceforth, the MPR must be considered as a church and its Founder as a Messiah." 64 Mobutu has built a political religion—"une religion monarchique"—around himself.65 His portrait now hangs in all important buildings, including some church schools, where it replaced all religious artifacts for a while. The creation of shrines to Mobutu has even been proposed. In 1974 it was decided that places that have marked the life of Mobutu were to become "Hauts lieux de recueillement" (high places of meditation), and his home region is commonly referred to as "Bethlehem," "Nazareth," or the "holy land." During one period in 1975 only Mobutu's name could be used in the press; other high state-party officials were referred to only by their titles (commissioner of political affairs, etc.). There are international aspects as well to this search for glory and glorification of the ruler. Mobutu's many foreign trips and speeches can be viewed in this light. Like Louis XIV, Mobutu uses the politics of grandeur, which is reflected in his style of rule and style of life. Mobutu measures all in terms of himself, his interests, prestige, and glory, which are equated with those of the country. Examples of the politics of

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grandeur are the Inga dam project, the creation of Zaire's own airline and shipping fleet, and "events" like the Ali-Foreman "Fight of the Century" in October 1974. In 1980 Mobutu reportedly spent 260.55 million Belgian francs for the visit of Pope John-Paul II to Zaire, including 30 million Belgian francs for 51 new Mercedes. 66 There are, of course, also the Versailles equivalents: Gbadolite, two palaces in Kinshasa, an estate outside the city (N'Sele), the châteaux in Belgium and France, presidential mansions in each region, the cars, the presidential riverboat, the personal use of Air Zaire's 747 and DC-10, and so on. As in seventeenth-century France, there is also a royal politics of the arts. For example, Mobutu gives a prize in literature—Le Grand Prix Littéraire Mobutu. Mobutu portrays himself as a powerful neotraditional king or chief and as the savior of his people. Traditional notions of kingship remain potent, and Mobutu has clearly drawn on them. This retraditionalization greatly facilitates the patrimonialization of power. Precolonial state formation antecedents are used selectively by new African rulers in their struggle for political consolidation. Balandier says that "a general process must be envisaged: the political structures resulting from the establishment of the 'new state' can be interpreted, during the transitional period, only in the terms of the old language." 67 The old language and concepts, derived from precolonial antecedents, help to orient political action, suggest patterns and structures, and explain current sociopolitical reality. Balandier, in an astute analysis, gives an example that applies directly to the Zairian case and the precolonial Kingdom of the Kongo: Independence gave a new dynamic to tradition, according to a double orientation. O n the one hand, it freed the forces that had been suppressed during the colonial period, as can be seen in several of the crises that have occurred in recent years—crises which reveal a resurgence of tribal and/or religious antagonisms. O n the other, modern political activity has been unable to organize and express itself except by means of a kind of translation: the traditional models and symbols become once more the means of communication and explanation by which the leaders address the Black peasants. One of these 'permanent' facts seems even more fundamental. The old conceptions of power have not all been effaced, especially in regions where vigorous states have arisen at various moments in history. Thus in the Congo [Zaire], the image of the

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president appears, in a certain way, as the reflection of the figure of the traditional sovereign—in particular, that of the king of Kongo. The chief must manifest his power, literally seize the throne, and hold on to power by force in the interest of the collectivity. From this point of view, the recent struggles for the control of the state apparatus are only a presentday version of the 'wars of secession' and the military power is still recognized as the best armed. To the person of the strong chief is associated that of the just chief, respected for his wisdom, capable of being the supreme arbiter, of imposing respect for the law and of enforcing his conciliatory decisions. A third figure is associated with these two in the representation of kingship: that of the charismatic chief, possessing a special relationship with the people, the country, and the system of forces that regulate fertility and prosperity. Power is still conceived in terms of the triple aspect of power, arbitration and the sacred.68 This retraditionalization of power at the center of the excolonial state underscores the highly syncretic nature of current African political life. In essence, it amounts to the patrimonialization of the colonial conquest state. Mobutu considers himself, in both style and method, as " t h e true political heir of the Bantu kings w h o governed not long ago the States of the Savanna" and as " a personage e n d o w e d w i t h all the qualities of the traditional c h i e f — a natural manner, political intelligence and sense of the State." Patriarchal imagery and the organic-statist notions that go w i t h them are used h e a v i l y — M o b u t u " i n his position as the Father of the Nation and of all the children in this c o u n t r y " is the "guarantor of order and social p e a c e . " 6 9 He is also portrayed as a military hero and savior. This was most evident during the t w o invasions of Shaba Region from Angola in 1977 and again in 1978. After the first one the Kinshasa press described M o b u t u in the f o l l o w i n g terms: " T h e v i e w of the Guide's silhouette at the front stirred up the confidence of the soldiers and completely demoralized the enemy. . . . General M o b u t u Sese Seko surprised his staff by the w i s d o m of his military views. . . . It was he w h o conceived the assault strategy. . . . Political genius, brilliant leader of men, he saved the Zairian p e o p l e . " 7 0 In addition, M o b u t u has attempted to assume Lumumba's political mantle and the legitimacy that goes w i t h it. M o b u t u also attempts to maintain direct personal contact between himself and his subjects, although the contact is usually

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one way. During the frequent trips in the interior of the country, he holds mass meetings to explain his ideas, policies, and successes, and he often grants local people direct, personal gifts or donations, such as vehicles and hospital equipment. The identification of Mobutu with the state has become so intimate that his thoughts and actions have become the official doctrine or gospel of the country: Mobutuism—the teachings, thoughts, and action of the president-founder. The propagation of this doctrine is seen as an important link between Mobutu and the masses of the state. With the declaration of Mobutuism as the official doctrine of the state, the personalization of power in Zaire probably reached its outer limits. RISE OF A POLITICAL ARISTOCRACY A seventh, and last, major process is that, as in seventeenth-century France, the Zairian absolutist state has created its own political aristocracy—a noblesse d'Etat—which in turn supports its creator. The absolutist monarch rules through this political nobility, which is "the nucleus of decision and impetus in all the affairs of the kingdom." 71 The members of this new official realm are above all "royal" servants, the king's men, his chosen patrimonial instruments, "ses créatures," and they engage in true court politics. In popular perception there exists a "we/they" distinction, as the political aristocracy is seen as a class apart, a ruling, dominating one. In popular language, for example, the more powerful members of the political aristocracy are referred to as "les barons" or "les Grands." One Zairian observer describes it as "a ruling elite perceived by the mass of subjects as foreign and better considered." 72 This state class is the regime's main internal support and is composed of three main group». The first group consists of all toplevel administrative, political, and military officials, and foreign advisers, sometimes called the "presidential family" or "presidential brotherhood" (appropriately patrimonial terms)—close presidential advisers, all members of the "royal" councils (Political Bureau and Executive Council), state commissioners (ministers), field grade military officers, regional commissioners (prefects), key officials in the parastatal sector, and many of both the

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people's commissioners (members of the Legislative Council) and Central Committee members. It also includes relatives of Mobutu w h o hold pseudo politico-administrative positions. 73 Within this group those closest to Mobutu have almost unlimited license to plunder, and for the rest the possibilities of the "politics of appropriation" are wide open, and the material perquisites, formal and informal, are enormous. Most members create their o w n patronclient network and are a part of another one. Ethnic and regional criteria may be important, but they are not necessarily dominant; loyalty and some competence are also important. They are frequently rotated from post to post. The second group is made up of middle-level administrative and military officers in Kinshasa. These people aspire to membership in the "presidential family" and are usually clients in the networks of those who are in it. They also partake in the "politics of appropriation," but to a somewhat lesser degree. The third group includes the rest of the territorial prefects and military officers in the regions and middle- and highlevel officials in the mostly moribund regional state services; these people also aspire to move up in the political aristocracy. The political aristocracy is a consolidating but still relatively fluid ruling class held together by complex, partially interlocking, partially competitive patron-client networks and factions, as in seventeenth-century France. There are variable relational, ethnic, regional, patron-client, educational, and political criteria for entry, but the core of the political aristocracy is what Young calls "the Equateur-Lingala 'presidential brotherhood.' " 7 4 Loyalty to Mobutu, the patron of patrons, is, however, the ultimate requirement for entry and continued membership. The ruling group in Zaire is a political aristocracy because its basic values, its power, and its economic base result from its relationship to the state. I prefer the term "political aristocracy" rather than the more c o m m o n "national bourgeoisie," "bureaucratic bourgeoisie," or "politico-commercial bourgeoisie," because, in its historical sense, bourgeoisie connotes a productive social class which the African ruling class generally is not. It certainly is not in Zaire, and, as a result, it badly needs external resources and assistance to stay in power. Nor is it a "national middle class"; it is the top class, the ruling, dominating one. In its style of life and actions, it more closely resembles a political ar-

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istocracy of the type that was the core of the French absolutist state, as opposed to the landed aristocracy of feudal origins whose power it emasculated. In European absolutism there was a rising and consolidating, but not yet dominant, bourgeoisie which was both protected and closely controlled by the state and a very small, emerging proletariat. Nicos Poulantzas stresses the fact that the European absolutist state was linked to emerging capitalism, which it both fosters and controls via mercantilist policies. The absolutist state "functions in favor" of capitalism, which "is not yet dominant" or fully developed as it becomes under Bonapartism. In this respect, "the bourgeoisie is not the politically dominant class" under absolutism "and often not even the economically dominant class." 75 Zaire is not in a "bourgeois phase" at all. The current situation is prebourgeois. As only a nascent domestic bourgeoisie exists, domestic capitalism is still in the earliest stages of development. In large part, this is due to the "blockage" nature of Belgian colonial policy. In this sense, Nzongola-Ntalaja's characterization of Zaire as a "Bonapartist dictatorship" is clearly inappropriate. One European observer calls the Zairian ruling class a "bourgeoisie d'Etat," "une classe dirigeante," and notes the "intention of the President to prevent the development of a bourgeoisie with an economic base which could escape his control. The high bourgeoisie is therefore exclusively a bourgeoisie of the State."76 But he is forced to admit that "il n'y a donc pas de bourgeoisie économique actuellement en formation au Zaire"! As in seventeenth-century France, the political aristocracy in Zaire does not invest its ill-gotten gains in productive, as opposed to merely profitable, ways. The European observer who uses the term "bourgeoisie d'Etat" admits that this group is not an emerging "bourgeoisie économique": The ruling class, which with the benediction and complicity of the President of the Republic takes an important part of the national revenue, does not invest its funds in manufacturing enterprises. The money not consumed by luxury products and services or distributed among kinsmen or clients is invested in real estate, commercial enterprises or transport or placed overseas in the case of hard currency. 77

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And as one economist put it, "in this country the notion of longterm investment is practically unheard of." 78 There is now some evidence that an incipient, but true, domestic bourgeoisie may be forming in Zaire. Using data gathered in Kisangani, Janet MacGaffey posits "the emergence of a small commercial middle class that is relatively independent of political ties, and the beginnings of local capitalist development." According to her, the recent, incipient development of this commercial middle class is attributable in large part to "the nature of Belgian colonialism," 79 and it takes place outside of the intense political field in Kinshasa. She shows how some Zairianized businesses went to people who were not members of what she calls the "political-administrative class" (which got the bulk of them and then ran many of them into the ground). Other members of this new commercial middle class managed to acquire businesses on the basis of their own entrepreneurial talent. An important section of this latter group are low-status Nande traders from isolated North Kivu who have taken advantage of economic and infrastructure decline and looser state control in areas of eastern Zaire to benefit from what one Zairian scholar calls the "opportunity structure" of an "informal sector" or "irregular economy." 80 MacGaffey delineates four categories of "business owners" in Zaire: big international owners; a resident and permanent "foreign commercial class, the majority Greeks and Asians"; members of the political-administrative class "who owe their positions as owners of large-scale business and commercial agriculture to their political position"; and members of a new, small commercial bourgeoisie "who have in general achieved success without benefit of political position and influence" (p. 163). She nicely shows the ties between the first two groups and the political aristocracy (group three), which are mostly what I would describe as leech-like in character. Many of the businesses acquired by members of the political aristocracy via Zairianization failed outright, some were turned over eventually to expatriate partners, still others are now run by expatriate managers. A very small number are run directly and successfully by members of the political aristocracy, their kin, or people from their patron-client networks.

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To evaluate the importance of the findings about the new commercial middle class, its size and weight relative to the other three categories must be shown. This MacGaffey does not do; she simply describes the recent "emergence" of a "small" commercial middle class and notes that "a class of local capitalists is beginning to form" (p. 310). In this sense, Zaire is light years behind Kenya in the development of an indigenous capitalist class with true bourgeois characteristics. MacGaffey's findings are important, however, because they clearly document the beginnings of such a development in Zaire. I would argue that as such a group becomes more important, if it does, Mobutu and his political aristocracy will move more energetically to cut off or control its development, at least in urban centers such as Kisangani. MacGaffey illustrates how the political-administrative class harasses the Nande traders and how more general class-closure mechanisms operate.81 The political aristocracy that inherits the colonial administrative state often assumes primarily the status elements of these positions and neglects or is unable to fulfill many of their role functions. 82 This is one reason for calling this class a political aristocracy rather than a "national bourgeoisie" and for referring to the "patrimonialization" of the colonial state. The capability of the state to do more than maintain basic order and extract resources is often crippled because role performance becomes ritualistic, particularly in outlying, neglected regions such as Kivu. A general insouciance permeates the administrative life of the state, and such a situation is not conducive to the formulation and implementation of state policies. The Zairian political aristocracy manifests a weak sense of public purpose and collective or societal good. It has demonstrated a notably feeble commitment to increasing the standard of living of the masses over whom it rules. This can be demonstrated by an analysis of the policies for which it actually allocates resources and for which it shows a real commitment to implementation. This problem is compounded by the venality of the political aristocracy. As a result, "development" programs usually get only what is left over after the political aristocracy has achieved its class project, resulting in a general pauperization of the bulk of the state's subjects. 83

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The members of the political aristocracy serve "the policies, designs, ambitions and weaknesses of the king"; they serve "the wishes of princes by conviction, servility and career interest at the same time." 84 The status of these political nobles is not a traditional one, but rather one that comes from being an official of the new absolutist state. Such was the case in seventeenthcentury France as well. Neither are these state agents bureaucratic civil servants, certainly not effective neocolonial agents; rather they are patrimonial state officials—ruler, not public servants. The political aristocracy is the major avenue of upward mobility in the Zairian absolutist state. Power, wealth, and prestige are obtained through these royal offices. Mobutu heaps rewards, honors, and riches on "ses créatures" as long as they remain loyal and dependent on him. The resulting uncertainty while in power and the hope of returning to power when out of it are potent control mechanisms; they also greatly fuel the consuming fires of corruption. State officials are patrimonial servants, and the foundation of the whole system is la faveur royale. Without it, they have nothing. Mobutu also clearly works to destroy any incipient autonomy from him manifested by the political aristocracy. As in absolutist France, the politics of appropriation appears almost normal; it shocks only when it becomes too exaggerated. The line between private and state property is almost nonexistent. Embezzlement, fraud, theft, illicit economic ventures of all kinds, including widespread smuggling and export-import swindles, are all common, and external efforts to control them have all failed: Entry . . . is validated by the granting of some spectacular presidential gifts (Mercedes cars, luxurious houses . . . ) which are the visible signs of membership; but the nonvisible advantages are more considerable: any new high official can upon installation freely embezzle massive sums. This tapping is so important and so ritual that the President cannot not know about it. Without a doubt it is part of a presidential control system for political personnel.85

One estimate puts the amount of revenue lost or diverted at roughly 60 percent of each annual operating budget. In 1975, the Shaba regional commissioner was reported to be grossing $100,000 a month, of which only 2 percent was his salary. Also

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in 1975, a prominent general was reputed to have a monthly salary of 45,000 Zaires plus numerous informal payments, including 8,000 Zaires a month paid to him out of a special account in the Banque de Kinshasa. An important member of the Political Bureau was receiving a monthly salary of 17,000 Zaires for that position alone, and he held numerous others as well. Each newly appointed member of the Political Bureau or the Executive Council would receive a 1 7,000 Zaire "settling-in allowance" to allow him to purchase some of the "essentials" needed to maintain the life-style expected of a high member of the political aristocracy. In 1977, the volcano of Nyrangongo near Goma at the northern end of Lake Kivu erupted, doing substantial damage to the surrounding area. Mobutu, as the concerned patriarchal ruler, donated 20,000 Zaires of his "personal" funds to the victims of Goma. The people never saw the funds; they simply disappeared. Mobutu was forced to give another 20,000 Zaires.86 "Corruption," as Vansina notes, "is the prime mover in shaping both differences of wealth and class attitudes." This "economy of grabbing" has its roots in the horrors of King Leopold's Congo Free State and has been aided and abetted by many of the expatriates who have dealt with the Mobutu regime. One former high state official, speaking of Mobutu, noted that "when you are the head or the leader of the dictatorship, a regime like his, you have to make some corruptions inside and abroad to maintain people loyal, and for that you need some money." He also pointed out that "the big victim of this institutionalized corruption remains, without a doubt, the Zairian people."87 Mobutu is clearly aware of these processes, which he termed "le mal zairois" in a November 1977 speech: To sum it up, everything is for sale, everything is bought in our country. And in this traffic, holding any slice of public power constitutes a veritable exchange instrument, convertible into illicit acquisition of money or other goods, or the evasion of all sorts of obligations. Worse, even the use, by an individual, of his most legitimate right is subjected to an invisible tax, openly pocketed by individuals. Thus, an audience with an official, enrolling children in school, obtaining school certificates, access to medical care, a seat on a plane, an import license, a diploma, among other things, are all subject to this tax which is invisible, yet known to the whole world. 88

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But since this almost prebendal form of remuneration is politically crucial, he privately condones it, practices it himself on a massive scale, and encourages it in others as a political control device. As a result, it goes on and on, just as it did in seventeenth-century absolutist France. The November 30, 1973, Zairianization measures are one of the most remarkable indications of the patrimonial relationship among the Zairian presidential monarch, foreign capital, and the political aristocracy, as well as of the power of this consolidating ruling class. Mobutu called for efforts to achieve total economic independence (basically mercantilist goals) and announced that most foreign-owned small and medium-sized enterprises would be taken over—wholesale and retail shops, farms, plantations, ranches, and small factories. Rather than being taken over by the state, however, they were given to individuals as private property. Roughly 1,500 to 2,000 enterprises were taken from their non-Zairian owners, and members of the political aristocracy (or their "stand-in" relatives and friends)—from state commissioners to prefects at levels—acquired most of them. It is a remarkable example of patrimonial prebendal administration, the emerging power of the political nobility, and the conversion of political power and position into economic wealth for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. The attribution process was almost entirely a political one, and, as one acquéreur put it, "unbelievable things happened at the practical level." 89 Mobutu himself and other members of the top levels of the political aristocracy acquired huge holdings. In Equateur Region, Mobutu acquired one large ranch and four major plantations, and these were only agriculture enterprises. The state commissioner for political affairs, Engulu, also acquired numerous agricultural holdings in Equateur: "the agro-industrial firms of Ceque, Cie Hevea, Busira Lomami, Sobol, Schoofs, Macodibe, Maurice, Verbuyt, and Socobe. These nine firms account for thirtysix plantations in the southern half of the region." 90 In Lubumbashi, the capital of Shaba Region, the largest acquéreurs were the prefects: the regional commissioner, his four assistants, and the zone commissioners. This appears to have been the pattern for other regions as well; it certainly was for Kivu and Bas-Zaire. The politics of appropriation was operating on an unprece-

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dented scale. Considerable discontent slowly emerged among those left out and the masses, considering that one of the major party slogans is "Serve others, not yourself." Because of the disastrous economic consequences of this fantastic takeover, Mobutu had to retreat somewhat by late 1974. The state was to take over the businesses from the individual members of the political nobility. The president appointed roughly 100 "delegates-general" to supervise state control of these businesses, but few were actually turned over to the state. Thus the same purposes and interests were still served. But the economic chaos continued and Mobutu was forced to invite some of the foreign owners back in 1975. In most cases, however, the new owners were to take Zairian partners, frequently the former acquéreurs. In fact, this solution is probably the most beneficial one for all concerned, except, of course, for the mass of Zairians, for what good is a disintegrated business to a member of the political aristocracy? Because of this ultimate solution, members of the political aristocracy can appropriate wealth due to their political position without having to take much of a hand in producing it, that is, without having to perform true bourgeois functions.91 To say that a Zairian political aristocracy exists is not to say that it is a completely coherent and unified class. Transethnic in character, it is usually fragmented into various competing factions, or "fractions" as some Marxist writers call them, usually composed of sets of partially interlocking, partially competing patron-client networks. Existence in the political aristocracy is often precarious, and individuals hedge against this uncertainty by maintaining clientalist ties with internal and external groups upon which they might be able to fall back and by engaging in the politics of appropriation. Because the benefits of membership are so great, factional disputes within the ruling class revolve more around a secure place in the state than around ideological or policy positions. Despite these internal divisions, the political aristocracy, with its class "projet hégémonique conservateur," is consolidating itself as a class. It does so primarily by establishing patron-client ties and alliances within itself, by privileged access to education and jobs, by other closure mechanisms, and, increasingly, by intermarriage. "Public officials," as MacGaffey notes, "give priority to kin; oth-

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ers must give money but less money if some sort of connection exists." These intraclass, personal connections are often "specifically set up across ethnic boundaries and thus constitute 'the new tribalism,' that is, bonds between members of the dominant class." 92 The political aristocracy is a class in reality, and it is becoming increasingly conscious of its existence as a class for itself and therefore of the existence of generalized class interests. In fact, the officials of the political nobility have developed an absolutist subculture that greatly aids the consolidation of the administrative state. Lastly, although other classes and protoclasses exist in Zaire, the political aristocracy does not have any serious internal class competitors for control of the state. Rather, it faces a multiplicity of societal groups and emerging classes that pose problems and difficulties for it. In this absolutist state there are peasants, workers, petit bourgeois clerks, traders, and businessmen, etc., but for lack of size, social weight, and/or organization they do not constitute class competitors for power, for control of the state apparatus. Schatzberg appropriately stresses "the extraordinarily complex and shifting patterns of social, political, and economic dominance in Zaire where fluidity in class relations, ambiguity in class boundaries, and inconsistency in class membership must be taken as fundamental starting points if we are to understand the role that class plays."93 On the whole, class consciousness is weak, except among members of the political aristocracy. It can coalesce, but usually only briefly, around given grievances and erupt into protests that manifest clear signs of class struggle. This is rather different, however, from constituting class competitors for power. In such a context, personal, multiple particularistic, and emerging class factors merge and separate in complex ways over time, according to situation or context, and are often crosscut by patronclient ties. One key reason for this fluidity of social category is that, despite the heavily exploitative nature of the regime, and rightly or wrongly, many people still "believe in the possibility of social mobility": This belief makes it unlikely for the different social strata to constitute distinct social categories with clearcut class consciousness. . . . On the contrary it favors interstrata relationships and alliances which consider-

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ably reduce the possibility of violent confrontation among groups. It has tremendously weakened the revolutionary flame which, one can still recall, was lively among the Congolese masses in the early postindependence days. 94

This is not at all to say that widespread, mass-based, lower class protest or violence is out of the question, particularly in the context of a political breakdown. For the moment, however, viable radical revolutionary movements representing peasants and workers do not exist. The political aristocracy struggles with societal groups, organizations, and emerging classes by consolidating its position in the state, by using it to control them, by employing various closure mechanisms, and by calling on external help when it gets into trouble. Thus, the political aristocracy maintains relative autonomy from other internal groups or classes, and class consolidation and state formation become mutually reinforcing processes for it. It also no longer effectively performs many neocolonial functions, and, as a result, various external actors have tried to alter the nature of the Zairian absolutist state and the actions of its ruler and his political aristocracy, with little effect. In this context, Zaire's severe financial crisis and the politico-military "reforms" undertaken in the aftermath of the two invasions of Shaba Region from Angola in 1977 and 1978 will be discussed.

Patrimonial Rule and Absolutist Finances The Achilles' heel of French absolutism was finance, and so it is for Zairian absolutism.95 This issue is directly linked to the existence of patriarchal patrimonial rule, the activities of the political aristocracy, and the early modern nature of absolutist regimes. In both of our cases, financial chaos highlights the distinct limits, precarious nature, and intensely patrimonial character of absolutism. It also reveals a good deal about the way external actors relate to it. As in absolutist France, the Zairian financial system is the weakest point of the regime; in fact, "system" is too strong a word because Zairian finances have "nothing we could call order and clarity, even approximate"; "systematic disorder" is more the

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norm.96 Like France, Zaire is a wealthy country, one of the most wealthy in Africa, but is now on the verge of financial collapse— a common point for absolutist regimes. As in France, the Zairian state has a large "royal" revenue, but it has a weak, inefficient, and massively corrupt financial structure, especially its revenue collection system. Zaire's rulers cannot understand how they can be in such desperate financial straits when such large sums of money pass through their hands. The Zairian absolutist state also has an early modern economy. Its economic health varies greatly over time, and it operates in a period of great "economic difficulties, suffering both from sudden, violent crises and from phases of stagnation, and of deep depression."97 Mobutu, like the kings of France, has an insatiable desire for more revenue, but he also has a basic ambivalence to this crucial resource. The revenue collected by the state belongs to him, and he should be able to spend it as he sees fit. Absolutist rulers are "spendthrifts by nature, for those who spend are always 'grand.' " 9 8 Like Louis XIV, Mobutu is a political, not an economic, animal. He knows that power and glory depend on money, but he is willing to leave the "details" of acquiring and managing it to others. This ambivalence toward the practical realities of finance is another core characteristic of absolutism and in large part accounts for the shakiness of this crucial pillar of the absolutist state. The costs of power, order, defense, glory, grandiose projects and life-styles, and the inherent corruption and largesse of a patriarchal patrimonial regime have proved to be almost too much for the Zairian state. Two major things happen as a result of these characteristics: reliance on extraordinary financial measures, and rash and extensive borrowing leading to huge debts and near bankruptcy. The extraordinary measures, numerous and often quite inventive, include shady forms of borrowing, extortion, confiscation, debasing currency, and the operations of foreign financiers. In fact, the extraordinary measures are almost "normal" practice. In this regard, Weber noted: The patrimonial state offers the whole realm of the ruler's discretion as a hunting ground for accumulating wealth. Wherever traditional or stereotyped prescription does not impose strict limitations, patrimonialism

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gives free rein to the enrichment of the ruler himself, the court officials, favorites, governors, mandarins, tax collectors, influence peddlers, and the great merchants and financiers who function as tax-farmers, purveyors and creditors."

The result of the activities of these men, especially in conjunction with structural economic difficulties, is financial crisis. The financial condition of the Zairian absolutist state in the late 1960s and early 1970s was excellent, particularly because of the high price of copper, which accounted for about two-thirds of Zaire's foreign exchange. The copper price peaked at $1.40 per pound in April 1974, but it began to turn down in May and June. It declined to as low as $0.53 by late 1975; in 1976 it had stabilized in the mid-sixties. By early 1976 Zaire was in the middle of a grave economic and financial crisis which "pushed the state to the brink of international bankruptcy, and the Mobutu regime to the brink of disaster." 100 As the 1980s approached, Zaire was nearly $5 billion in debt and on the verge of economic collapse. Due to their nonproductive nature, Mobutu and his political aristocracy need the resources and assistance provided to them by Western governments, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and private international banks but cannot afford to comply fully with their demands to reform. To implement the bureaucratic changes demanded would undermine the very basis of their power—access to and free use of the state's resources. As a result, Mobutu and the political aristocracy use their control of the state apparatus to sabotage change while manipulating the external actors' partially competing interests and fears about the consequences of a collapse of the regime to fend off effective and sustained cooperation between them. There are multiple causes of this crisis: the dramatic fall in the copper price, the closure of the Benguela Railroad since the Angolan civil war in 1975-76, the disastrous economic effects of the Zairianization moves (1973-75), rising oil costs, and a world recession. The situation was compounded by the Shaba invasions in 1977 and 1978. As serious as these factors were, however, they are far from the whole story. All of these conditions were made far worse by other factors. Political factors are very important, and they relate directly to the patrimonial nature of the state: massive

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and rash spending and borrowing when revenues were high, rampant corruption and fiscal mismanagement, and lack of understanding and concern about the rapidly deteriorating situation by Mobutu and the political aristocracy. As one observer puts it, "the top government leadership has traditionally known nothing of or cared little for economics, and this shows." 101 And, of course, the effects of Zairianization and the massive pre-1974 borrowing can be considered the result of political factors as well. Like the French monarchs, Mobutu has borrowed extensively and often rashly, and he has been able to do it because of Zaire's vast potential wealth. As in seventeenth-century France, the debt of the Zairian absolutist state has reached phenomenal proportions, and the country is on the verge of bankruptcy. Between 1967 and 1973, Zaire's external public debt quintupled; in 1972 alone it doubled to $1.5 billion. The absolutist regime's debt-service payments in 1967 increased by 353 percent, in absolute terms to $81 million, by 1973. The government tried to hide the actual amount of debt-service payments, but in the first half of 1973, actual payments exceeded 80 percent of the budget estimates for such payments for the entire year.102 In early 1975, an American Embassy economics officer reported that Zaire did not even have a roughly accurate list of how much it owed or to whom.' 03 The World Bank and the United Nations finally provided personnel to try to sort things out. The figures were staggering. In 1976, the total debt was more than a third of Zaire's total expenditure and 12 percent of its GDP. By 1977, the total debt was estimated at over $3 billion; debt-service payments were the equivalent of 43.4 percent of export earnings and 49.5 percent of total state revenues.' 04 Like the French kings, Mobutu goes to great lengths not to repay his debts, except with new debts. Borrowing and nonpayment of debts are central features of absolutist states: "Basically, the Old Regime lasted as long as it knew how and was able not to pay its debts." 105 Louis XIV did not pay most of his debts and his regime survived. Mobutu knows that lending is a two-way street, and he has shrewdly played the debt repayment game by attempting to manipulate slightly shifting coalitions of external actors and the financial, economic, and politico-strategic interests they seek to protect or expand. One observer notes that "once

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banks have extended substantial sums to borrowers, they are for all practical purposes, committed to the borrower through thick and thin. . . . Traditionally, when nations were unable to meet their payments they have rescheduled their public debts and refinanced their private ones." 106 Mobutu is managing his dependence for survival, however, not for development or the welfare of the mass of Zairians. Given the severity of Zaire's situation, Mobutu and his political aristocracy have done amazingly well so far in this game of brinkmanship. They may not understand the finer technicalities of the international financial system, but they do understand the politics of international finance: The very bonds of economic dependency have been used with virtuosity. The regime adroitly trades on the premise that its creditors cannot afford either to see it fall, or to see Mobutu fall. Bankruptcy would be as inconvenient for the banks as for Zaire; at each negotiating brink, a temporizing formula is found, the debt rolled over one more time, while all await the millennium of higher copper prices.'07 Thus far, the Zairian political aristocracy has blocked all efforts by international lenders to control its financial practice. The record on this point is very clear. Under IMF and other external pressure and guidance, Mobutu and his government put together five stabilization plans, the Mobutu Plans, the first in March 1976, the second in November 1977, the third in August 1979, the fourth in July 1981, and the fifth in December 1983. In each case, the IMF extended substantial standby credit (SDR912 million, about $1.2 billion, for the fourth o n e — a three-year, extended fund facility (EFF) agreement). The plans aimed to cut corruption, rationalize expenditures, increase tax revenues, limit imports, boost production in all sectors, improve the transportation infrastructure, eliminate arrears on interest payments, make principal payments on time, and generally improve financial management and economic planning. Zaire's public and publicly insured debt has also been rescheduled by the Paris Club countries five times, in 1976, 1977, 1979, 1981, and 1983. Zaire's private creditors rescheduled their part of the debt in April 1980, and eight World Bank and Western country aid-consortia meetings were held to generate larger official assistance (one in 1977, two in 1978, and one each in 1979, 1980,

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1981, 1982, and 1983).108 Without this international support the regime might well have collapsed, but the countries and the banks felt they could not afford to let it do so for both economic and politico-strategic reasons. The results of the first two stabilization plans were so meager that the IMF and the World Bank decided in 1978 to send their own teams of experts to Zaire to take over directly key financial positions in the Bank of Zaire, the Finance Ministry, and the Customs Office. As one Zairian commentator dryly put it, "certain of the economic policy measures that were taken curiously produced results other than those anticipated."109 In December 1978, the head of the Bank of Zaire team, Erwin Blumenthal, a retired German central banker, took dramatic measures that struck at the heart of the power of the political aristocracy. He cut off credit and exchange facilities to firms of key members of the political nobility, including several of Mobutu's closest collaborators, and imposed very strict foreign exchange quotas. Many Zairians viewed the expatriate teams as a crude form of neocolonialism, and they began to refer to Blumenthal as Bula Matari—"he who breaks rocks." It was a term used during the colonial period for Belgian administrators. From the side of international capitalism, the teams were an attempt to bring some rational order to the chaos of Zairian "mismanagement." In this regard, Weber noted that "in general we can say about capitalism only that, since its opportunities for expansion are limited under . . . patrimonialism, its champions usually attempt to substitute bureaucratization." The bureaucratic was to do battle with the patrimonial. Efforts to impose budgetary control over the presidency and the military have been for the most part delayed or circumvented, however, and ways have usually been found around the foreign exchange controls. In addition, Nguza Karl-i-Bond charged from exile that Mobutu himself had siphoned off substantial amounts of IMF and World Bank assistance. After his return to power in 1979, largely at the behest of Western creditor countries and banks, Nguza quickly discovered that "any effort to implement the IMF program of reforms would inevitably lead to confrontation with the personal interests of the President." He said, "I found Mr. Blumenthal totally discouraged" and asserted that "Mobutu

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intentionally undermined my efforts and those of my colleagues."111 In August 1979, Zaire hired a multinational "triumvirate" of investment banking firms—Lazard Frères, Lehman Brothers, and Warburg. For very high fees, they assessed the actual size and structure of Zaire's debt (the World Bank had already tried to do this once); compiled a series of useful information memoranda; assisted Zaire in two Paris Club reschedulings (1979 and 1981) and in several donor club meetings; advised on and helped to guide the complex negotiations for the London Club private bank rescheduling in 1980; and dealt with the IMF, the World Bank, Western governments, and private banks in an ongoing, albeit informal, way. In October 1982, several months after the IMF had terminated its 1981 EFF with Zaire for noncompliance, the triumvirate severed its contract with Zaire, in large part because of the intransigence of its ruler and key elements of the political aristocracy. It can be argued that Mobutu and the political aristocracy used the triumvirate quite consciously to provide international "management" cover or legitimacy behind which they could continue to pursue their own narrow personal and class interests. The valiant efforts of the various internationally sponsored teams at the Bank of Zaire, the Office of Debt Management, Customs, Finance, and Planning have been distinctly limited in their impact. The maneuvers of Mobutu and the political aristocracy to detour the controls have been creative, persistent, and, to a substantial degree, successful. The political aristocracy has both systematically harassed and "worn down" the teams over time; the teams change composition frequently and are often difficult to recruit, and the personnel are few in number. They are not substitutes for domestic political will and administrative capability. At best they are supplements. Erwin Blumenthal, in a 1982 report on his year in Zaire in 1978-79, stated that it is alarmingly clear that the corruptive system in Zaire with all its wicked and ugly manifestations, its mismanagement and fraud will destroy all endeavors of international institutions, of friendly governments, and of the commercial banks towards recovery and rehabilitation of Zaire's economy. Sure, there will be new promises by Mobutu, by members of his government, rescheduling and rescheduling again of a growing external public debt, but no (repeat: no) prospect for Zaire's creditors to get their money back in any foreseeable future.112

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The patrimonial was giving the bureaucratic a good drubbing. The Western governments have partially and often fitfully coordinated their efforts to get Zaire to service its debt, control its expenditures, diminish corruption, take hard economic decisions and implement them, and undertake badly needed "managerial" reforms. But they have on occasion also worked at cross purposes as their interests and perceptions are not identical. This holds true between elements of each Western government as well, as it does with the IMF, the W o r l d Bank, the private banks, and between each of them. This fact has given M o b u t u and those around him some room to maneuver. The desire for and commitment to change and reform vary from government to government and ebb and flow within each Western government as administrations and policy makers change. Mobutu has taken good advantage of these changes and lapses of attention. Beyond the short-term financial and debt-servicing difficulties of the regime lie some even more severe problems. The M o b u t u regime appears to have a neomercantilist " b u l l i o n " fixation, that is, a preoccupation with foreign exchange and how to get it quickly and in large amounts. Linked with this is a lack of understanding of the real, long-term underpinnings of the economy and, above all, the necessity of patterned, sustained, substantial, and serious medium- and long-term investment in key sectors of the economy to maintain current levels of production, much less increase and diversify them. It is a fixation on money as the source of wealth, a failure to see savings, investment, and production as the ultimate sources of wealth and growth. By early 1983 Zaire was still over $4 billion in debt, had no relationship with the IMF, was nearly $1 billion in arrears on debt payments and suffering from a severe foreign exchange shortage; spending was out of control again; and the e c o n o m y continued to disintegrate. The decline in the level of agricultural production continued in most sectors, as did the disintegration of the country's transportation and communications infrastructure. The impact of this dismal fiscal and e c o n o m i c situation on the welfare of the population has been severe, although so far it has not been manifested in major outbreaks of political unrest. The formal or expressed willingness of Mobutu and the political aristocracy to take effective measures comes and goes. It comes only under substantial, coordinated external pressure and the perception of re-

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gime officials that, for the moment at least, they have no other alternatives. It ebbs dramatically when external pressure eases, slows down, or is worn down, when disputes between external actors can be manipulated, or when a crisis of a politico-strategic or military nature can be used to "delay" reforms. What are the chances for reform? If the example of the French absolutist state is any indication, and I believe it is, the chances are very slim indeed. The French leaders were always tinkering, but major financial reform proved to be impossible. Colbert tried valiantly and failed. Louis XIV "barely went through the motions of modernization and rationalization in the 1660s" before returning to "the bad old days of the past."113 Absolutist political goals of power and glory were simply not going to be sacrificed to mere financial constraints. To carry out effectively the externally demanded reforms would undermine the very core of the absolutist state—the personal discretion of its ruler and the fiscal largess and corruption that constitute the glue holding the system together. Such reforms are a direct threat to the patrimonial administrative state. Here the imperatives of calculability, of rationality, come into direct conflict with personal and class interest. When the bureaucratic clashes with the patrimonial, the latter will most likely win out: A review of the Government's control over the entire economy during this time belies the assumption that problems of economic management were solely those of skill rather than of political will. When a large portion of a national budget is dispensed at the discretion of an agency, such as the President's Office without effective limits on use or cost overruns, then the problems multiply for those technicians who are trying to develop the economy according to some set of rationalistic principles." 4

Because of the nonproductive nature of the political aristocracy, any threat to the viability of the patrimonial patron-client networks that are so central to the regime's survival, especially to the financial resources holding them together, must be avoided at all costs. The degree of external acquiescence is critical. In this case, who is dependent on whom? Only time will tell because the patrimonial element ultimately dominates the steering mechanism of an absolutist state. Mobutu's ability to turn

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Zaire into a stable, full-fledged, factually absolutist state is in large part dependent on the existence of adequate fiscal resources, of sufficient financial "slack." The existence of these resources greatly depends on the fluctuating prices of copper and cobalt and Zaire's international debt situation. Externally, Mobutu and his political aristocracy will continue their attempts to reschedule the debt, extract additional resources from friendly Western powers, banks, and international organizations, and hope that the prices of copper, cobalt, diamonds, etc. will rise dramatically. The absolutist state will also try to extract more resources from internal groups through higher taxes, new taxes, and more effective tax collection, but only from some of the "citizens," not all. With the collapse of Zaire's relationship with the IMF in 1982 and continued missed public and private debt-service payments, some within the highest reaches of the political aristocracy counselled that Zaire not make any serious effort to service the debt or institute reforms because its external "patrons" or "kin" in the international "extended family" or "lineage group" will have to bail it out.115 This is truly patrimonial imagery. On the other side, some in Western circles argued that Mobutu and his political aristocracy should be allowed to stew in their own juices; but, after a brief lapse, the logic of the interests on both sides dictated that the ritual dances of the debt game begin again. An IMF team visited Zaire in early December 1982 to gather information, and Mobutu launched yet another anticorruption drive late in the month. Negotiations with the private banks about payment arrears in January 1983 led to an agreement that the banks would not declare Zaire in default on the 1980 agreement if it made up the arrears by the end of the year. That same month, the visiting prime minister of China announced that China was canceling a $100 million debt owed to it by Zaire. An IMF team arrived in Kinshasa in late April to discuss the establishment of another standby agreement for SDR228 million (about $250 million). Then the World Bank announced a badly needed $100 million credit to GECAMINES, the state copper- and cobalt-mining parastatal. Finally, during Mobutu's August 1983 visit to Washington, D.C., where he was praised by President Reagan for sending 2,700 troops to Chad, Zaire and the IMF came to terms on the new standby agreement. It took effect in December and

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was acccompanied by a fifth Paris Club rescheduling. Thus, despite Zaire's failure to perform most of its neocolonial functions, the absolutist state continued to survive in an international context largely controlled by advanced capitalist states. The performance of this African patrimonial administrative state clearly highlights what Weber called "the negative anticapitalist effect of patrimonial arbitrariness": T h e patrimonial state lacks the political and procedural predictability, indispensable for capitalist development, which is provided by the rational rules of modern bureaucratic administration. Instead we find unpredictability and inconsistency on the part of court and local officials, and variously benevolence and disfavor on the part of the ruler and his servants." 6

Absolutism, External Actors, and Resistance Zaire was born in the international arena, and it has remained there. International assistance has been a continuous and pervasive factor supporting the emergence, consolidation, and survival of the absolutist state in Zaire. Such support was crucial to Mobutu's control of the armed forces from the earliest days, crucial to his first "coup" in September 1960, crucial to his seizure of full power in 1965 as an African caudillo, and crucial to the emergence and consolidation of an absolutist state. A word of caution is necessary, however. Although international assistance has been essential, it has not been all-determining; it has its limits. The Mobutu regime would not exist today without external support, but the political and administrative structure of the regime has not been dictated in any major way by external actors. To illustrate both the importance and the limits of actions by external actors, a number of key events since 1977 will be examined.117 In the preceding section, the importance and limits of external actors such as states, international organizations, and private banks in coping with the economic and fiscal crisis were stressed. Although the focus here will be more on politico-strategic concerns, the economic and fiscal crises are related to and have an impact on these concerns.

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The support of key states in the international system has been central to the survival of the Mobutu regime, particularly the support of Belgium, the United States, France, and, to a lesser extent, Israel, Morocco, China (PRC), Italy, Egypt, Saudia Arabia, and several African countries. The dialectic established by the need for and the extension of this support accounts for a number of politico-administrative changes and events since 1977. Since his earliest days in the turbulent crucible of Zairian politics, Mobutu has shown a Machiavellian flare for establishing and manipulating shifting coalitions of support, both internally and externally. Other states, international organizations, transnational corporations, and external groups such as the Catholic church have complex, shifting, and often competing sets of economic, politico-strategic, and normative interests to pursue in the Zairian arena. The interstices created by these multiple sets of interests often creates some room for maneuver, some autonomy for the absolutist state. Since 1965 these interests have been linked to maintaining current authorities in power, but the nature of the regime, its structure, plays a positive or negative legitimating role in external support efforts. As a result, external actors have tried to induce changes at the regime level that would facilitate support efforts to current authorities. Mobutu, on his own, has taken steps to portray his regime in a favorable light to external actors from w h o m he needs crucial support, among other things by stressing his anticommunism (or anti-Sovietism in the case of China) and politico-strategic and economic importance. He has also acquiesced, however, at least superficially, in a number of externally induced changes in order to increase his external legitimacy with key actors (and their domestic and international constituencies). But he has gone only as far as necessary to obtain such support, and, when events change or the composition of the support coalition can be altered, he backs off from changes that do not suit his needs or desires. In the process, the absolutist state remains intact and in power, at least so far. In this regard, Arthur Stinchcombe delineates a conceptualization of legitimacy that concentrates on whether other centers of power view the regime as legitimate and worth supporting: " A power is legitimate to the degree that, by virtue of the doctrines and norms by which it is justified, the power-holder can

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call upon sufficient other centers of power, as reserves in case of need, to make his power effective."118 He terms this back-up a "nesting of reserve sources of power" which allows a regime to overcome opposition where the legitimacy of the regime as viewed by the subjects is low or nonexistent. This type of assistance has always been crucial to Mobutu's survival and that of his absolutist state. This has been most vividly demonstrated recently during the two invasions of Shaba province in 1977 and 1978, especially as they have interacted with the previously existing economic and fiscal crisis. By early 1977 the absolutist state was already reeling from this economic and fiscal crisis historically characteristic of such regimes, and international assistance efforts were underway. Then, in March, Shaba province was invaded from Angola by rebel forces of the Front de Libération Nationale du Congo (FLNC). The early modem Zairian military put up only meager resistance, and the invasion was defeated after eighty days only as a result of substantial assistance from Moroccan troops with logistical and intelligence support from France and the United States. In May 1978 Shaba was again invaded by FLNC forces, and again the Zairian military collapsed. The second invasion was terminated by French legionnaires backed up by Belgian paratroops and American logistical support. Once more the regime might have been overthrown without this external "nesting of reserve sources of power." The FLNC is apparently an outgrowth of the Katanga gendarmes of the 1960s. They were integrated into the ANC after Tshombe became prime minister, but they mutinied in 1966 and 1967. Many subsequently moved into Angola to fight first for the Portuguese and later for the MPLA. The two invasions were a major threat to the key financial underpinning of the absolutist state— the copper complexes of Shaba province—and they had strong regional and ethnic overtones. The FLNC evidently draws important support from the Lunda and related ethnic groups as well as from other dissenters and opponents of the absolutist state. Despite these regional and ethnic overtones, the stated goal of both invasions was not secession but the overthrow of the Mobutu regime. The leaders of the absolutist state alleged Soviet, Cuban, East German, and Angolan complicity in one or both of the invasions. To the extent it existed, such assistance is an example of external actors attempting to alter the authorities level of the country.119

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These two attacks had major external and internal repercussions. In particular, they engendered military reorganization efforts, a reconciliation with Angola, and a series of "liberalization" measures—all of which were to a large extent the direct result of pressure and influence by Zaire's international friends and supporters. These changes were aimed at controlling, moderating, or co-opting internal opposition and dissent while giving the regime more legitimacy in the international arena, thereby facilitating external support efforts.120

CRISIS ASSISTANCE After the initial shock of the first invasion in March 1977, Belgium, France, and the United States started airlifting crucial military supplies to Zaire, but nothing was able to prevent the almost complete disintegration of Zairian forces in the area. After a month, 1,500 experienced Moroccan troops were airlifted by French planes into Shaba. The Belgians and Americans provided logistical and intelligence support. The expected popular uprising did not materialize, and Moroccan troops, assisted by Zairian forces, were able to end the military threat rather quickly. American and French influence with Morocco was crucial in the use of its forces; some commentators have portrayed them as Western proxies. Certainly U.S., French, and later Zairian support for Morocco's position in the Western Sahara dispute played an important role. Moroccan military personnel had also played a key part in Shaba (Katanga) with the UN forces in the early 1960s. In fact, some of the same personnel were sent back. More modest support was provided by the Ivory Coast, Senegal, Gabon, Burundi, the Central African Empire, Kenya, Uganda, Tunisia, and Egypt. A major influx of military equipment resulted from all these efforts; much of it was left behind by the Moroccans. The second invasion of Shaba province in May 1978 was repulsed by 700 French legionnaires airlifted to Zaire with the help of American planes and backed up by one Belgian paratroop regiment. The latter engaged in little direct fighting, however. In support of the French and Belgian troops, the United States provided eighteen C-141 Starlifters and C-5 Galaxies and crews, plus a sophisticated telecommunications system. The swift European, rather than proxy, response was most likely due to the sizable European

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population in Kolwezi, which was threatened this time by rebel seizure of the town. With the support of Zairian troops, the invasion was quickly ended. In June a multinational African force composed of troops from Morocco, the Ivory Coast, Senegal, and Gabon replaced most of the European troops, although one Belgian battalion did stay behind. This multinational force was organized at the behest and with the assistance of France, Belgium, and the United States, and it remained in Shaba province for about eighteen months after the invasion ended.

POSTINVASION MILITARY REORGANIZATION As noted earlier, the Zairian armed forces have long received military assistance from Belgium and the United Staes and more recently from France, the PRC, and Israel. Italy has also provided some assistance. In the early 1970s North Korea supplied a 400-man mission, which trained the supposedly elite Kamanyola Division, but it withdrew during the Angolan civil war in 1975— 76, with France subsequently taking up much of the slack. Over the years Britain has also provided some officer training. The positive impact of this external assistance was seriously called into question by Shaba I. After the debacle of March 1977, a military reorganization was initiated to improve the fighting quality of Zairian forces. Mobutu became chief of staff in addition to defense minister and supreme commander, positions which he already held. Other reforms in the command structure were made, and the officer corps was purged. Units were assigned to new areas, including the repositioning of the supposedly loyal and effective Kamanyola Division to Shaba. Belgian and French officers and American advisers were provided in the rebuilding process to furnish training and make logistical improvements. There was also a large influx of new military equipment. By early 1978 the army had been trimmed in size by 25 percent, down to a supposedly lean and more effective 18,500 men. But in February 1978 Mobutu announced an alleged attempted military coup. About 250 officers were arrested, including many foreign-trained ones, some of whom had attended Belgian, French, American, or British military schools. Many

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of the arrested officers were dismissed from the military; others were tried and convicted, and thirteen were executed. This characteristic attempt by Mobutu to cope with an alleged military conspiracy clearly had a detrimental effect on military performance during Shaba II, in which Zairian troops performed only marginally better than during Shaba I. After the disaster of Shaba II, the bulk of the inter-African force remained in Zaire until mid-August 1979, and the last troops were not withdrawn until the end of September 1979. During this period foreign instructors again attempted to rebuild the Zairian army. Belgian, French, and Chinese training efforts continued, including the posting of European noncommissioned officers—called "Godfathers"—with Zairian units to ensure the feeding and payment of the troops. In Zaire's early modern military these basic functions were performed intermittently at best. Military recruitment from Bandundu and both Kasai provinces was forbidden, and recruitment from Shaba had long been minimal. By 1980 reportedly 90 percent of the personnel in the Defense Ministry were from Equateur, Mobutu's region. In September 1979 joint French-Zairian military maneuvers were held to test the effect of the training activities. This second reorganization effort culminated in early 1980 with the appointment of French Colonel Maurice Mathiote to command the French-trained 31st Paratroop Brigade. The brigade consists of three battalions, two officered by French personnel, one by Zairians. The Belgians completed the retraining of the 21st Infantry Brigade in Shaba, although Belgian personnel remain. The Belgians have also trained a commando battalion based in Equateur province. In 1981 they were retraining the reduced Kamanyola Division, and the Chinese were training and equipping a commando and counterinsurgency brigade. After Zaire resumed diplomatic relations with Israel in May 1982, Israeli military assistance became a major supplement to the other ongoing efforts. In fact, a secret military assistance agreement had been signed in November 1981. At first Israel focused on retraining and expanding the presidential security force, the Brigade spéciale présidentiale (BSP). The efficacy of this substantial external assistance remains to be tested. Much doubt remains.12'

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POLITICAL "LIBERALIZATION" After significant external pressure, a series of political liberalization measures was announced in July 1977 to give the absolutist state a more "democratic" and progressive flavor. This response to Shaba I had the intention of placating internal Zairian opposition while increasing international legitimacy, thereby facilitating Western support for the Mobutu regime. It is important to remember that the external actions of major powers often have domestic repercussions. In this case, it was felt that such a "liberalization" would, among other things, help to diminish Western domestic opposition for support to Mobutu's absolutist state. Mobutu announced that he would now share p o w e r with a first commissioner of state—a sort of prime minister. He had abolished the post of prime minister in 1966 in order not to have to share power. The first commissioner was to coordinate the activities of the Executive Council and, in theory, appoint its members. In fact, power sharing proved to be very modest, but this shrewd move created the possibility of deflecting some criticism away from the king to one of his royal servants. Mpinga-Kasenda was appointed to the post; a university professor and member of the Political Bureau, he had been head of the party school since 1975. Liberalization was also to permit increased popular participation. Henceforth, members of the Legislative Council were no longer to be nominated by the Political Bureau but competitively elected directly by the people. Eighteen of the thirty members of the Political Bureau were now also to be elected, two from each region and two from Kinshasa. Elected urban councils were to be created, and, finally, Mobutu would, for the first time, accept opponents in the upcoming presidential election. These changes were duly incorporated into the constitution the same month. But then, to remind everybody that he was still in charge, Mobutu had his externally popular foreign affairs commissioner and long-time close collaborator Nguza Karl-i-Bond arrested for allegedly having foreknowledge of the Shaba invasion. In fact, his more likely offense was having been mentioned in the foreign press as a possible successor to Mobutu. There was to be no rival prince in the absolute monarchy, especially when the king was embattled. Nguza was tried, convicted, and condemned to death, but characteristically

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and patriarchally Mobutu "reduced" the sentence to life in prison. Other high regime officials and military officers were arrested, dismissed, or otherwise disciplined in the postinvasion period. Among those arrested was the mwaat yaav, the powerful Lunda paramount chief. He was removed to Kinshasa but later was placed on probation. Elections for the Legislative Council, Political Bureau, and urban councils were duly held in October 1977. Although in theory almost anyone could run for office, regime officials and prefects closely scrutinized candidates, in some instances eliminating them because they were not sufficiently committed to the MPR or for some "technical" reason. For the eighteen positions on the Political Bureau, there were 167 declared candidates, but most of those elected were well-known regime figures, including several members of the "presidential family" and other close collaborators. More than 2,000 people ran for the 268 seats in the Legislative Council, but those with regime connections or wealth (usually one and the same) fared best. Finally, Mobutu proved to be the only candidate for president in November and was reelected by an overwhelming vote. The "liberalization" process went an important additional step in early 1978 when Mobutu granted the Legislative Council the power to question regime officials about governmental matters (interpellation). This process was strongly urged on the regime by Western, particularly American, officials and was encouraged by them once allowed. Lastly, for both economic and political reasons, there was strong Western pressure (both governmental and private) on Mobutu to resurrect Nguza Karl-i-Bond. To placate Western backers for badly needed assistance and to keep the debt-relief process moving, Mobutu reinstated Nguza as foreign minister in March 1979.122 By early 1979 the reform efforts began to impinge on the patriarchal patrimonial power of the presidential monarch, much to his dislike. The Legislative Council started to question seriously members of the Executive Council about their departments and had the audacity to reject the national budget (something it had never done before). Still playing his reform card, however, Mobutu undertook a minor reshuffling of the government in at least partial response to the interpellation. In another patriarchal ges-

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ture of reconciliation, he pardoned eighteen of those sentenced in connection with the alleged attempted coup on June 1975. In late December 1979 a major, three-day interpellation took place in the Legislative Council, giving an indication that at least some members wanted to alter its role as an organic-statist control mechanism aimed at departicipation, not participation. In front of television cameras, a number of state commissioners, the secretary-general of the Political Bureau, and six top parastatal officials were grilled about their activities. Although he was not directly implicated, Mobutu clearly realized that much of the criticism was actually aimed at him. But the Machiavellian image making continued. That same month Mobutu allowed some discussion of the possibility of permitting a legal second party as foreseen by the constitution. Regime officials apparently even had secret talks with Jean Tshombe, son of the former prime minister and Katanga secession leader, about creating such a party. There were additional efforts to co-opt opposition leaders. A series of further changes was announced in January 1980. Most important was the abolition of the Judiciary Council and its replacement by a Justice Department in the Executive Council. The long-time head of the Judicial Council, Kengo wa Dondo, had come under severe internal and international criticism for harassing judges and lawyers and for political manipulation of public prosecutors. He was not separated from power, however, as he was appointed to the important post of ambassador to Belgium, where he could closely observe the increasingly active opposition groups. In an accompanying Executive Council reshuffle, Mobutu appointed a respected lawyer and outspoken Legislative Council member, Matadi Wamba, to head the new Justice Department. A long-time exile opposition figure and highly critical publicist, Kamitatu Massamba, was co-opted and given a minor portfolio. He eventually became state commissioner for agriculture. The new Executive Council still maintained some ethnic balance and contained the usual minority of skilled individuals. Four days later, five regime officials were arrested for corruption, including two who had been strongly criticized in the December 1979 Legislative Council interpellation. Finally, there was still rampant speculation internally and externally that serious official consideration was underway concerning a second party. Expectations were run-

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ning high, especially w h e n M o b u t u called an extraordinary session of the Legislative C o u n c i l for February 5, 1980.

RETRENCHMENT Further liberalization was not what Mobutu had in mind, however. By early 1980 M o b u t u felt secure enough again to begin the retrenchment process. H e set out to recapture the full extent of his personal power. The debt-relief and economic assistance efforts were continuing with no likelihood of ending. Foreign supporters were both sufficiently locked in or trapped and minimally placated to be able to back out. The foreign-inspired reconciliation with Angola had led to the removal of F L N C forces from the southern border and the transfer of key cadre to GuineaBissau. External opposition groups were in their normal state of disarray. Military training and rebuilding processes continued with considerable external assistance, and the politico-strategic international climate appeared favorable for continued support of the absolutist regime, especially after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As Nguza noted later, " M o b u t u realized then that the liberalization and democratization w o u l d speed up the downfall of his regime." 1 2 3 W h i l e the "liberalization" changes were taking place, unrest of various types flared up around the country but was quickly repressed, often brutally, despite attempts by external actors to moderate it. In January 1978 a small uprising took place near the town of Idiofa in the Kwilu area of Bandundu Region—near the native village of Pierre M u l e l e . Followers of a local millenarian religious sect attacked two villages, and the army was brought in to stop them. Fourteen leaders of the uprising were publicly executed without trial, and Amnesty International estimates that about 500 other people were killed. 1 2 4 The attempted coup of March 1978 has aready been mentioned. There were violent student strikes and riots on all of the national university ( U N A Z A ) campuses in February 1979. The specific causes were related to the conditions of student life, but heavy political overtones hung over the student actions. Regime troops ended the disturbances. Throughout 1979 university students and teachers took part in efforts to push the liberalization efforts in a substantive direction, particularly with

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a call for two additional political parties. These actions in part led to the downfall in January 1980 of Mungul-Diaka, the higher education commissioner and former follower of Antoine Gizenga, apparently because of his sympathies for the students. He subsequently escaped into exile and later headed a new umbrella organization of opposition groups, the Council for the Liberation of the Congo (CLC), founded in July 1980. In July 1979 soldiers killed about 200 young people near Mbuji-Mayi in Kasai Oriental Region, apparently for failing to pay the army for permission to engage in illegal digging for diamonds and refusing to cease digging when so ordered by troops. Finally, throughout this p e r i o d there were frequent reports of unrest in Shaba, Kivu, and Haut-Zaire regions, including continued activity by Parti Révolutionnaire du Peuple (PRP) forces in southern Kivu. Until the formation of the CLC, the constantly mutating and squabbling opposition groups proved to be no serious threat to the regime. It was not clear whether the CLC would be any more able to unify the external opposition and conduct effective antiregime activities than previous umbrella organizations. Within this context and amidst speculation about a second party, Mobutu called the extraordinary session of the Legislative Council in early February 1980. In a major speech to the Legislative Council on February 5, Mobutu, as presidential monarch of the absolutist state, dramatically announced that "as long as I live, I will never tolerate the creation of another party." In another comment, revealing for its clearly organic-statist thrust, Mobutu insisted that "there can be no negotiations about the peace and unity the country found after the chaos of 1960-65." ' 2 5 He scolded the Legislative Council for the excesses of the interpellations and announced that henceforth they could only be held with his express permission. In addition, the election of some members of the Political Bureau would not be repeated, and, after its current term was up in 1982, he would again appoint all its members. He had earlier expanded the size of the Political Bureau to thirty-seven so that the eighteen elected members became a minority. These acts of retrenchment were typically "balanced" by measures to attack corruption, including prohibiting state commissioners (but not Political Bureau members) from engaging in

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business activities; to reform education curricula; to reorganize parastatal marketing activités; and to restructure the secret police. But in this early modern authoritarian state, the likelihood that these reforms would ever be effectively implemented for any length of time was minimal. The absolutist core of the state was reasserting itself. These actions were directly responsible for a major strike and violent demonstrations by university students at all three UNAZA campuses in April 1980. In addition to university-related demands, the students called for the removal of the entire Political Bureau and the establishment of a multiparty system. The demonstrations were stopped and the campuses closed by army troops, the students evacuated to the interior, and the university shut down until October. Primary-school teachers also staged a large-scale strike between March and June. In August 1980 Mobutu took another step to emasculate the few remaining powers of the Legislative Council by creating a new institution—a 121-member party Central Committee, whose functions would be only advisory. In short, it was meant to replace the Legislative Council and was designed by Mobutu "to conceive, to inspire, to orientate, to decide, and to see to respect for discipline within the party and to supervise the activities of the MPR." It is headed by a permanent secretary, and its members are divided into a number of commissions, including economy and finance (with several subcommissions), agriculture and rural development, industry and commerce, and transport and communications. The Central Committee met three times in 1981 to discuss a wide range of policy issues, including "economic reactivation through reactivation of agriculture, well being, and health," educational reform, the implementation of decisions, party discipline, the rights and duties of "citizens," and administrative reform. This docile new institution is clearly meant to eclipse the more contentious Legislative Council and act as another arena for co-optation and patronage politics. Above all, it has been used as a tool to instill discipline in the party-state apparatus that supports Mobutu's personal power.126 That same month Mobutu made two personnel changes very pleasing to his Western backers, in part to offset their distress over the retrenchment measures. Nguza Karli-Bond became prime minister and Sambwa Pida Mgangui was

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returned as governor of the Bank of Zaire after a long absence. By December 1980 Mobutu felt even more secure, in large part because the likelihood was now high that the IMF would grant Zaire an extended fund facility worth about $1 billion over three years. This would probably lead to better relations with both official and private creditors. In addition, Ronald Reagan had just been elected president of the United States, leading to the possibility once again of stronger and more overt American support for Mobutu's regime.127 The liberalization efforts had after all been strongly pushed by the Carter administration. Thus, in late December and early January 1981, Mobutu moved in a major way against outspoken members of the Legislative Council who had been critical of his regime. On December 30, five well-known critics in the Legislative Council were arrested, including Tshisekedi wa Muluma. A Luba from Kasai who had once been a minister of the interior, Tshisekedi had been very active in the 1979 efforts calling for real democracy. University students had been strongly supportive of these efforts during the disturbances mentioned above, and Tshisekedi had close ties with them. In November 1979 he joined a group of other legislators calling for an inquiry into the alleged massacre of young people near Mbuji-Mayi by government forces the preceding July. He also had the audacity in October 1980 to criticize Mobutu's rule and call for reforms in an interview with a Belgian newspaper. In November 1980 he joined twenty-two other Legislative Council members who either voted against or abstained on a measure dealing with the creation of the new party Central Committee aimed at circumventing the council. Apparently it was at this point that Mobutu decided to move against his Legislative Council critics. The actual triggering event was reported to be criticism of the finances of Mobutu and one of his sons, Colonel Mobutu Niwa, in the Legislative Council by Mpanda Ndjila, one of the five arrested on December 30. In early January, fourteen other members of the Legislative Council were arrested and charged with subversive activities, inciting revolt, and insulting Mobutu, after having issued a lengthy and highly critical document calling for Mobutu to resign and the holding of free and open elections. Six people were arrested in March just for reading the document. Most of those arrested in

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January were from regions long opposed to Mobutu's rule—the two Kasais, Shaba, Kivu, and southern Bandundu. The arrests touched off violent demonstrations in Kasai Oriental, including the sacking of the regional commissioner's house.'28 Two events buffeted Mobutu's absolutist regime in the spring of 1981. Nguza Karl-i-Bond had been returned to p o w e r in 1979 to a large degree as a result of external pressure, in spite of Mobutu's lack of complete trust in him. Despite Nguza's promotion to prime minister in August 1980, clear signs existed by early 1981 that his influence was waning. But he caught Mobutu off guard for a change by resigning his position while on a private visit to Belgium in April. The regime termed the move "cowardly abandon of his functions as a statesman."129 Giving only personal reasons for the resignation, Nguza at first took no antagonistic action toward the regime. In public statements in June, however, he sharply attacked Mobutu's rule while declaring his opposition. He called for the overthrow of the regime by the West and charged Mobutu himself with massive corruption and systematic efforts to emasculate the control measures of the IMF. Finally, Nguza asserted that "the West must intervene to avoid a bloody, violent upheaval which would compromise Western interests in Zaire."130 Belgium's refusal to muzzle Nguza led to one of the periodic increases in tension with Mobutu, but his Western supporters were apparently not responding to Nguza's call, at least not yet, most likely because they were not sure a "bloody, violent upheaval" could be avoided in the process of intervention. In fact, support efforts continued. On June 22 the IMF formally approved the extended fund facility of 912 SDRs over three years. In early July the U.S. ambassador to Zaire, Robert Oakley, publicly condemned Nguza's call for the overthrow of the regime. The next week Zaire's official creditors met in Paris to reschedule Zaire's $3.34 billion in bilateral obligations. The Reagan administration moved to increase support to Mobutu's regime. The second major event of the spring of 1981—the surprise victory of Francois Mitterand and his party in the French elections—appeared to threaten an important link in Mobutu's international coalition of support. The actual consequences of this stunning electoral victory were, in fact, minimal. France maintained its military assistance efforts and increased aid slightly in

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other areas, and the 1982 Franco-African summit was held in Kinshasa. Zaire also became quite involved in Chad at the behest of France and the United States. In early 1982 major student protest demonstrations and more wildcat strikes erupted in Zaire, accompanied by increased agitation for a political party. Mobutu found it necessary to rearrest his former Legislative Council critics after they initiated plans to form an opposition party, the Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS) and to reiterate emphatically his decision against any second party. He rejected this major threat to his personal domination in language that stressed unity, order, discipline, and personal loyalty. In a major speech to the fourth meeting of the party Central Committee on March 15, he declared: Unfortunately, those embittered persons full of hatred and resentment toward the head of state personally, possessed with deepseated tribalism that has become second nature and trampling under feet the Constitution and the laws of our country, those embittered persons have agreed to set up a tribalist and ethnic cartel aimed at creating restlessness among the male and female MPR sympathizers. . . . I have said on several occasions and I want to repeat it today—loudly, publicly, plainly and emphatically—Zaire is a unitary state and will remain unitary. Our national party is the MPR and it is the only one. As long as I am alive, this will always remain so. This is clear and distinct and cannot be questioned. He also felt it necessary to deny that "Western circles—American in particular—have put pressure on me, imposed conditions and issued orders to me so that a second hypothetical party will be allowed in Zaire. This is a tasteless legend. Let's be serious."131 Three days later, in a commentary entitled "Precious Achievement to be Safeguarded," the government press agency declared: Zaire, put to fire and blood soon after its accession to national and international sovereignty by the action of multiple political parties on tribal and ethnic bases, today can be proud of having obtained invaluable commodities—peace and national unity—under the Mobutu banner.'32 In June 1982 the UDPS dissidents were tried by the State Security Court for attempting to overthrow the government, and thirteen of them were sentenced the next month to fifteen-year jail terms.133 In a continuation of the organic-statist liberalization facade, elections for collectivity and rural and urban zone councils were held

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in june and July. Not all members were directly elected; some were corporatist representatives of socioeconomic groups and organizations. Elections for the new Legislative Council were held in September. In August the Central Committee had screened and approved 1,409 candidates out of 2,251 who had applied to run. For the 310 seats in the Legislative Council, 248 new people were elected. The council opened on November 8, 1982, immediately after a reshuffle of the Executive Council, which clearly signaled a more hard-line stance. Kengo wa Dondo became prime minister and Munongo Mwenda M'Siri (ex-Godefroid), a Lunda from Shaba who had been interior minister for secessionist Katanga in the early 1960s, became state commissioner for territorial administration. At the end of that month the ninety-five students who had been forced into the army after the demonstrations in January were released.134 A rare meeting of the MPR party congress was held in early December, only the third one since the founding of the single party in 1967. Mobutu used it to stress national unity and the existence of only one party, to focus on the proliferation of religious sects, and to call again for economic reforms and financial discipline. The congress again "reaffirmed with force" that "Zaire is a unitary state" and that "the MPR is the only institution" and "singlepartyism remains the only political system of Zaire and any effort to jeopardize this position is an unconstitutional and counterrevolutionary act; Mobutuism is the doctrine of the MRP." 135 The proliferation of religious sects was denounced as a "plague" as most of them "have assumed a political coloration" and "are breeding grounds of the very destabilizing activities of the detractors of the Party's actions."136 In a plea to his foreign supporters, Mobutu noted "that in order to arrive at the sound management of our economy, the successive rescheduling and rearrangement of our foreign debt must be placed in a more realistic context. . . . Plainly speaking, this means that the periods of grace and maturity of the foreign debt must be extended." At the same time, he attacked one group of his external detractors: We are often accused of violating human rights. Today it is Amnesty International and tomorrow its a human rights league and so forth. During

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the entire colonial period, the universal conscience never thought it necessary to have a human rights organization when indignities, humiliations and inhumane treatment inflicted in those days against the people of the colonies should have been condemned. It is rather odd. Everybody waited until we became independent suddenly to wake up and start moralizing all day long to our young states.137

Finally, at the conclusion of the congress, Mobutu was, in accordance with "authenticity and Zairian traditions," promoted to field marshal for "his great feats of arms and his various acts of bravery."' 38 The party congress was followed by a "major" anticorruption drive with the arrest of over a hundred state officials, and 1983 was declared "the year of strictness in management." On the external front, a new alliance of several opposition groups, headed by Nguza Karl-i-Bond, the Front Conglais pour la Restauration de la Démocratie (FCD), was announced in January. It included the UDPS and the PRP, but not the CLC. At the same time, the Israelis were working quietly to increase Western, particularly U.S., aid to Zaire and to improve Mobutu's image. In an attempt to weaken his external opposition while improving his international image, Mobutu announced a political amnesty in May. The thirteen UDPS dissidents imprisoned in Zaire were released, but only a few exile opponents announced their intention to return. Mobutu said, "I am a chief who knows how to punish, but a pardon is also sometimes necessary."'39 Thus, military reorganization, political liberalization, and economic and fiscal reform efforts were all initiated in large part as a result of external pressure following internal crises caused to a substantial degree by the character of the regime. And the reform efforts have had only marginal effect. The two core elements of the absolutist state—Mobutu's personal discretion and the power of the political aristocracy—remain, in large measure thanks to the assistance of external supporters, but despite their efforts to induce change in the nature and structure of this early modern state.

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The State-Society Struggle in the Periphery: The Search for Administrative Absolutism After the first five years of independence, which were characterized by increasing decentralization, provincial proliferation and autonomy, and political chaos, the new regime felt the need to reestablish central administrative control of the periphery. This transformation was undertaken in two major steps in 1967 and 1973: Ordinance-Law (OL) 67/177 of April 10, 1967, recentralized territorial administration along the lines of the colonial state with centralized but deconcentrated administrative units, but it continued to permit the existence of relatively autonomous traditional authority structures at the bottom of the administrative hierarchy; and Law 73/015 of January 5, 1973, refined the 1967 recentralization of power and extended it to the lowest levels of the state, essentially by abolishing the traditional bases of authority in the chiefdoms, sectors, and centers and making them simple administrative units controlled by the central hierarchy.140 Two other intermediate changes (OL 68/025 and OL 69/012) will also be briefly discussed. The primary focus of the central elite was to make the control of the central state over the periphery more intensive, continuous, and direct. Of special concern was the state's ability to control ethnic intermediary authorities. Ordinance-Law 67/177 achieved two major things: it recreated a unitary, centralized state along the lines of the colonial structure, and it reestablished the principle of unity of command in the administrative hierarchy. The provinces lost their autonomy and became simple administrative units in a unitary state. Provincial governments were abolished, and the governor and his staff became state functionaries appointed directly by the center. Provincial councils of an advisory nature were permitted by the law, but they were never installed. Districts and territories, the main administrative units of the provinces, also became deconcentrated units in the central hierarchy with their personnel directly controlled by the center. The local collectivities (chiefdoms, sectors, and centers), however, retained most of their autonomy and traditional or semitraditional status. To increase the effectiveness of central control, the ordinance reintroduced the principle of unity of command. The head

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of each unit in the administrative hierarchy was to have préfectoral powers over all those operating within his jurisdiction. This important principle was reinforced by a circular from the Ministry of the Interior in August 1971 : Confronted with the refusal of certain state agents to comply with the orders of their superiors, the Council has decided that, except for the Chief of State who alone directs the country and before whom everyone is responsible, the Regional Commissioners who are his representatives must henceforth control the activities of the Party, the Army, the Police and the entire Administration. Subregional and Zone Commissioners enjoy the same prerogatives as the Regional Commissioners in their respective sectors of activity. 14 '

The continuing emphasis on this principle by the central elite highlights the constant problem of staff control in the process of state formation. The basic recentralization of power was confirmed by the constitution of 1967. In January 1968, OL 68/025 continued the centralization process by diminishing the remaining autonomy of the cities. The next major administrative change came in March 1969, and it concerned the organization of the chiefdoms, sectors, and centers—the continuing source of traditional authority. OL 69/012 did not greatly alter the structure of the colonial era (Décret du 10 mai 1957: "circonscriptions indigenes"). Rather, it changed the names of these three units to local collectivities, abolished the Permanent Colleges in order to reinforce the authority of the chief, and transferred the power to invest and nominate chiefs from the district commissioner to the Ministry of the Interior. Although the names were changed to local collectivities, the distinction between chiefdoms, sectors, and centers was maintained by the ordinance. More importantly, however, their traditional or semitraditional basis of authority and autonomy was also maintained. The power of ethnic intermediary authorities continued, in law and in practice, to prevent a direct state-subject relationship. The last major move toward theoretical administrative absolutism in the periphery came in January 1973 with the promulgation of Law 73/0 1 5. ,42 This law refined the basic recentralization of 1967 (OL 67/177) and launched a major attack on traditional

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intermediary authorities. Thus, for the first time, the Mobutu regime envisioned going beyond the colonial structure in its attempt to form a strong, unitary state. The reform reiterated and refined the centralized, but deconcentrated, hierarchical administrative structure in which the chief administrator at each level, operating under the principle of unity of command, was to be concerned with the tasks of execution, control, and coordination, and generally with coping with uncertainty. The prefect at the head of each administrative unit became the president of the local party committee, representing the Executive Council in his jurisdiction and operating under the hierarchical authority of the next highest unit. These positions thus became fused politico-administrative ones in which the duties and prerogatives were to include implementation of all central decisions, control and surveillance of all societal groups in the jurisdiction, hierarchical control over all state personnel and services operating within the jurisdiction, maintenance of general political order, the right to make whatever regulations and decisions necessary to maintain order and stability, and the responsibility regularly to submit general administrative reports on the condition of the jurisdiction. Law 73/015 thus consolidated a centralized, but deconcentrated, préfectoral form of administrative absolutism. Under this administrative reform the cities lost what little autonomy they had retained under OL 68/025, becoming purely administrative entities; the names of the administrative units were changed; and all key territorial cadre were to be regulated by a special statute. But the most important, and most innovative, change of the reform affected the local collectivities, the heart and soul of traditional authority in Zaire. The aim was to abolish the power of ethnic intermediary authorities. This was to be done by severely altering the basis of authority and structure of the local collectivities, and by creating a new administrative unit, the locality. The local collectivities (chiefdoms, sectors, and centers) were abolished and replaced by simple collectivities uniform in nature and structure. These new collectivities became "simples subdivisions administratives . . . dépourvu de la personalité civile." Recognition by the state of hereditary traditional authority was abolished: "hereditary investiture made certain citizens from socalled royal or dominant families superior to others by virtue of

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their lineal ancestry in flagrant contempt of democratic principles and our revolutionary Constitution."'43 The chiefs of the collectivities were to be appointed and controlled directly by the central authorities via the territorial administrative hierarchy. The duties of the chiefs became essentially the same as those of their superiors in the administrative hierarchy as outlined above. Law 73/015 went one step further by creating a new administrative unit at the village level: the locality. The village was not recognized as an administrative unit under colonial statute or by OL 67/177 or OL 69/012. The party statutes of 1970 and 1972 did, however, recognize the village as a political subsection. Under this administrative reform, each collectivity was to be broken down into localities by village. Each locality would have a chief and an assistant with duties similar to those of the chief of the collectivity and would be under the direct control of the territorial hierarchy. The chiefs of the localities would be appointed by the central authorities. Law 73/015 was clearly an attempt to break the power of traditional local patrimonial intermediary authorities. The duality of power at the collectivity level was to be abolished and the collectivity directly integrated into the territorial administrative hierarchy, thus losing all autonomy. This reform, then, represented the culminating point of the Zairian move to establish theoretical absolutism. The Mobutu regime attempted to take one major step beyond the colonial conquest state, but the ability of the regime to turn theoretical into factual absolutism, especially at the collectivity level, proved to be distinctly limited. In essence, the Zairian state under Mobutu continued to function structurally much as the colonial state did. As an extension of the "liberalization" efforts initiated by Mobutu in 1977 after Shaba I, the regime began in 1981 to prepare a much touted "decentralization." Led by the then powerful vice-prime-minister and state commissioner for territorial administration, Vunduawe te Pemako, these efforts culminated in February 1982 in OL 82/006, which, according to him, "endows our country with an administratively decentralized regime."'44 In fact, it does nothing of the kind. Instead, it creates in law (it is too soon to talk about substance) "representative" councils at the collectivity and zone levels and assemblies at the regional level, all the while maintaining completely intact the prefectoral core of the

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absolutist administration. Vunduawe noted that President Mobutu "insisted on the democratization of political institutions and a regional economic decentralization."145 The 1977 elections had applied only to councils in urban zones. Now they were to be extended to most of the rest of the administrative structure. The reform is "characterized essentially by a territorial decentralization of responsibilities to the profit of regional and local entities.'" 46 While maintaining the centralized prefectoral structure, OL 82/006 makes explicit the failure of Law 73/015 to incorporate the traditional and quasi-traditional local collectivities into the prefectoral administrative hierarchy. Vunduawe noted that the experience of Law 73/015 "at least had the merit of showing us what we could no longer do." 147 The new "decentralization law" explicitly resurrects the chiefdom and sector distinctions in regard to local collectivities. It maintains the locality, but only as a traditional subunit of the resurrected village groupements into which the collectivities are again subdivided. In short, OL 82/006 again makes plain the layer character of the absolutist state like that of the colonial state before it, while tacitly admitting that the coverover state-society struggle continues. The absolutist state had attempted to go beyond the colonial state and had failed. Chiefs of collectivities, groupements, and localities are still chosen pretty much as they have been for decades, under what could be called "supervised tradition." In this regard, OL 82/006 merely codifies the substance and practice, rather than the legal stipulations, of the Law 73/015 period. As for the "innovations" of collectivity and zone councils and regional assemblies, the primary issues are their nature and the degree and manner of implementation. Collectivity councils are in fact not new and have existed intermittently in various parts of the country during both the colonial and postcolonial periods (the old Permanent Colleges). These councils are not to be fully elected, as each groupement is represented by two elected members and its chief. The collectivity chief is also to be a member. The councils for rural zones are to have collectivity representatives indirectly elected from the collectivity councils as well as local representatives of state corporatist socioeconomic groups such as the union and business federations (UNTZa and ANEZA), the

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association of parents of students (ANAPEZA), and recognized religious groups. Councils of urban zones are directly elected. A zone commissioner is appointed by the state from among the council members, but he is directly controlled by an urban commissioner. According to the 1977 changes, the councils themselves elected the commissioner. As Vunduawe put it, however, "past experience has shown that the performance of certain elected zone commissioners left a great deal to be desired."148 All other prefects (rural zone, subregion, urban, and region) are appointed and controlled by the central administration in Kinshasa. Subregions are not to have councils. Up to one-third of the members of the regional assemblies can be "regional personalities" directly appointed by President Mobutu (thus providing him with another benefice instrument). The rest of the members are indirectly elected representatives from the urban and rural councils and representatives of the state corporatist socioeconomic groups. Each "democratic" council comes under the control of the local prefect (commissioner) and ultimately of the Department of Territorial Administration. Its decisions can be annulled, and it can itself be dissolved. The councils are also paralleled by "party" committees composed of directly appointed and controlled stateparty officials, including the prefects, the mobilization, propaganda, and political animation secretary, the head of the JMPR organization, local judges and prosecutors, military and secret police commanders, and UNTZa and ANEZA representatives. Vunduawe took great pains to point out the difference between this "territorial decentralization" and dangerous federalism: The adversaries of decentralization pretend that it dissipates and dilutes the authority of the state while reinforcing regionalism and that it is a hidden federalism, with all the dangers of separatism. However, there is a fundamental difference between territorial decentralization and federalism. . . . In decentralization, the state reserves to itself considerable control power over the decentralized units and surrounds their functioning with effective guardrails. In the specific case of our country, the central power maintains very strict control over regional administration by a subtle mixture of hierarchical and tutelary control mechanisms.' 49

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As the new law itself says, Zaire is still a unitary state, and, as Vunduawe noted, it actually reinforces the patriarchal patrimonial power of President Mobutu as "the only guarantor of the integrity of the national territory."150 So what does this new "liberalization," which on the surface appears to run directly counter to the tenor, thrust, and practice of the absolutist state, mean? At best and in law, it is clearly a strictly controlled form of state corporatist participation. In substance, a great deal depends on the extent to which and how it is implemented. As of this writing it is too early to judge. But, as an editorial in the respected Zaïre-Afrique noted: Indeed, many people wonder if, with the current human outlook, that is to say in the present state of attitudes and behavior so affected by the omnipresent "Zairian sickness" ("mal zairois"), the reform which aims to achieve "the territorial decentralization of responsibilities in Zaire"— as Professor Vunduawe calls it—has any chance of succeeding and bearing the fruit one expects of it. . . . The best legal texts are nothing without good men to apply them.'51

Are the hommes d'état of this absolutist state such men? I doubt it. The absolutist principle of unity of command will most likely continue to operate. Zaire remains a centralized, but deconcentrated, early modern state in which traditional local patrimonial intermediary authorities retain important power. A direct state-subject relationship has yet to be achieved. The result to date of Mobutu's efforts at state formation has been to return Zaire to the structure and spirit of the colonial state and to patrimonialize it.

The Preeminence of Mobutu's Policy of State Formation The formation of a strong Zairian state is one of Mobutu's primary policy goals. As a result, the policies that further this goal receive top priority. The dominant concerns are those of political order and the extension of central control. Some development policies are important, but only insofar as they increase the general power

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level of the state. Development policies primarily concerned with the welfare of the mass of Zairian subjects receive low priority, especially in terms of the allocation of scarce resources and general administrative concern. Even a policy area like agriculture is now receiving more attention because political order and financial concerns are at stake. Precious foreign exchange is being wasted importing food, and the lack of adequate foodstuffs poses a great political-order threat that could affect the stability of the regime. Thomas Davis, Jr., in an excellent 1974 dissertation on Zaire, dealt systematically with this question of policy priorities: We have discovered five basic goals of the Mobutu government during 1965-71: (1) the restoration of the authority and prestige of the state, (2) sound finances and monetary stability, (3) economic independence, (4) economic growth and infrastructure improvement, and (5) improvement in individual well-being. 152

His data clearly show the priority of the state for each item. The first four policy concerns listed are clearly state formation policy concerns, and they are correctly listed as to importance in terms of creating a strong state. In the order listed, they are without a doubt the primary priorities of most absolutist and mercantilist states. As with most absolutist states, Mobutu's Zaire is not a welfare state in any sense of that term, despite the revolutionary language. Item five is the lowest priority of the Zairian state, as Davis indicates: Social justice as defined in this study consists of three components: (1) the satisfaction of minimum needs in income, employment, education, health, nutrition, and housing; (2) the reduction of disparities in these six variables; and (3) popular participation and leadership accountability. We have discovered that in every variable except education, minimum needs have not been met. However, since 1965 modest progress has been achieved in some aspects of income, health, and nutrition. O n the other hand, disparities in all six variables have increased during the 1965-71 period, and popular participation and leadership accountability have decreased. This has resulted in passivity on the part of the masses and the pursuit of private interests on the part of the elite, (pp. v - v i )

The last point Davis makes is clearly linked to the relationship between state formation and the rise of a political aristocracy

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discussed earlier. M o b u t u ' s state is an absolutist one with a rapidly forming and consolidating political aristocracy, and M o b u tu's preeminent policy concern is state formation—the attempt to move from theoretical toward factual absolutism. N o necessary historical evolutionary trend toward the successful attainment of factual absolutism exists. Uncertainty is a pervasive factor for all groups involved in this struggle. The uneven move toward factual absolutism requires shrewdness, persistence, and fortuitous circumstances. Variations in levels of control by region and over time are to be expected, especially as resource levels change; it is a key characteristic of early modern state formation. This was the case for historical Europe, as well as for Mobutu's absolutist version of the African patrimonial state.153 In this regard, Crawford Young has stressed what he has called the " d e c a y " or "decline of the Zairian s t a t e " — " a progressive 'dequalification' of the state"—the result of which is that "the impersonal institutions of the once-potent colonial state now lie in ruins." According to Young, this "crisis of the state" is characterized by "the erosion of its probity, competence, and credibility." Corruption (a key patrimonial characteristic) "has become a defining feature of the state." The decline in competence of the state is measured by "its ability to transform allocated public resources into intended policy aims" (also a key characteristic of patrimonial administration in early modern states). He notes that this is particularly true "at the periphery of the state" and correctly points to agriculture and infrastructure. Lastly, credibility refers primarily to levels of control and the ability to extract compliance. Based on the fine work of Bianga and Vwakyanakazi, Young uses Kivu Region as his prime example of these trends. 154 In fact, there are two conceptually distinct but interrelated processes at work here: the progressive patrimonialization and functional contraction of the inherited colonial state structure that was stressed in chapter 1, and the normal cycles of political control and extraction characteristic of early modern state formation. I have emphasized that since 1965 Mobutu has adopted or, more accurately, reverted to the basic structure of the colonial state while patrimonializing it. As chapters 5 - 7 and the work of Davis cited above clearly show, this process dates to the early years of the regime. M o b u t u ' s reestablishment of basic order and recentrali-

230

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

zation of the state by 1970 looked like a major achievement when compared to the 1960—65 period, and at the time it was, but not when compared to the colonial state. Corruption, the illusions and realities of policy formulation and implementation, functional contraction, and regional unevenness of control have long been "defining features" of this early modern patrimonial administrative state.155 These processes have merely been accelerated and highlighted by the economic and fiscal crises of the state since the mid-1970s (in themselves key manifestations of its patrimonial character). As chapters 5 - 7 and the work of Bianga and Vwakyanakazi demonstrate, Kivu has long been a region where central state control has been weak and uneven and where the problems of corruption, policy incapacity, and the irregular economy have a long history. Much of the region in fact remains "uncaptured," and this reality becomes more evident as the resources of the state contract.156 When, and if, the resources of the state increase again, one can expect a partial increase of central control and extraction in the region. The attempted move from theoretical toward factual absolutism is an incremental, uneven, and uncertain process, directly affected by the outcome of ongoing, everyday state-society struggles, large and small. Mobutu's success has been both remarkable and limited. Basic order has been maintained, but with periodic and sometimes significant external assistance. This is an achievement in itself given Zaire's history, but the authority of the Zairian absolutist state often appears like "a sort of authoritarian bragging which drowns in an often mocking passivity."157 In the depths of the regions, the norm often is disobedience tempered by absolutism. Centralized administrative control has increased since the mid-1960s, but it is still far from being unlimited. It is just unsupervised. The Zairian absolutist state is an emerging organization of domination seeking to expand its domain in a very hostile and uncertain environment, both internally and externally. The survival of this early modern state never appears assured. Like the French absolutist state, the persistence of Mobutu's patrimonial administrative state is an ambiguous achievement, one beset by paradox. As Young has noted, there "is a prime contradiction of the contemporary state; it is at once hard and distant, soft and

Zairian Absolutism

231

permeable. In its habits and operating modes, the state reflects the inertial perpetuation of its colonial past; in its command style, the domination that gave it birth persists."158 As in seventeenth-century France, Mobutu's centralizing patrimonial state is a Leviathan, but a lame one, and the state-society struggle continues.

Factual Absolutism and the Future of the Zairian State The two major problems in turning theoretical absolutism into factual absolutism in the periphery are staff control and the effective functioning of the administrative state, and emasculation of the autonomous power of intermediary authorities. In absolutist states historically, this was a slow, difficult process, and it probably will be for an African absolutist state as well. The staff-control problems Mobutu faces are immense and complex. The state is aware of many of these problems, as is indicated by the following list taken from two administrative circulars: 1) general abuse of power, including such things as exorbitant and illegal taxation and fines, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, and the use of subjects for private work and gain; 2) insufficient "militancy," discipline, and respect for hierarchy, especially the principle of unity of command; 3) failure to execute regulations and decisions at all, continuously, or impartially; 4) insufficient knowledge of central policy and failure to inform the population of decisions; 5) "appropriation politics" going beyond acceptable limits, especially improper use of state funds and equipment; 6) failure to hold staff or popular meetings; 7) inadequate quality and number of inspections and inspection reports; 8) improper handling of subordinates and lack of supervision and cooperation with other state services; and 9) making informal coalitions with local groups.159 It is very difficult to deal effectively with these problems. None of them will ever be completely mastered, but the struggle to handle them must go on constantly if factual absolutism is ever to be attained. The other major problem in the move toward factual absolutism is the emasculation of the autonomous power of inter-

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

mediary authorities. Internally, the most powerful of these groups are patrimonial traditional and quasi-traditional authorities in the collectivities and the Catholic church and other religious groups. The struggle between the state and the church now has a long history, and a resolution of it is not probable in the medium-range future. The administrative reform of 1973 (Law 73/015) was to be the major attack on intermediary patrimonial authorities. The center tried to implement Law 73/015 by rotating collectivity chiefs. As we shall see, the attempt to break the autonomous power of the traditional authorities essentially failed, at least for now. OL 82/006 of 1982 incorporates this failure; the layer character of the patrimonial administrative state remains in both law and substance. Despite carrying theoretical absolutism to the limit, even surpassing the colonial state in this respect, the Zairian ruling class has been unable to move to factual absolutism vis-a-vis patrimonial intermediary authorities. An initial frontal assault failed, and the struggle now continues on many small fronts on a day-by-day basis. Mobutu and his prefects have their work cut out for them in their battle to turn Zaire into a powerful absolutist state. It is this attempt to achieve factual absolutism in the periphery during the early and mid-1970s that is the focus of the next three chapters.

5. Absolutist Territorial Administration: Mobutu's Prefects

M

obutu's prefects—the territorial commissioners—are the inner core of the absolutist state, the backbone of the apparatus of domination. These patrimonial-bureaucratic officials are completely dependent on Mobutu; they are his agents in the periphery—the extensions of his personal sovereignty, of his patriarchal patrimonial discretion. These members of the new official realm have transformed the colonial state into an absolutist one at the service of the "new king." Their territorial jurisdictions constitute boundary-spanning units which aim at controlling the complex and turbulent task environment. The prefects seek to lessen the dependence of the new absolutist state on society, cope with pervasive uncertainty, establish basic political control, and extract resources from the subject population. Exercising broad discretionary powers, they are Mobutu's instruments of control and extraction—two of the most basic activities of an early modern state. In an increasingly centralized state, they exercise deconcentrated power in an attempt to control both new groups and traditional patrimonial and quasi-patrimonial authorities. They seek a more direct state-subject relationship by weakening all intermediary authorities. In the search for factual absolutism they pursue a coverover strategy. The territorial commissioners have been superimposed upon preexisting authority structures. The Zairian absolutist state has four

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

administrative levels: regions, subregions, zones, and local collectivities.' The first three levels are structures of the centralizing state; the last—the collectivities—constitute local authorities (traditional, semitraditional, and newer, partially urbanized ones), which usually remain beyond the complete control of the absolutist state. The prefects operate at each of the first three levels (see table 5.1). The core of this prefectoral cadre are the subregional and zone commissioners. They are the ones who attempt to increase central control on a daily basis over the local authorities in the collectivities. The focus of analysis here will be the roughly 740 prefects operating at these two levels. Including the twenty-five regional-level prefects, this "new official realm" constitutes a group of about 765 "royal" agents. With a population of about twenty-three million in the mid-1970s, the Zairian officialrsubject ratio was 1:30,065. These members of the political aristocracy usually have administrative and clerical personnel under them, and they also supervise the numerous but often moribund state services operating in their jurisdictions. The bulk of the lower level administrative, clerical, and service personnel were inherited from the colonial and early independence periods. In many respects, they constitute the old official realm, the officiers of the Zairian absolutist state.2 As in seventeenth-century France, they generate substantial staff-control problems for the prefects of Mobutu's new official realm. All of the prefects are appointed by and directly dependent on Mobutu. They swear an oath of loyalty to him and to the state. T a b l e 5 . 1 Zairian Prefectoral Cadre in 1974 Region Regional commissioners Assistant regional commissioners

9 18

Subregion Subregional commissioners

39

Assistant subregional commissioners

78

Zone Zone commissioners

207

Assistant zone commissioners

414

Total SOURCE: Zaire, 333 (December 23, 1974), p. 4 6 .

765

Absolutist Territorial Administration

235

The key criterion of selection, maintenance, and promotion is loyalty to Mobutu, what is commonly referred to as militantisme,3 The personal bond between Mobutu and his prefects is constantly emphasized—thus the patrimonial character of the relationship. They represent him, and he can remove or otherwise discipline them. Although they report to the state commissioner for political affairs (formerly the minister of interior), they are directly responsible to Mobutu. Education is clearly a criterion of selection, but education without loyalty is not sufficient. Loyalty with little education or training, however, has frequently been sufficient.

Préfectoral Powers and Tasks in an Early Modern State The powers and responsibilities of Mobutu's prefects are extensive. Each royal agent operates in a centralized but deconcentrated system of delegated power and discretion. Speaking to zone commissioners and their assistants, the subregional commissioner for Nord-Kivu put it this way: "This déconcentration of power results from the fact that the government is able to make itself felt throughout the country only by way of a hierarchical and centrally controlled administrative structure."4 Being the direct representative of Mobutu and the central government in Kinshasa, each prefect is responsible for all that goes on in his jurisdiction. The subregional commissioner went on to note that the absolutist state installs you under its hierarchical authority as the supreme coordinator of the full range of the state's authority. All governmental activity passes through you. This power is made concrete by the direct hierarchical control you have over all the administrative agents placed at your disposition and by the power of direct intervention you have in the activities of the agents attached to the various ministries operating in the regions.

The prefect sees to the implementation of all central decisions; controls the activities of all state agents within his jurisdiction, including the regional services of all the central ministries;5 ensures the maintenance of public order and may requisition the

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

services of the army and the gendarmery when needed; issues police regulations that carry penal and monetary sanctions; issues administrative decisions on a very broad scale; oversees the preparation and execution of budgets, orders expenditures, and directs the collection of most taxes; exercises authority over all administrative units within his jurisdiction, especially the local collectivities; makes inspections, gathers information, and sends numerous reports on the condition of his territory to Kinshasa; and carries out or oversees domain consensus functions (mass meetings, marches of support, animation) in an attempt to explain to the subjects what is expected of them and elicit voluntary compliance. Above all, the efforts of the prefects are aimed at controlling the local collectivities. As the key instrument of the coverover strategy, the prefects seek to establish a direct relationship between the absolutist state and the individual subject at the expense of traditional and semitraditional representatives of local particularism. The glue that holds the territorial administrative apparatus together is the principle of unity of command discussed in chapter 6. The practical application of this principle entails several things: all administrative correspondence must be sent up the administrative hierarchy and copies of all correspondence of the various services must be sent to the relevant territorial commissioner; the commissioners must hold regular meetings of all administrative and service heads in their jurisdictions, including the army, gendarmery, and C N D , to coordinate and control all local activity of the state and to cope with special problems; and the commissioners have the power of direct intervention in all state services or institutions. The unity of command principle greatly reinforces the Mlevel position of the prefects in their boundary-spanning units. It encourages the use of controlled discretion by these "royal" agents and facilitates buffering, coordination, control, and the handling of constraints and contingencies. In short, it consolidates central domination by allowing flexible but controlled responses to local conditions. The importance of this principle to the consolidation of Zairian absolutism is matched by the difficulty of fully implementing it. The repeated circulars and administrative correspon-

Absolutist Territorial Administration

237

dence emphasizing the need to adhere to this principle vividly attest to this difficulty. It is a problem at all levels as well. One example will suffice. On May 14, 1974, one of the assistant subregional commissioners for Nord-Kivu wrote to the service chiefs in his area: It comes to my attention that certain of you address yourselves directly to the zone commissioners, going as far as to give them orders. To stray from these regulations—in particular the principle of unity of command—is to open the door to the anarchy forever banned by the authentic Zairian Revolution.6 High officials in Kinshasa are well aware of the importance of this principle to the boundary-spanning functions of the territorial cadre and the problems in implementing it.7 An effective way to look behind the formal powers and tasks of the prefects is to examine their regularly assigned tasks. This permits a more accurate assessment of how they cope with the task environment and with staff-control problems. In short, it provides a much clearer portrait of the nature of absolutist domination. The following are composite lists of the assigned tasks and areas of special focus of the subregional and zone commissioners and their assistants.8 Subregional commissioner: Supervision of major political and administrative activities of the subregion; relations with regional and central authorities; supervision of administrative cadre, especially zone commissioners and collectivity chiefs; maintenance of order and security and relations with the army, gendarmery, and CND; financial affairs; inspections of zone and collectivities; implementation of decisions and instructions from above; supervision of important state services; judicial affairs ("en partie civile pour la défense des intérêts de l'Etat");9 information and the press; frontier problems; agricultural policy; and transportation and roads. First assistant subregional commissioner: Political affairs; mass meetings, animation, Salongo,'0 official ceremonies; youth affairs (JMPR) and sports; control of education; public health; social affairs, in-

238

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

eluding control of private associations; culture and arts; preparation of annual reports; and regular and special inspections. Second assistant subregional commissioner: Collectivities: control of collectivity chiefs, budgets, finances, traditional courts, collectivity councils, collectivity personnel, taxation, especially the CPM (head tax); economic affairs: statistics and studies, prices, markets, cooperatives, workers affairs (UNTZa), permits for economic exploitation; provision of administrative services; public works; and inspection of prisons. Third assistant subregional commissioner:" Courts and litigation, control of religious groups; civil registry; agriculture; land disputes; clerical personnel; post and telecommunications. Zone commissioner: Supervision of major political and administrative activities of the zone, including collection of the CPM; maintenance of order and relations with the army, gendarmery, and CND; relations with superiors and major services; control of the JMPR; police judge and president of the zone court; supervision of collectivity administration ("relations avec les autorités coutmières"): collectivity and locality chiefs, collectivity personnel, meetings, reports, finances, taxes, and courts; inspection of detached posts (postes détachés);'2 public works and roads; regular, special, and annual reports; economic affairs; zone meetings; relations with churches, missions, and economic enterprises; and information and press. First assistant zone commissioner: Preparation of annual and special reports; evaluation of reports by collectivity chiefs and state agents in detached posts (chefs de postes); investigative legal officer (officer de police judiciaire—OPJ); substitute police judge and vice-president of zone court; supervision of collectivity traditional courts; preparation of zone budget; supervision of preparation and execution of collectivity budgets; economic affairs: control of prices, markets, etc.; agriculture, including cooperatives; land disputes;

Absolutist Territorial Administration

239

relations with some services, for example veterinary service and worker affairs (UNTZa). Second assistant zone commissioner: Supervision of political (party) activities: propaganda, mobilization (mass meetings), animation, and Salongo; supervision of cultural, sport, and social affairs; inspection of prisons; transportation, road maintenance, and public works; police judge; relations with health and education services; control of local associations; and special problems and projects, such as the regrouping of villages. Third Assistant Zone Commissioner: 13 Supervision of zone staff (regular and contract) and agents in detached posts; supervision of zone correspondence and commentary on collectivity correspondence; participation in party and collectivity activities; supervision of civil and land survey registries and of collection of statistical information; special inspections and reports; control and maintenance of state property (vehicles, buildings, etc.); and lodging of personnel and visitors.

Zone staffs usually include a director of the JMPR, an accountant (who often supervises collection of the CPM), a zone secretary, several clerks who perform many of the routine administrative tasks, and the agents in charge of the detached posts. Zone commissioners and their assistants are required to submit to the subregion monthly reports on their daily activities (journaux de route or Etat d'emploi de temps) and the condition of their jurisdictions. These reports are commented on by subregional prefects and passed on to the region and Kinshasa. They provide another effective way of examining the actual tasks performed by the prefects. Here I will simply present two as examples of the wide range of activities, regular and special, undertaken by these key state agents in their efforts to control the task environment. A report was submitted by a zone commissioner for the Kimvula Zone in Bas-Zaire for the month of May 1971 ,' 4 During this month he undertook the following tasks: presided at the zone court (three days), handled correspondence from the collectivities and his superiors (three days), spent two days working on

240

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

the repair of a bridge, held a meeting with local businessmen, held a party meeting of local state agents, acted as a police judge (three days), spent three days on the collection and distribution of the head tax in the three collectivities in his zone, held a party meeting to plan the celebration commemorating the founding of the MPR, conducted a mass meeting to celebrate this event, and traveled to the three collectivities to preside over meetings of the collectivity officials, inspect their finances, civil registry activities, court judgments, and prisons (eight days). In all, the zone commissioner traveled eleven days, covering 572 kilometers. In the monthly report attached to the list of his activities, the zone commissioner reports that he rendered four judgments in the zone court and three in the police court. Although the zone is calm, he notes that several clandestine meetings were held aimed at stirring up the population, that false rumors circulated widely, and that unknown persons were sending letters containing false news aimed at undermining both the traditional and zone authorities. He concludes the section on political affairs by saying, "To administer here in Kimvula, one must exercise authority sternly in order to ensure security and public order." The commissioner comments on the high incidence of serious disease in his area and suggests the creation of a maternity station. He also draws attention to the perpetual problem of his isolated territory—poor roads, especially for getting produce out and consumer goods in. He requests more help from higher authorities. In addition, he indicates the amount of the head tax collected and mentions that the imposed cultivation of agricultural crops proceeds smoothly. By way of comparison, the following is a list of activities of the zone commissioner of Katako-Kombe in the Sankuru Subregion of Kasai Oriental Region for August 1971: supervision of road repair work, investigation of an arbitrary arrest by a police official, supervision of the repair of a river ferry, investigation of illegal shootings of elephants, office work, meetings with two members of the Legislative Council on tour, supervision of construction of new state buildings, meetings with zone and subregion service chiefs, meeting with the local police commander, mass meetings, administrative meeting with his staff and assistant commissioners, investigation of the disappearance of a collectivity policeman (during which he got lost in the forest and was found by

Absolutist Territorial Administration

241

four pygmy women), visits to several dispensaries, schools, and missions, two judicial investigations, inspection visits to several villages, meeting with a collectivity chief and an agriculture service agent, visits to detached posts, sessions of the police court, meeting with a chief about political problems in his collectivity, meetings with the subregional commissioner and his assistants, general meeting of all collectivity chiefs, and distribution of head tax (CPM) receipts. In all, the zone commissioner traveled fourteen days inside his territory and spent six days outside it on mission. These two reports from widely separated areas of the country demonstrate the wide range of activities carried out by Zairian prefects in their efforts to control the complex and often contentious task environment. As with the French intendants, a major responsibility of the Zairian prefects is the regular inspection of their territories and the transmission of detailed reports of these inspections to central authorities. The purpose of these inspections is dual—close surveillance of the task environment and of state agents working in it. The prefects must undertake the inspections " i n order to maintain direct contacts with their subjects and to check on the activities of their collaborators and agents."15 Regional commissioners must inspect each of their subregions at least once a year; subregional commissioners or one of their assistants must do the same for each of their zones.16 The normal rule for zone commissioners and their assistants is that they must spend at least twenty days a month touring their areas.17 In practice, the number is difficult to achieve. Travel allowances are not paid regularly, transportation is either unavailable or extremely difficult, and administrative burdens keep the prefects at their desks. A good number are also lazy. As a result, central officials frequently reaffirm this responsibility, and each time different substantive concerns are emphasized. In 1968, the concerns were budget preparation and execution, tax collection, increased agricultural production, forced production of crops, "rural development," census, cooperatives, health, and roads. In 1971 the concerns were road maintenance, communal work projects, collectivity finances (especially the illegal practice of officials "borrowing" money from collectivity treasuries without repaying it), agricultural production, transportation of agricultural products, and laborers and their problems. In a reminder from the Kivu re-

242

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

gional commissioner in 1973, the concerns were collectivity administration, especially finances and personnel; relations with the services; collaboration with the army and police to prevent illegal hunting; protection of fauna; and close surveillance of religious authorities.10 The majority of inspection concerns are control- and order-oriented rather than service-oriented. The prefect's major tasks deal with domination—the control of subjects, not citizens. This is despite the use of the term "citizen" in place of the "unauthentic" Monsieur, Madame, etc.—another example of revolutionary rhetoric without substance behind it. At all levels, detailed reports of these inspections must be submitted and passed up the hierarchy.19 In addition to these reports, regular reports on the conditions of each jurisdiction are also submitted. For example, each level must submit annual reports. Subregions and zones must also prepare monthly reports—most recently called Radicalization Reports, as well as the journaux de route described above. In addition, they must daily cable or telephone in security reports to their superiors. Special investigative reports are required for any unusual happening or problem. Examples include reports on physical or natural disasters, significant acts of resistance, or the insubordination of a collectivity chief. These inspection responsibilities are not merely reporting functions. All the instructions indicate that the prefects are supposed to deal with problems, constraints, and contingencies on the spot: "Also, to ensure that the action of the administratorsinspectors is truly effective, they must profit from their presence in the area to take proper measures to remedy a situation about which they are reporting."20 This practice clearly constitutes the use of administrative discretion by M-level personnel in boundary-spanning units to adjust to the uncertainties of the task environment. But it is the use of controlled discretion because all actions must be reported in the inspection reports, which are reviewed at each level as they are transmitted up the hierarchy to the region and sometimes Kinshasa. The thirst of central authorities for information about the condition of the task environment is unquenchable. In addition to the regular inspection reports and reports on special contingencies that appear, the state demands a staggering list of other regular reports. Many of these are not submitted regularly or on time—

Absolutist Territorial Administration

243

as witnessed by the constant complaints from higher authorities.21 The prefects respond most readily to constant reminders from above to submit the most important reports. As with the colonial state, these are the reports concerned with political order, enforcement of important decisions, functioning of courts and tax collection, and control of traditional and urban authorities—in short, the basic tasks of domination. The most important reports are submitted and basic order is maintained, but, as in seventeenth-century France, it is a loose form of control.

Career Patterns and Control One of the features that most distinguishes Mobutu's absolutism from the 1960-65 period of chaos and dispersed power is the centralization of the recruitment, assignment, and promotion of territorial administrators. Taking this process away from semiautonomous provincial administrations has had the effect of increasing the central state's control of both its agents and its task environment as a whole. As one Zairian observer notes, "The centralization of recruitment, promotion and transfer has taken from most of the regional services the autonomy which permitted the amplification of tribal phenomena."22 Central control is tightest at the higher levels of the commissioner ranks but has progressively penetrated down to the assistant zone commissioner level. One of the most important of these control measures is the refusal to assign the prefects to their region of origin. Like the intendants, the Zairian prefects are not assigned to their home regions in order to facilitate the control of local particularisms. This lack of ethnic, regional, or other ties with the local population greatly enhances this process of control. In this way the prefects more readily serve the interests of the absolutist state and not those of the local population. Our Zairian observer stresses that this measure "removes the agent from the unfortunate influence of his home area. Thanks to this removal, the agent becomes subjected to the state."23 It increases Kinshasa's control of the agent himself, the state personnel he supervises (most of whom are usually from the local area), and the local subject population. Both of these

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

last t w o groups usually see the commissioner as an exploiting stranger. The mass of local state agents, in both the lowest levels of the territorial administration and at all but the highest levels of the local state services, constitute the equivalent of the French officiers. Although not formally venal officials, the members of the " o l d official realm" have the same strong local roots and feelings as the French officiers, and they tend to view the commissioners in the same light as the French officiers viewed the intendants. Mushi notes that "transfer tends to create a new division in the [territorial] service; a mass of autonomous low level agents and a controlling elite perceived by this mass as foreign and better treated." 2 4 He also states that the local officials greatly resent the fact that the commissioners usually have much better living conditions. Some figures from Bas-Zaire and Kivu illustrate the degree to w h i c h this assignment rule is observed. There are three samples: one from Bas-Zaire (1975) and t w o from Kivu (1971 and 1974). The general impression is that, on the average, between two-thirds and three-quarters of prefectoral personnel are from outside the region, and most of the local personnel are at the assistant zone commissioner level. The first sample is for prefect personnel for the Cataractes Subregion, Bas-Zaire, in February 19 75. 25 The subregional commissioner, his three assistants, and all six zone commissioners were not from Bas-Zaire. Of the sixteen assistant zone commissioners, nine were from outside the region, seven were from Bas-Zaire. Thus, of the total of twenty-six prefectoral personnel, 73.1 percent were not from Bas-Zaire, and all of the locals were assistant zone commissioners. The breakdown by region is as follows: Equateur: Not indicated:* Kasai Occidental: Kasai Oriental: Kivu: Bandundu: Haut-Zaire: Shaba: *But not from Bas-Zaire.

5 4 3 2 2 1 1 1

(19.2%) (15.4%) (11.5%) (7.7%) (7.7%) (3.8%) (3.8%) (3.8%)

Absolutist Territorial Administration

245

The second sample covers prefect personnel for the Kivu Region in August 1971 (see table 5.2). Of those personnel on which there is information, 77.2 percent come from outside Kivu. At the subregionai and zone levels, at least 85 percent come from the outside. The three zone commissioners from Kivu are actually local mwami (traditional kings), who are also the collectivity chiefs for the only collectivity in each zone. This doubling of traditional and central state functions by the mwami indicates the great continuing power of traditional political structures in some areas. Again, the highest number of local officials comes at the assistant zone commissioner level. The non-Kivu personnel are reasonably dispersed among the other regions. The third sample also comes from Kivu—about two-and-aTable 5.2 Regional Data for Kivu Préfectoral Personnel: August 1971 Number

Prefect

Non-Kivu

Kivu

Not Indicated 0 2

SR comm. Asst. SR comm. Zone comm. Asst. zone comm.

4 9 20 41

4 7 15 18

0 0 3 10

2 13

Total

74

44

13

17

Regional Breakdown Region

N

Kasai Oriental Bandundu Bas-Zaire Equateur Kasai Occidental Haut-Zaire Shaba Non-Kivu * Kinshasa

12 7 6 5 4 4 3 2 1

27.3 15.9 13.6 11.4 9.1 9.1 6.8 4.5 2.3

44

100.0

Total

Percent

S O U R C E : "Tableau mensuel donnant la situation du personnel dirigeant et subalterne du service territorial de la Province du Kivu au 31 août 1971." •But région not included.

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

half years later (March 1974) than the second sample (see table 5.3). Here the total number of personnel is up 35 percent over 1971, with a higher percentage of local commissioners. Again, most of the locals are at the zone level. Mushi notes that of the thirtythree locals, twenty-two performed party duties—probably mobilization functions, which require knowledge of local customs and languages. In discussing the intendants we noted that this policy of not assigning prefects to their region of origin has costs as well as benefits. Outsiders do not have a detailed knowledge of the local task environment, and it takes time to acquire it. But if personnel stay too long, they often develop local roots and commitments which tend to negate the purpose of the assignment policy. So the commissioners have to be rotated, but not too frequently. For the intendants the official rule was three years; in practice the average stay was closer to five years. The official rule for Zaire is also T a b l e 5 . 3 Regional Data for Kivu Préfectoral Personnel: March 1974 Number

Prefect

Non-Kivu

Kivu

4

4

Asst. SR comm.

13

7

6

Zone comm.

22

18

4

SR comm.

0

Asst. zone comm.

61

38

23

Total

100

67

33

Regional Breakdown Region

N

Equateur

17

25.4

Kasai Oriental

16

23.9

Bandundu

8

11.9

Haut-Zaire

8

11.9

Shaba

8

11.9

Bas-Zaire

6

9.0

Kasai Occidental

4

6.0

67

100.0

Total

Percent

SOURCE: Mushi Mugumorhagerwa, "Incidences ethniques sur la fonction administrative au Kivu ( 1 9 6 0 - 1 9 7 3 ) , " mémoire,

U N A Z A : 1974, pp. 9 4 - 9 5 ; original source: "Annuaire

du personnel territorial sous-statut et sous-contrat de la Région du Kivu au 31 mars 1974."

Absolutist Territorial Administration

247

three years;26 in practice the average stay is probably less than that for all levels taken together. In fact, a considerable instability exists in the prefect ranks as to length of stay in a given post. This is a problem constantly discussed in administrative correspondence, but hard data are very hard to compile. Table 5.4 is, however, illustrative of the problem. In Kivu during this three-month period, thirty-four out of fifty-four prefectoral personnel were rotated or reassigned.27 As is suggested by these figures, this problem of instability is particularly intense at the zone level. My impression is that subregional prefects are frequently left in position for three or more years.28 Regional commissioners appear to be even more stable. Thus the instability is greatest at the level that has the most direct contact with the task environment, its local particularisms, and its traditional authorities. In theory, the Department of Political Affairs makes all transfer decisions based on recommendations from regional cornT a b l e 5.4 Transfers of Prefects in Kivu Region: August to November 1971

Subregion Nord-Kivu SR comm. Asst. SR comm. Zone comm. Asst. zone comm. Subtotal Sud-Kivu SR comm. Asst. SR comm. Zone comm. Asst. zone comm. Subtotal Maniema SR comm. Asst. SR comm. Zone comm. Asst. zone comm. Subtotal Total

August 1971

November 1971

Departures

Arrivals

1 2 6 9

1 2 4 8

0 0 3 3

0 0 1 2

18

15

6

3

1 1 6 10

1 2 6 9

0 0 2 6

0 0 2 5

18

18

8

8

1 1 6 10

1 1 7 10

0 0 1 3

0 0 1 4

18 54

19 52

4 18

5 16

SOURCE: Foma Ntabashwa, "Problèmes de tvpe statutaire se posant en région," Centre de Perfectionnement de l'Administration, U N A Z A , Feb. 1973, p. 8.

248

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

missioners. Evidence indicates that Kinshasa often ignores these recommendations.29 Most often commissioners are transferred from one region to another. It is also common practice, however, for regional commissioners to make intraregional transfers of personnel, especially at the zone level. Occasionally this is done without approval from Kinshasa—a practice for which the state commissioner for political affairs severely rebuked his regional commissioners in early 1974.30 Two examples will illustrate these points. The following figures are for the region of Haut-Zaire for 1971,31 The total number of prefectoral personnel is ninety-five, distributed as follows: Subregional commissioners Assistant subregional commissioners Zone commissioners Assistant zone commissioners Total

5 10 31 49 95

Personnel in forty-four of the ninety-five positions changed during the year—about 46 percent. Four of the five subregional commissioners changed. The four outgoing prefects were sent to positions in the regions of Kasai Occidental, Equateur, Bas-Zaire, and Shaba; the four incoming came from Kasai Occidental, Kivu, BasZaire, and Shaba. Half of the assistant subregional commissioner positions changed hands. Of the five new commissioners, two came from Kinshasa, two from positions in Equateur, and one by rotation within the region; of the five outgoing, two went to Shaba, two to Bandundu, and one rotation. Fourteen of the thirty-one zone commissioner positions changed hands (45 percent). Nine of the changes were rotations between zones in the region, some within subregions. Five zone commissioners were transferred to new posts in Kasai Oriental, Kivu, and the regional headquarters in Kisangani. Of the five incoming zone commissioners, three came from Equateur and the other two came from Shaba and Bandundu. At the assistant zone commissioner level, twenty-one of the forty-nine positions had new occupants (43 percent). Fourteen of the shifts were between zones in the region, some within subregions, some between subregions. Finally, six new prefectoral personnel were sent from Kinshasa to take up duties as assistant zone commissioners.

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Another example of the regional rotation policy comes from Bas-Zaire in 1974. As part of a country-wide shift of zone and assistant zone commissioners in February of that year, three zone commissioners and seven assistant zone commissioners were transferred to other regions. The three zone commissioners were sent to zones in Bandundu, Shaba, and Equateur. Three of the assistant zone commissioners went to zones in Bandundu, three to Equateur, and one to Kasai Occidental. 3 2 The official criteria governing transfer and assignment of préfectoral personnel include the following: the overall needs of the territorial administration, continuity of administrative practice fostered by remaining in a post three years, the nature of the local task environment matched with the capacities of the prefect (i.e., his loyalty and performance), and the psychological and human needs of the individual agent (health, family problems, educational opportunity for his children, etc.). A tension always exists in préfectoral systems between the need for staff control and the need for effective administration engendered by a detailed knowledge of the local task environment. Infrequent transfer threatens staff control; too frequent transfer harms administrative efficiency. Central authorities in Zaire are aware of this problem: "The agent must have enough time to get to know the area where he is going to operate, its problems, it particular aspects, its population, its economy, etc. Having acquired this knowledge the agent will be infinitely more fit to adequately and wisely administer the people under his control." Despite this recognition, however, the practice has been to transfer prefects too frequently, as is witnessed by periodic statements like the following: "It is clear that frequent transfer of territorial agents and others has grave consequences both for the territorial service and for the agents themselves and their families." 3 3 The major reasons appear to be a desire for increased staff control, administrative disorganization in Kinshasa and the regional capitals, and the effects of patron-client linkages between central officials and certain préfectoral agents. These perpetual transfers are one of the most common complaints by territorial agents. It is very difficult for them, both professionally and personally, to be uprooted too often. In addition, they complain that the moves are made more difficult by the nonpayment of transfer allowances, lack of transportation, inadequate housing, and lack of decent schools. 34

250

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

In this mixed patrimonial-bureaucratic apparatus, the bureaucratic and organizational criteria compete with powerful patrimonial ones in the areas of recruitment, assignment, transfer, and promotion. Patron-client linkages, usually based on ethnic (i.e., particularistic) considerations, permeate all levels and aspects of administration. Prefect personnel clearly recognize this fact. Mushi notes the "widespread belief in the necessity of patron-client linkages and other measures" rather than reliance on the formal criteria enunciated by Kinshasa: "They are convinced that territorial agents benefit for the most part from influential support from the highest level. . . . Promotion is easier when one has a highlevel patron than when one must acquire it by merit alone." 35 Mushi cites the example of the high number of territorial agents from Equateur and Kasai and their more favorable treatment because a high percentage of top posts in Kinshasa are in the hands of people from these regions. He notes that "the territorial service becomes the experimental field for launching the careers of capable or close brothers who wish to try their luck in politics." 36 He also points out, however, that the influence of patron-client ties is probably exaggerated, especially by lower level personnel who attribute just about everything to it. In fact, many other factors may play a role. These patron-client ties frequently do overrule, however, all legal and organizational criteria for personnel management, with both beneficial and harmful effects. Competent individuals can rise more rapidly with the aid of patronage ties, but of course so can the less competent—thus the unpredictable impact of patrimonial aspects on organizational performance. Prefect personnel feel that the threat or possibility of transfer hangs over them like the sword of Damocles. If the move does not entail a promotion, it is viewed above all as a disciplinary matter. One observer notes that because "everyone constantly expects a transfer, they undertake practically nothing. They shut themselves up in the everyday management of administrative affairs. Or when they wish to do something worth-while, they do it in haste and without a precise plan." 37 Despite the fact that frequent transfers tend to impede the effective use of administrative discretion, there is some evidence that the rotation of personnel has improved central control of the

Absolutist Territorial Administration

251

the administration and through it of local particularisms. This is after all the main state-formation concern of Zairian absolutist officials at the I level. Mushi notes that the major benefit of this policy "was the introduction of a third party into the quarrels which previously opposed regional, ethnic, and rival factions. The quarrels ceased or diminished in intensity, the control of personnel was reinforced, and tribalism diminished." 38 It maintains the separation of the agents of absolutism from the society they are to control and fosters the development of an official subculture of territorial agents who see themselves as rulers separate from the ruled. Central control of prefectoral personnel entails a variety of formal and informal methods. Resurrecting a tool used by the colonial regime between 1933 and 1947, Mobutu created a State Inspectorate in 1968, which had four large jurisdictions. It was attached to the Interior Ministry, and its inspectors were to be the "veritable antennas of the central power in the interior of the country." Because it did not function well, the State Inspectorate was abolished on the last day of 1971,39 Some surveillance of the territorial administration is conducted by the CND—the secret police—which often leads to great tension between the two groups. Most of the control comes from within the administrative hierarchy itself, however. Under the principle of unity of command, each administrative level has control of the personnel below it. This hierarchical control is exercised in a variety of ways. For illustrative purposes, the subregional level will be used. The subregional commissioners periodically evaluate their assistants and the zone commissioners under them. In the early 1970s the criterion of "militanisme" became important. In this context it refers to the agent's "ideological" or "revolutionary" fervor—in short, loyalty to Mobutu and his policies and the efforts of the agent to elicit mass allegiance to the regime and compliance with its policies. The subregional commissioners also have the power to initiate disciplinary proceedings against a subordinate, which may lead to the imposition of sanctions by Kinshasa. The most common form is temporary suspension, with or without pay, which can turn into dismissal. Although used frequently, this is a slow and tedious process. A more effective means of administrative control are the periodic inspection trips of the zones by the subregional commis-

252

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

sioner or one of his assistants. They can become personally acquainted with the problems of the zone and can discuss how to resolve them with the zone commissioners. The inspection trips are also an effective means of controlling the use of personal discretion by the zone commissioners. Regular meetings of all zone commissioners along with the subregional service heads and representatives of the army and the CND constitute another effective control of discretion. Decisions and problems can be discussed and solutions proposed. Reports of these meetings are sent up the hierarchy for review and commentary. The mania for administrative paper work is no less strong there than it was in seventeenthcentury France. The prefects can also be called to Kinshasa for consultation, special seminars, or training sessions such as those held since 1974 by the party school—the Makanda Kabobi Institute. The regional commissioners hold yearly conferences to discuss their problems. A crude sort of control likewise results from the steady stream of orders and requests that flows from Kinshasa. They force the prefects to be constantly attentive to the concerns of the central administrative apparatus, but at the same time they keep them from attending to long-run problems particular to their areas or to the daily administrative machine. Despite these multiple controls, the prefectoral structure of domination still has a great deal of looseness to it. This is due partly to communications difficulties but also to the laxity or preoccupied nature of superiors. The commissioners can still act like little Mobutus in their areas. Their autonomy is considerable. Kinshasa hopes the administrative subculture ensures that the interests of the commissioners are congruent with those of the central regime. One area that is borderline is this regard is the "politics of appropriation." The regime turns its head in regard to much of the rampant appropriation of state funds and material and the wealth of the subject population. These practices will be examined in more detail later. For present purposes, statements from two ministerial circulars illustrate the nature of the problem and the weak formal efforts taken to contain these "abuses." In a message to all prefect personnel in March 1970, the interior minister lamented: " I must state with regret that during their rounds certain officials compel villagers to give them gifts. . . . I forbid you

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253

to force the population to give you presents, still less to take by force what belongs to them."40 Obviously the problem did not disappear, because the next year a new minister of interior also lamented the situation: Not wishing to deliver too long and tedious an enumeration, I will content myself with bringing to your attention several typical examples which dismay the Interior Ministry. It is a question of the following cases: exaggerated taxation, exhorbitant fines inflicted for minor infractions, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment for trifling reasons and under inhumane conditions, and the use of citizens for personal or private work. 4 '

The minister went on to exhort the territorial agents to put an end to these "abuses." But the abuses continue and for well understood reasons. By allowing his prefects to enrich themselves at the "public trough," Mobutu hopes to retain their loyalty. The line between the private property of the official and the state is very thin indeed—a key patrimonial characteristic of the regime. Lastly, the prefects are a key element of the new political aristocracy and share in its power, wealth, life-style, and high status. This strengthens the hold of the administrative subculture and further separates these absolutist administrative agents from the subject population. There are three basic or modal types of Zairian absolutist prefects. Type I consists of those who entered the Belgian colonial administration before independence, most frequently as lowlevel clerks. These men are often only one generation away from peasant stock. Their fathers were usually small artisans, workers in colonial economic enterprises, or farmers who had some contact with Protestant missionaries or the Catholic church. They were sent to mission schools for a few years, where they learned French and pursued some classical studies. After entering the Belgian administration they received on-the-job training, but they remained at the lowest levels of the administration. At the time of independence and the overnight Africanization of the territorial administration, some of these men became prefects. If they survived the chaos of the 1960-65 period, they often managed to climb the administrative ranks. One of the assistant subregional commissioners I interviewed in Bas-Zaire in January 1975 is a classic Type I prefect.

254

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

He was born in Kivu in 1923, the son of a farmer with mission connections. He had six years of primary studies in a Protestant mission school, then three years of study to become an agricultural monitor. He served in the Belgian colonial army (Force Publique) and attended a military communications school in Kisangani. In September 1951 he entered state service as a clerk in the territorial administration in Bukavu. After independence he served in a series of administrative posts in Kivu. In 1967-68 he was zone commissioner for Coma in Nord-Kivu. He became an assistant subregional commissioner before moving to Bukavu as regional head of political affairs. He was transferred to Bas-Zaire as an assistant subregional commissioner for the Cataractes Subregion in August 1972, his first post outside his native Kivu. In April 1975 he was transferred to Kinshasa for reasons that are unclear. Those who entered the territorial service after independence but prior to Mobutu's coup in November 1965 constitute Type II prefects. They probably have fathers similar to those of Type I prefects and had some secondary and perhaps postsecondary education in the late fifties or early sixties. When independence came, some stopped their studies to enter the territorial service; others finished as fast as possible before entering. During the turbulent postindependence years, they most likely served in their regions of origin. With the advent of the Mobutu regime in 1965, they became part of the administrative apparatus of the emerging absolutist state. If they proved to be sufficiently loyal, diligent, and discreet, and had the right patron-client ties, they may have advanced quite rapidly up the administrative hierarchy. A third type entered prefectoral service after the advent of the Mobutu regime. These men might well be the sons of Type I or II prefects or of anybody who had a state post either before or after independence or who worked in an expatriate business enterprise. Increasingly they are the sons of members of the absolutist political aristocracy. At any rate, they acquired the necessary secondary education, wealth, and influence to get into the university-level system. After acquiring their degrees during the Mobutu reign, they entered territorial service, usually as assistant zone commissioners, often with the help of patron-client ties. With their university education and patron-client ties, they began to move up the administrative hierarchy.

Absolutist Territorial Administration

255

Although in much smaller numbers, two other types of prefects exist. One is the direct political appointment without the university-level education; the other is the appointment of persons who began as agents in the zone administrations (secretaries, accountants, chefs de poste, even an occasional collectivity chief). Table 5.5 presents data on prefectoral personnel working in Kivu in 1971 and in Bas-Zaire in 1975. Analysis of this data reveals some interesting facts. Of the seventy-two prefects for which there is information, forty-five are Type I (62 percent), seven are Type II (9.7 percent), and twenty are Type III (27.8 percent). All but three of the twelve subregion-level prefects (75 percent) for which there are data are Type I. Almost all of the Type III agents are found at the zone level: eighteen of twenty, or 90 percent. At the assistant zone commissioner level there are clearly two distinct groups—Type I (twenty of thirty-nine, or 51.3 percent), whose mobility is very low, and Type III (fourteen of thirty-nine, or 35.9 percent), whose chances for upward mobility are much higher. T a b l e 5 . 5 Background Data on Prefectoral Personnel in T w o Regions Entered State Service

N

Prefect

Ave.

Pre-

Age

Indep.

Mobutu Era

NI*

1

1

2

/ 960-65

Kivu 1971 SR comm.

4

49.0

1

Asst. SR comm.

9

43.4

5

Zone comm.

20

42.5

11

1

4

4

Asst. zone c o m m .

41

44.6

16

2

9

14

74

44.1

33

4

14

23

SR c o m m .

1

41.0

1

Asst. SR comm.

3

47.0

2

Zone comm.

6

49.2

5

16

43.0

4

3

Subtotal

3

Bas-Zaire 1975

Asst. zone c o m m . Subtotal Total

1 1 5

4

26

44.8

12

3

6

5

100

44.3

45

7

20

28

SOURCE: "Tableau mensuel donnant la situation du personnel dirigeant et subalterne du service territorial de la Province du Kivu au 31 août 1 9 7 1 , " Bukavu, Sept. 1, 1971, and "Liste des fonctionnaires et agents du cadre territorial oeuvrant dans la Sous-Région des Cataractes mois de février 1 9 7 5 , " Mbanza-Ngungu, no date. * N o information.

256

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

Because of poor ability, low levels of education, and/or ineffective or nonexistent patron-client ties, most Type I prefects have little chance of advancing up the hierarchy, and they are found in large numbers at the zone and assistant zone commissioner levels (thirty-six of forty-five, or 80 percent). With hard work, luck, skill, or the proper connections, some may go quite far up the ladder (nine of forty-five reached the subregional level). But the future clearly belongs to the Type III prefects, probably even in the shortrun. They have the youth, the education, and most likely the connections that will allow them to advance rapidly. The chances are probably quite good for a number of them to follow the complete career pattern into the high reaches of the central political aristocracy; if the regime lasts, that is. Tables 5.6 and 5.7 provide some sketchy educational data for the Kivu sample and a 1971 sample from Haut-Zaire. These data are congruent with the three modal types. There are educational data for three of the four subregional commissioners in the Kivu sample, and one of them has a university degree, which may partly explain his high position. The one Type III assistant subregional commission has a university degree. All four of the Type III zone commissioners have university degrees, and seven of the nine Type III assistant zone commissioners have university degrees or some university education. Thus, despite the brief existence of the absolutist regime, a career pattern is apparent. But there is still the ever-present un-

Table 5.6

Educational Data on Kivu Prefectoral Personnel: August 1971 1-2

Prefect

N

yrs.

Secondary

3-4

yrs.

Secondary

SR c o m m .

3

—

Asst. SR comm.

4

1

—

Zone c o m m .

18

—

8

Asst. zone comm.

30

—

22

Total

55

1

31

5 - 6 yrs. Secondary

Partial

College

College

Degree

2

1

— 1

I —

1

4

2

4

8

7

8

SOURCE: Didier de Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation sur le principe et les conditions d'une association des administrations du Haut-Zaire et du Kivu au processus de la planification du développement

du

U N A Z A , 1973, p. 15.

nord-est,"

Centre de Perfectionnnement

de

l'Administration,

Absolutist Territorial Administration

257

Table 5 . 7 Educational Data on Haut-Zaire Prefectoral Personnel: November 1971

Prefect

N

SR comm. -Asst. SR comm. Z o n e comm. /Asst. zone comm.

4 9 13 34

Total

60

1-2 yrs. Secondary

3-4 yrs. Secondary

2 4

1 4 8 14

6

27

— —

5 - 6 yrs. Secondary —

4

Partial College 1 1

College Degree 2 —

14

1

3 1

18

3

6

—

—

S O U R C E : Didier de Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation sur le principe et les conditions d'une association des administrations du Haut-Zaire et du Kivu au processus de la planification (du développement du nord-est," Centre de Perfectionnement de l'Administration, IUNAZA, 1973, p. 16.

certainty and dependence characteristic of a mixed patrimonialbureaucratic administration in a patriarchal patrimonial political regime. As one zone prefect notes, "we are given five year manadates which can be revoked at any time. . . . If the President likes me and my work, he could make me a Regional Commissioner. On the other hand, he could choose someone who has no real experience in territorial service."42 Like the intendants of seventeenth-century France, the prefects, as their title denotes, are commissioners, not officers. As Bodin pointed out, "a commission is held at will, a precarious loan that the lender can call at any time he chooses." 43 The power and status of the Zairian prefects is politically rooted and thus precarious indeed. Membership in the political aristocracy is not always secure. The main hedge is to have excellent patron-client ties in Kinshasa. The Zairian commissioners are eminent because they represent Mobutu's "royal" authority. While they hold state posts they have power, wealth, and high social status. Their tasks are enormous, their achievements remarkable but ultimately limited, as is the whole of Zairian absolutism itself. The state is becoming more of a sociopolitical reality; basic domination is maintained, but control is limited, not sure or direct. Local particularism remains powerful. A consolidating early modern state continues to struggle with a complex and contentious task environment, and the prefects are the main instruments of the absolutist state in this struggle. It is to this struggle that we now turn.

258

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire The Struggle with a Contentious Task Environment and an Obdurate Administrative Apparatus

To understand better some of the difficulties posed by a complex and contentious task environment and a dual patrimonial-bureaucratic administrative apparatus, the problems faced by absolutist prefects in the regions should be examined. The eight regional commissioners and the urban commissioner for Kinshasa are the key links between the I and M levels of the Zairian absolutist state— between Mobutu and the territorial administration. These highly political prefectoral personnel have three major sets of concerns: the diffusion and implementation of major national policies as determined by Mobutu and his "royal" councils; coping with the uncertainties posed by the task envionment; and the problems and processes of normal administration. The latter two focus on the key questions of order, control, extraction, the coverover process, domain consensus functions, and staff control. Major national policies concentrate on mercantilist political economy concerns, finance, and politico-administrative tasks that relate to the search for sovereignty.44 A fruitful way to investigate some of the tasks and problems of regional prefects is to look at the major concerns dealt with at the annual and ad hoc conferences of the regional commissioners. Since 1971 annual conferences have been held to discuss major policies and problems.45 They are usually held in January or February and focus on recent policy decisions, often announced by Mobutu in major year-end speeches, and on major administrative problems. In 1971 the major policy concern was "L'Objectif 80"—a broad set of development concerns for the seventies. The regional prefects heard reports by the state commissioners for labor, agriculture, health, urban and land affairs, education, national economy, and transportation and communication, which aimed at putting into "concrete form the decisions that the Chief of State read to the Nation in his major address of 5 December 1970." 46 These constituted a series of mercantilist endeavors to encourage and regulate economic activity, the most ambitious of which were programs for the development of the road, rail, and water infrastructure and the control of prices of all major commodities.

Absolutist Territorial Administration

259

A great deal of time, however, was also spent on basic administrative problems. These problems were grouped into four main categories: party organizational problems; general problems of territorial administration, especially staff control; control and operation of the local collectivities (traditional rural authorities); and the cities. These four groups included most of the major structural and task-environment problems facing the consolidating absolutist state. The commissioners heard presentations by the state commissioners for political affairs, justice, and information. Of special concern were domain consensus problems (propaganda and mass mobilization); control of contentious students; better staff recruitment, training, and utilization; more frequent inspection of jurisdictions; the need for more police; control of the remaining autonomy of the cities, especially their unending financial problems; budget problems; tax collection; control of traditional collectivity chiefs, especially those who also exercise the functions of zone commissioners; and unemployment as a threat to order. 47 The basic control perspective manifest throughout the proceedings was made explicit by one official who commented, "I point out that the revolution is not made by twenty-one million Congolese [Zairians]. It is made here in the Political Bureau and the Executive Council." 4 8 In August 1971 a special meeting of the regional commissioners was held in Kisangani. It was really a continuation of the February conference. Again the main national policy concern was economic development, especially in the rural areas with the emphasis on agricultural production. Another major topic was the danger of rapidly rising unemployment in the cities and the concomitant problem of restless youth. But this time much more attention was paid to basic administrative problems and constraints. Four commissions were established to deal with territorial administration, the cities, the local collectivities, and the police. The commission on territorial administration discussed the following items: ways to recruit better qualified agents, improving the quality of training; upgrading salaries and benefits; regularizing the payment of allowances, especially those for inspection expenses; ensuring that each jurisdiction has its full complement of command personnel; control of lower level staff; regular distribution of decisions and documents; logistical concerns relating to

260

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

better transportation, roads, communications equipment, administrative buildings and material, and housing; the need for more frequent and detailed inspections and for more contact with the subject population in order to improve the "ideological formation and mobilization of the masses"; the lack of ideological material for these efforts; strengthening the principle of unity of command, especially with the various services operating in each region; and, finally, the wearing of party insignia and the placing of Mobutu's picture in all public places. The commission on local collectivities was principally concerned with the coverover process of emasculating the power of the traditional chiefs—what it euphemistically termed the "revaluation" of their position. As with seventeenth-century France, it is not a question of eliminating these traditional positions, but rather one of diminishing traditional autonomy and increasing the direct control of the absolutist state. The following statement illustrates this tension in the coverover process: The traditional criteria of appointment, namely hereditary right, respectability, repute, and a certain wisdom, must be progressively revised bearing in mind the eminently changed character of our society. . . . The State must progressively entrust the administration of local collectivities to individuals possessing a certain proficiency in public administration. It is a question here of a choice between a certain conservatism and a certain notion of progress; in this era of major revolution there should be no compromise. . . . Nevertheless, because of their traditional quality as representatives of the population, the chiefs of the collectivities will still be able to solicit the advice of the Central Power whenever necessary. 49

The political process of control is always discussed using the "revolutionary" language of development and social progress, but increased sovereignty of the absolutist state is really the issue. Specific concerns relating to the control of the collectivities, and through them the vast, complex, rural task environment, included integrating the collectivity police into the national gendarmery, improving the roads, more effective collection and use of local taxes, increasing control of collectivity budgets, organizing and regulating local markets, and intensifying ideological work. Three other general concerns were discussed. A major control concern was the continuing rural exodus to the urban areas. Ways

Absolutist Territorial Administration

261

to stem this tide were proposed. One was to regroup the villages into larger units for easier control and more efficient provision of services. This policy also tends to weaken traditional authority by emasculating its autonomy. Finally, and in this same vein of controlling all groups, the commissioners discussed ways of bringing the pygmy population under state control—what they called favoring "the systematic integration of the pygmies into the national life." 50 The rapidly expanding urban centers pose major uncertainties. The commission on cities discussed creating new ones and enhancing the control of existing ones. Issues discussed included improving the operation of the administration; controlling the urban influx; the vast housing and squatter problems; managing health, water, and power problems, which could lead to "the explosion of subversive movements";51 controlling restless and unemployed urban youth; and regulating local schools, especially the political content of instruction. Finally, the police commission dealt with the question of increasing central control of the collectivity police, which were characterized as unqualified, incompetent, poorly paid, and, above all, "supported by the chiefs of the local collectivities because of kinship ties that unite them." 52 In short, the collectivity police were beyond the control of the central state. The commission also decried the facts that there are too few national police and they are poorly equipped, trained, and disciplined. Finally, it wrestled with the problem of the often acrimonious relations between the territorial administration and the army, the gendarmery, and the CND. In 1973 the major national policy issues were increased agricultural production, the collectivity as the basic unit of development, and Salongo—"obligatory civic work," the resurrection of the colonial policy of corvée labor. More political topics dealt with reinforcing unity of command and the problem of too-frequent transfers of préfectoral personnel. Two important meetings of the regional commissioners were held in 1974. In the annual January meeting the major national policy concern was the decision to "Zairianize" the economy, which Mobutu had announced on November 30, 1973. The commissioners were urged to be extremely vigilant against those, mostly foreigners, who might attempt to sabotage this major change.

262

The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

Detailed measures for implementing the decision were discussed. Other national issues included reactivation of Salongo, creation of "popular granaries," regrouping of villages, regional economic planning, community development at the collectivity level, creation of a party school (the Makanda Kabobi Institute), and mobilization of the masses using mass popular meetings, seminars, study days, and dance (animation) groups. A task-environment group of particular concern to the assembled regime officials was the large and restless unemployed youth, especially in the cities. Viewed as a major source of uncertainty, the young under fifteen years of age already accounted for 40 percent of the population and would soon approach 50 percent. The major solution proposed was the reactivation of the "return to the land" program, in which many of the young would be forced to return to the rural areas where they would be engaged in large-scale agricultural activity. The main administrative focus of this meeting was the role of the territorial commissioners at all levels. Great emphasis was placed on unity of command, respect for the hierarchy, problems resulting from too-frequent rotation of agents, and the political order tasks of the commissioners. The last topic was of particular concern. One report of the meeting noted that the "territorial cadre must become an effective instrument of the authority of the State, an authority which cannot be contested. . . . The territorial agent is the primary official responsible for maintaining order. He must keep his superiors informed about the condition of the population." 53 In 1973 a separate legal status was created for territorial commissioners, which further set them apart from both the mass of subjects and other state personnel.54 It recognized the "old and legitimate aspiration of the territorial service to see its very special status recognized and stabilized by a special statute"55 and greatly reinforced the official subculture of the prefects. This statute and the functions of the commissioners were discussed in great detail, including the rules for assigning and transferring territorial agents with the emphasis on stability and not serving in one's home region. The tasks of the zone commissioners were analyzed in detail, especially control of the collectivities and local courts, road maintenance, agricultural production, inspections, contacts with the masses, and renewal of lapsed economic enterprises. A final major topic was the projected changes in collectivity organiza-

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tion and selection of chiefs incarnated in the administrative reform of January 1973. A second 1974 meeting was held in March. A special oneday meeting called by Mobutu himself, it illustrates three key aspects of the Zairian absolutist regime: Mobutu's personal power and control, his policy-making style, and one of the ways he controls his "royal servants." Mobutu called the regional commissioners to Kinshasa because he had suddenly decided on a national campaign for contributions to support the Léopards—the national soccer team. The state commissioner for political affairs informed the regional commissioners that "this operation for contributions is for the president a test of the mobilization and organization capabilities of the regions."56 In fact, it was a test of extractive capabilities. Minimum contribution rates were set by Kinshasa, and the collection was to be completed within five weeks. The commissioners asked for more time but were refused. The meeting was also used to clarify implementation measures for the Zairianization of the economy. After much criticism Mobutu announced that high state officials would not be able to acquire any Zairianized enterprises. The regional commissioners were informed of this "clarification" at the one-day meeting. However, three days later, in a secret meeting, they were told that Mobutu had decided to let the commissioners keep one of the enterprises they had already acquired. Mobutu's "royal servants" were overjoyed; their reaction reveals a good deal about the regime: At the announcement of this decision of the president-founder by the state commissioner for political affairs, all the regional commissioners applauded with great satisfaction. The joy was so great that one of the participants proposed to the state commissioner that he thank the president-founder in the name of all the regional commissioners for the magnanimous decision he had taken in their behalf. 57

The secret session dealt with other matters. The use of the "security" and "psychological" funds was discussed. The first is money the commissioners are to use to "maintain order and public tranquillity, in a word, to have in hand the inhabitants of their jurisdictions."58 Efforts to prevent the distribution of subversive tracts were mentioned as an example. The use of these funds must be justified afterward. This is not the case for monies in the "psy-

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chological" fund, which can be used at the discretion of the regional commissioner to aid individuals with grave difficulties or those who are particularly "deserving." It was also made clear to the commissioners that Mobutu was particularly concerned with road maintenance and the enforcement of the principle of unity of command. One final item reveals a great deal about the regime's priorities. This has to do with criteria for evaluating the performance of zone commissioners. The six criteria, listed in order of importance, were tax collection, road maintenance, agricultural production, the number of judgments in the police and zone courts, maintenance of order and public tranquillity, and maintenance of good relations with key task-environment groups (employers, teachers, and bishops were mentioned).59 Another productive way of examining the major problems and tasks of the prefects in the regions is to analyze the minutes of regular and special meetings held at the regional level and the annual reports submitted by the regions to the Department of Political Affairs in Kinshasa. Four types of meetings were analyzed: those of the Regional Committee, the Regional Security Committee, meetings of the Regional Commissioner or one of his assistants with the heads of the services operating in the region, and meetings of regional officials with representatives of task-environment groups such as businessmen or church leaders. Most of the examples come from the Kivu Region, although examples are also drawn from Bas-Zaire, Haut-Zaire, Kasai Occidental, and Kasai Oriental.60 In 1972 and 1973 the Kivu Regional Committee consisted of the regional commissioner and his two assistants, the regional director of the JMPR and his two assistants representing the Disciplinary Brigade and the working and unemployed youth, the four subregional commissioners, the regional director, president of the Court of First Instance, the regional attorney-general, the commander of the 5th Military Region, the regional commander of the National Gendarmery, the head of the regional Division of Political Affairs, and the regional secretary of UNTZa (the state federation of unions). Kivu is the Zairian equivalent of a French pays d'état in that its traditional authorities are more powerful, more autono-

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mous, and better organized than elsewhere in the country. Its taskenvironment groups are more contentious, security problems are greater, and there is more active and passive resistance to the regime. Order and security are thus major preoccupations for the regional commissioner and his assistants. Basic order was not reestablshed in Kivu until Bukavu (the regional capital) was taken from the rebels and mercenaries in 1967. As the 1968-69 annual report put it, "It was necessary to begin at zero." Much of the basic infrastructure had been destroyed, including almost all regional administrative records. But resistance did not fade away. In the northern section of the region some rebel activity was still being reported in 1969, what one report identified as "several recalcitrant and rebellious souls" in Beni, Lubero, Walikale, and Lubutu zones.61 In 1973 groups of rebels still operated in the mountains in the southeastern section of the region despite operations by the army (or because of them). The major areas of activity were the Kabambara Zone of the Maniema Subregion and the Fizi, Uvira, and Shabunda zones of the Sud-Kivu Subregion. A 1970 report noted that state agents were refusing to work in Kabambara Zone because of the rebellious activity "which must still be pacified from top to bottom."62 This rebel activity often caused internal migrations of groups to more peaceful areas. Such a massive evacuation of villagers was reported in two collectivities in Fizi Zone in September 1973. As a result of this resistance activity, there are still groups of villagers that are not under central control. The term often used for these rebels is "voyou"—these "hoodlums" who "still make peaceful citizens refuse to submit to established authority."63 These people who hide in the bush "have not yet realized the multiple benefits of the New Régime."64 In other regions outright rebellion was not a major problem, although there was a 1969 report of minor rebel activity at Ngombe in Kasai Oriental, and in 1971 thirty-eight rebels finally came out of the bush in Ubundu Zone of Haut-Zaire. Armed urban bandits and other forms of crime were a serious concern in the cities and towns of Kivu, especially Bukavu and Goma, and in the other regions as well. Smuggling was also a major problem. Gold and a wide variety of agricultural products were being smuggled into Rwanda and Burundi for sale, and then other goods (such as beer) were smuggled back into Zaire.

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Zairian currency was also being smuggled in and out of the country. The army, police, and state officials were often implicated in these activities, which made them even more difficult to control. Smuggling was also a problem for Bas-Zaire and Kasai Oriental. Other security and order concerns brought to the attention of Kivu officials included distribution of subversive tracts, prostitution, a strike in Beni Zone against foreign employers that threatened to turn into a real revolt, delays in the pay of many private and state workers which threatened unrest, illegal possession of arms, theft of valuable medicines sent from Kinshasa, the need for surveillance of foreigners, groups of rural bandits, a group of former Kivu officials who tried to form a second political party in 1969, the Corps de Protecteurs Internes, anonymous letters of seditious character, and even the fact that too much of the banana output was going to make Kasikisi, a local alcoholic beverage. A massive refugee problem also posed grave security concerns for Kivu, Haut-Zaire, Kasai Occidental, and Bas-Zaire. Finally, until 1974, Bas-Zaire officials had to cope with periodic attacks by Portuguese Angolan forces, and in 1971 there were a few minor border incidents in Haut-Zaire on the Sudan and Uganda frontiers. The army and the gendarmery themselves often pose serious problems, as does the Disciplinary Brigade of the JMPR, which assists the police. These agents of order are often of low quality and poorly trained, equipped, and disciplined. They frequently caused much of the local crime. Businessmen, truck drivers, peasants, and tourists all complain of harassment and shakedowns. However, regional authorities constantly complain that they do not have enough soldiers and police at their disposal. The bad relations that frequently exist between these groups usually result from the army, gendarmery, and C N D being unwilling to submit to the unity of command principle. For example, Kivu officials complained that the C N D was sending patently inaccurate information to Kinshasa. These problems were common to the other regions as well. Witness the following statement by the regional commissioner for Bas-Zaire made in August 1968: We note with regret that certain security agents, especially lower level ones, do not wish to submit to proper administrative authority under the

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pretext that they report to the central government. Certain of you do not hesitate to arbitrarily arrest local authorities with the sole aim of ridiculing them.65 Several major task-environment groups posed major constraints and contingencies for Kivu officials. Kivu has a massive refugee problem. First there are Zairian refugees who were displaced during the chaos of the 1960s. Many left the country and subsequently returned to Zaire. Then there are a large number of refugees in Zaire who fled from the turmoil in Burundi and Rwanda. The refugee problem in the zones of Nord-Kivu Subregion is a more long-standing one. There were three waves of refugees before independence, and one major one since independence. They are a particularly contentious group. In Masisi Zone, for example, they constitute about 85 percent of the population. They see themselves as the majority and often refuse to be controlled by either Zairian officials or local traditional authorities. The African Catholic clergy is mostly Rwandan, and the language of instruction in some local schools is Kinyarwanda. Both of these facts disturb Zairian officials. In Sud-Kivu Subregion, the refugee problem is particularly severe. In addition to the large number of people from Burundi and repatriated Zairians, there is the widespread destruction of the area's infrastructure caused by the fighting in the mid-1960s. The continuing rebel activity in the region aggravates these problems. Regional authorities constantly stress the need for an accurate census of the refugees and for controls on their movement. A whole host of social problems must also be dealt with—food, housing, health care, education for the children, and productive work. Many of the refugees are cared for by the churches and the missions, but this assistance is far from adequate. The absolutist regime is well aware of the potential political dangers posed by the refugees. As a result, in August 1972, Mobutu created an organization called Action Kusaidia (AKU) to ameliorate the refugee situation in Sud-Kivu, particularly in the zones of Fizi and Uvira. AKU was a direct reflection of Mobutu's personal power. It was attached directly to the Office of the President, and in 1975 it was headed by General Babia, who was then chef du cabinet of the President's Office. On a day-to-day basis it

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was run by two Americans and received a good deal of foreign and international assistance.66 AKU did not, as a matter of principle, work through the regional administration, but it received full cooperation from regional officials at all levels because of its attachment to the Presidency. AKU is a key example of how major national contingencies are handled by the regime. When anything of major importance needs to be dealt with efficiently and with dispatch, initiative and direction must come directly from the Presidency. Such an approach provides instant compliance, resources, the best personnel, and full administrative cooperation. AKU was a direct extension of Mobutu's patriarchal patrimonial power. AKU started out by resettling about fifty-five refugees in the small plain that runs from Kamanyola through Uvira and Baraka to Fizi along the shore of Lake Tanganyika. It then branched out into a whole host of infrastructure construction projects, which included schools, wells, bridges, roads, stores (pharmacies, bakeries, etc.), a bank, dispensaries, brick-making facilities, and administrative buildings. A high percentage of these projects were military-related, however—dozens of bridges, road construction and paving, a frontier post, a police training center, an army officers' mess, an army dispensary, a police headquarters, an army headquarters, and an airport. AKU also extended its activities into economic development and planning projects and had plans to spread its activities south into Shaba Region and north to Lake Kivu. In other words, AKU sought to become a sort of regional development organization.67 Other regions also have refugee problems. In 1971 HautZaire had over eleven thousand refugees from fighting in the Sudan, and in Kasai Occidental there were problems with large numbers of disaffected Chokwe who crossed back and forth between Angola and Zaire. Bas-Zaire has had a severe refugee problem with the Bakongo from Angola, who fled to the region to live and fight the Portuguese. By 1973 they numbered over 250,000 and posed numerous problems for regional officials, but not of the same political severity as in Kivu because of the good relations that existed between UNITA (one of the Angolan guerrilla groups) and Mobutu's regime. Other important task-environment groups that pose con-

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straints and contingencies for regional officials include businessmen (both resident foreigners and Zairians), traditional authorities, unemployed urban youth, teachers, and "idle" peasants. The churches are a particular problem for Kivu officials, especially the substance of instruction in church schools. It must be "ideologically" correct. All schools must be registered. In 1972 regional officials suppressed a private (i.e., nonstate, nonchurch) school because it was not officially recognized. Also in 1972, regional officials had to implement Mobutu's decision abolishing all church youth organizations and incorporating them into the JMPR. All other church or religious organizations must be officially recognized and registered. Regional officials have trouble coping with the many new religious sects or churches that crop up. Any group that is beyond the control of the state is of particular concern. Two interesting examples come from Haut-Zaire in 1971. The regional commissioner sent a special mission to Bafwasende Zone in Tshopo Subregion to try and bring two groups out of the forest where they were living beyond state control. The mission was able to bring out 145 Idomists (a religious sect like the Jehovah's Witnesses). Some remained in the forest, however. The other was a local group of forest cultivators, the Malende. Some of them were brought out. The Chokwe problem in Kasai Occidental is similar in that their disaffection leads them to move periodically into Angola: "the population finds it difficult to endure the presence of state authorities and the least panic provokes their departure for Angola." 68 Because of these movements the Chokwe had severe food, medical, and social problems. Many of these people had connections with the Mulele uprisings in the 1960s. Regional officials carefully investigated this problem and sent reports to Kinshasa, which established an amnesty and refugee committee to deal with the situation. Among other things the commission conducted a "psychological" campaign to pacify the Chokwe. The Katanga gendarmes are a somewhat similar group that created two grave crises for the regime with their invasions of Shaba Region in 1977 and 1978. The ongoing rural exodus, the level and availability of health care in both the urban and rural areas, and complaints about fetishism and witchcraft are three other special task-environment

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problems that preoccupy regional authorities. To cope with the rural exodus, the regions have tried to reinstitute colonial measures of population control, including sending irreguliers back to the rural areas, all without much success. With respect to health care, fraud and smuggling of medicines leave many areas without badly needed drugs for long periods of time. Epidemic diseases are another worry. Lastly, fetishism and witchcraft seem to pervade many aspects of regional life in subtle ways that are difficult to manage. Economic concerns are a major preoccupation of prefects in the regions. Kivu officials met frequently with local businessmen, both resident foreigners and Zairians. The most common topics were the unavailability of products locally, import problems, the poor performance of local enterprises, price controls, blackmarket activity and smuggling, supplying food to refugees, complaints of political interference, harassment by the army and the police, tensions between local and resident-foreign businessmen, and sending local produce to Kinshasa by air. Regional officials have the power to set maximum prices for any product. It is an attempt to control the cost of living, but it results in poor availability of some products, blackmarket activities, and smuggling. Many businesses were simply ignoring official prices and would only accept cash for state purchases. Other economic problems included low agricultural production, high unemployment, reestablishing the Vitshumbi fish cooperative in Nord-Kivu and other large-scale economic enterprises, administering forced cultivation of cotton and other crops, transporting crops to markets, assuring the purchase by state agencies of export crops, and air flights of Nord-Kivu produce to the needy Kinshasa market. The central regime is always making heavy demands on regional officials in terms of new national policies and constant special requests. The following are a few examples from Kivu for the 1972-73 period: explaining the Zairianization measures to the population, changing over from colonial place-names to "authentic" Zairian ones, selling and issuing new identification cards to all "citizens," inventorying all state-owned or rented houses in the region, and assisting a visiting professor from Kinshasa who was collecting basic data for economic planning. Regional prefects also have numerous domain consensus

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responsibilities, foremost of which is implanting the party and spreading its doctrine to staff and subjects alike. The party had "difficult beginnings in Kivu," 69 and minimal success was achieved only when the traditional authorities agreed to play along. Domain consensus duties include holding mass meetings to explain new policies and party doctrine, meeting with key task environment groups to do the same, erecting party monuments, creating and supervising animation groups, teaching party doctrine and slogans to state personnel in ideological seminars, and urging the population to "demask counterrevolutionaries." For example, on June 20, 1972, the Kivu regional commissioner held a meeting with all major state personnel in Bukavu to discuss the resolutions of the first party congress held in May and a recent speech by Mobutu on nationalism, discipline, professionalism, national grandeur, and authenticity. On the subject of discipline the regional commissioner noted that "only anarchy and chaos are reaped without discipline. It is necessary to have respect and obedience for only one chief as in our villages where there is only one chief who governs." 70 In February 1975 the Kivu regional commissioner held a series of public meetings in Nord-Kivu to explain recent policy changes announced by Mobutu, especially those dealing with education. Meeting with teachers and students in Rutshuru Zone, he "warned opportunists and rumor mongers who, in order to undermine the work of the Guide, misinterpret the recent salutory decisions taken by the Political Bureau for the welfare of the youth of Zaire." In a meeting with religious school teachers, nuns, priests (foreign and Zairian), and students in Goma, he explained the decision to suppress all religious instruction in the schools and defined "our doctrine of Mobutuism as the consummation of the work of the Guide who knew how to rehabilitate in record time our people who had previously been abandoned to themselves." After answering many questions, the commissioner taught the students a slogan: "The discipline of the MPR must be accepted conscientiously, without discussion or conditions." 71 Later, in a meeting with the socioeconomic elite of Goma, the regional commissioner answered questions about state policy concerning the dearth of manufactured goods in local stores, smuggling and monetary fraud, crime and public lighting, the re-

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establishment of sporting activity, an uncompleted hospital, and recent changes in Zairianization policies. In his remarks, the commissioner noted the existence of a Catholic catechist group called the "Légionnaires," which went from house to house spreading the faith, but which also misinterpreted and ridiculed Mobutu's pol icies. He stated that, "at the time when the Guide has unleashed a struggle against the mental alienation of his people, no group can be allowed to exist which, under the cover of religion, seeks to falsely indoctrinate our people."72 That is a job for the territorial prefects at all levels, he said. The major task-environment problem of the regional commissioners is controlling local particularism and the power of traditional authorities. This is particularly so in Kivu, where strong and autonomous chiefs control small patrimonial states. In 1969 regional officials noted: The population of Kivu operates under the orders of the great traditional chiefs, the Bami. Almost all of the region constitutes a real feudal structure. The population is under traditional authority that it considers greater than that of the agents of the State.73

This is the case throughout the region, but particularly so in Masisi, Rutshuru, Walikale, Kabare, Walungu, and Kalehe zones. There are areas of the region "above all in the distant hills where the authority of the state does not reach for several reasons."74 The power of traditional authorities and local particularism is slowly emasculated using the coverover strategy: "traditional authority disappears progressively."75 Regional officials spend a good deal of time attempting to discipline collectivity chiefs, settling disputes over traditional succession, land, and boundaries between traditional localities, and supervising traditional courts and collectivity finances, both of which are often in a state of chaos. "Clandestine courts" often exist as a way of avoiding state-controlled or supervised courts, and the commissioners exert considerable energy trying to suppress them. The collection of the head tax (CPM) frequently does not reach 50 percent of desired levels. A variety of structural problems confronts regional officials. In Kivu in 1972 and 1973, regional prefects worked on new boundaries for Bukavu and proposals for new towns, collectivi-

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ties, and villages under the policy of regroupment. In 1969 a border dispute between the two Kasai regions erupted because two traditional localities were divided by the regional boundary, hindering the exercise of the traditional authority of two local chiefs. The dispute was settled in favor of Kasai Oriental by a special commission composed of the two regional commissioners and an inspector from Kinshasa. The constant shortage of state agents and zone commissioners also preoccupied regional officials. Infrastructure concerns are multiple and endemic, especially roads, bridges, and ferries. As the 1971 annual report for Kasai Occidental put it, "the roads are in a state of general abandon and thus communication has become more difficult." 7 6 Kivu officials were also concerned about air and water transportation and telephone and telegraph communications. Roads were frequently so bad and vehicles and spare parts so scarce that inspections could not be conducted regularly and agricultural output could not be shipped to market. These problems affect all regions. Infrastructure difficulties can be as small but as aggravating as communications operators who regularly show up for work drunk. As the regional commissioner for Bas-Zaire wrote in 1968, these difficulties can affect how the subjects view their rulers: "Before independence each territorial agent had a rapid means of transportation. Now territorial agents go on foot or resort to assistance from private businesses to obtain transportation. This diminishes their prestige in the eyes of the public." 7 7 By 1973 regional commissioners were asking for helicopters! Staff control is one of the principal organizational concerns of regional prefects and one that consumes a great deal of their precious time. Examples of errant behavior abound: the Kivu assistant subregional commissioner who misused a CND stamp on a letter to Mobutu and wrote a series of unauthorized articles for }ua, the regional newspaper; zone personnel in Kivu's Uvira Zone who extorted goods and money from individuals and imposed overly high or illegal taxes; state agents illegally collecting party dues and issuing phony receipts; customs officials implicated in widespread smuggling, extortion, and embezzlement; and officials misusing state vehicles, especially at night. This kind of behavior is also endemic to all regions. The financial corruption became so massive in Kananga in 1971 that the administration of

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the city practically collapsed. Officials were arrested (a relatively uncommon event), and the region took over direct administration of the city. Corruption became so widespread among customs officials in Bukavu that the regional commissioner had to call them all together in October 1972. Warning those who "seek to throw themselves into the fire," he listed the major abuses and then announced strict new sanctions. In closing he said: "This is what I expect from you: party discipline before corruption." 78 In addition to blatant errant behavior, poor relations often exist between officials. Several inspection reports dealt specifically with poor personal and work relations between a couple of subregional commissioners and their assistants and zone commissioners. Poor relations also existed between territorial administrative officials and regional judicial authorities.79 The judicial authorities were harassing certain territorial agents by having them arrested. A well-developed institution that constantly aggravates high administrative officials is the phenomenon of "anonymous letters." It is an organized form of staff in-fighting in which unsigned letters are sent to superiors criticizing the performance of a colleague or even a superior. Of course there are also the normal headaches of personnel management: training, evaluation, assignment, promotion, and transfer. These tasks are made both easier and more difficult because of the highly personal nature of the administrative apparatus. Although some bureaucratic patterns appear to be taking hold, patrimonial characteristics still predominate. Two nettlesome problems were the task of deregionalizing the administration and the question of incompetent state agents, especially at the zone level. A fair number of zone officials simply do not fulfill their duties. They do not adequately supervise the collection of the head tax, are slow to supply reports and answer correspondence, fail to conduct inspections, go beyond their powers, do not follow the instructions of superiors or misinterpret them, and so on. The exercise of deviant discretion is a major problem. A few examples from Bas-Zaire will suffice. In a December 1974 letter, the acting regional commissioner chastised the subregional commissioner of Cataractes Subregion for several things mentioned in his monthly report for June: proper population controls were not being applied, key crime statistics were not re-

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ported, insufficient Salongo data were being supplied, and zone and collectivity personnel were lax in implementing various laws. He concluded by saying: "[l]t is quite natural that the militants ["citizens" or subjects] are not particularly concerned about observing the laws when the authorities of the zones and collectivities are themselves disinterested or make little effort to apply these laws." 8 0 In a letter dated March 12, 1974, the regional director, writing on behalf of the regional commissioner, castigated the zone commissioner for Tshela for things he had included in a regular report to his subregional commissioner, a copy of which had been forwarded to Matadi (the regional capital). The zone commissioner had not followed proper procedure in supervising the collection of the head tax and was also illegally taxing some women. He had been allowing disreputable men into the zone JMPR organization, and he had not yet set the official local price for bananas. In March 1973, a regional official informed the zone commissioner for Seke-Banza that he had improperly set the amount of a bicycle tax that one of the local collectivities wanted to establish. The amount of a bicycle tax had been established by the Executive Council and could not be altered. The zone commissioner was also reminded that bicycle-tax money had to appear in the collectivity's budgetary proposal for the upcoming year.8' Lastly, regional officials have to cope with all sorts of contingencies, both administrative and natural, including such irregular events as political celebrations, occasional elections (plebiscites actually), censuses, animation festivals, ideological seminars, presidential and ministerial visits, landslides, floods, epidemics, strikes, and uprisings. To deal with this vast number of tasks and problems, regional prefects can exercise extensive, but controlled, personal discretion. Their decision-making powers, formal and informal, are broad in terms of both implementing central decisions and coping with local problems. Daily they make a whole host of administrative decisions in the form of instructions to subordinates, but they also have formal powers of decision that carry the force of law. For example, on November 30, 1970, the regional commissioner for Bas-Zaire issued a decision (arrêté) forbidding Zairians and Angolan refugees to cross the border with Angola to hunt or

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farm because such activities had provoked attacks by Portuguese troops on Zairian border villages. O n April 20, 1973, he issued an order regulating the purchase of all agricultural products in BasZaire; the same year he decided to close all bars between the hours of 6 A.M. and 6 P.M. in order to discourage "idleness and debauchery" and to favor a "spirit of work." 8 2 Thus, the tasks and responsibilities of the regional commissioners are enormous and reflect the nature of the complex and contentious task environment and the obdurate administrative apparatus. These highly political prefects are Mobutu's direct representatives and principal links between the I- and M-levels of the absolutist state. From the regional level we now turn to the dayto-day activities of the Zairian state at the subregion and zone levels. Here beats the heart of the early modern state, and here the everyday patterns of absolutist domination are most clearly revealed.

6. The Daily Tasks of Zairian Absolutism: Two Subregions

r

o examine more closely the functioning of the absolutist state, we now turn our attention to two specific subregions—the Cataractes Subregion of Bas-Zaire and the Nord-Kivu Subregion of Kivu. The focus will be on tasks of political order, control of key societal group», extraction, the search for compliance with the regime's policies, and staff control, which are at the heart of Zairian absolutism.1

Order and Political Control Our masses must understand that if every person does what pleases him and seeks to satisfy his ambition, anarchy will be the inevitable result.2

In this one sentence Mobutu captures the major thrust of his absolutist state—order and control. After the severe crisis of the first five years of independence, order and control have remained the top priorities of the regime. The state of emergency declared at the time of the coup d'état was lifted for all areas of the country except Kivu and Haut-Zaire in July 1967. But, as the minister of interior warned: "The enemy is still within our walls and the danger remains." He urged constant vigilance and, in an

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interesting aside, commented that state personnel must prove to the world that the country "is a Congo [Zaire] of order, security, and discipline." 3 The prefects in the two subregions under consideration incessantly exhort their subjects to be vigilant in the search for "antirevolutionary" persons or groups. After listening passively, the subjects usually go about their own business for, after all, the struggle is with the state itself. Explicitly subversive movements or tendencies receive top priority. Such activity has been more apparent in Nord-Kivu than in the Cataractes Subregion. One subregional commissioner stressed to his staff that, "The authority of the State cannot be contested; it does not defer to any group whatever its interests or opinions." In late 1972 army units were still attempting to eradicate the last remnants of opposition to the new regime in the Walikale Zone of Nord-Kivu Subregion. The zone commissioner observed that "the population of Walikale zone, more precisely the operational zone of Wassa, has been greatly contaminated by the mulelist rebellion." Assassinations, kidnappings, and human sacrifices were still being practiced according to administrative and military officials. About the same time, four "antirevolutionary" men were arrested for opposition activity in Beni Zone, interrogated by the CND, and turned over to authorities for prosecution. "Dangerous" groups were infiltrating local units of the JMPR. Subregional officials also constantly watched "the subversive movement called 'Kanyarwanda,' " an opposition group active among the large Rwandan refugee population in Nord-Kivu, particularly in Masisi Zone where the refugees outnumber the Zairians.4 Although Bas-Zaire does not have a history of armed opposition to the central government as Kivu does, officials of the Cataractes Subregion do have resistance activity to worry about. Although less overt or dangerous, opposition sentiment clearly exists. Bakongo regionalism still manifests itself occasionally. Loyalty to their great Bakongo party, Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), lies just under the surface. Regional officials worry that opposition to Kinshasa now hides behind the numerous new "religious" movements that have sprung up. In other words, resistance now takes the same form it did before independence. After the creation of the MPR in 1967, ABAKO-related in-

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cidents occurred with some regularity, at least through 1973.5 In December 1967 several men were arrested in Kintanu for clandestinely selling ABAKO party cards. In 1968 the subregion administration launched an intensive investigation of the reemergence of a local ABAKO party section in Madimba Zone directed by a local clerk. The subregional commissioner was particularly worried that "agricultural activities would be seriously compromised as a result of a campaign of insubordination and disobedience." Individuals were periodically arrested for carrying ABAKO cards, even if they dated from the preindependence period. In August 1969 the subregional commissioner reminded a secret police official that "we have only one party. The masses must be revolutionized in order to weaken the spirit of the former parties and put an end to any equivocation." In April 1971 the problem still existed, and the minister of interior ordered the regional commissioner to undertake "a vast propaganda effort to explain the invalidity of ABAKO cards." The local population was to be given one last chance to turn in their cards. Those who failed to do so would be subject to "draconian measures." Later that year the CND arrested a village chief in Boko Collectivity (Mbanza-Ngungu Zone) for wearing a shirt with the ABAKO party symbol on it during the sixth anniversary celebrations of Mobutu's coup d'état. The collectivity chief was also arrested for having permitted such activity. In June 1973 a man was arrested in the collectivity for having an ABAKO card in his house.6 All political meetings held in secret or not sanctioned by the administration are illegal. The prefects are constantly on alert for what they call "illicit or clandestine political meetings." Most of these secret meetings have to do with conflicts between traditional authorities at the village and collectivity levels or between these and the administration of the absolutist state that is trying slowly to weaken their power. But, as late as 1968, some meetings were organized by politicians from the pre-Mobutu era.7 Sentiments of regionalism or local particularism are displayed in a variety of other ways, such as boycotting or attempting to sabotage regime celebrations and meetings or openly disagreeing with pronouncements of regime officials. An example of the latter took place in the town of Kintanu in May 1972. In a

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popular meeting the regional commissioner had ordered the destruction of two monuments. A local electrician who worked for the state voiced his opposition to this order: The governor and the authorities who represent him are strangers here; no matter what they think, they have no right to dictate orders here. As a man of the region I have land here, and I am going to do whatever I want. The destruction of these two monuments interests only the government. The officials who come from elsewhere wish to take our lands.8

The police report indicated that other influential local people felt the same way and often held secret meetings. Another common form of regional opposition is the practice of sending anonymous letters to administrative officials protesting a wide variety of things. For months in 1971, officials at all levels in Bas-Zaire received anonymous letters complaining about the behavior of state agents, especially those who did not come from Bas-Zaire. In early 1971 the police finally discovered that the letters were coming from a local parish priest. The population is constantly warned to be on guard against "antirevolutionary" tracts that circulate in the villages and towns. These tracts often list a whole series of specific abuses and complaints against state agents.9 Subregional prefects must also cope with the possibility of more overt and violent opposition. In February 1974 the zone commissioner for Kimvula warned the subregional commissioner by cable that he feared an uprising was imminent because of arbitrary arrests and widespread abuse by the gendarmery. Subregional officials in Nord-Kivu warned of a similar possibility in early 1973 because of poor administration of the coffee crop purchase program by the National Coffee Office. Underground cables and telephone lines were sabotaged twice in 1974 in Mbanza-Ngungu Zone of the Cataractes Subregion. Several underground tracts included threats to sabotage the railroad or the ports of Matadi and Boma. The railroad was the object of periodic attempts at sabotage.10 The prefects themselves have been the objects of violent attacks. Many of them and their families receive threats and their houses and property are frequently targets for armed robbers. Until 1973 they were provided police bodyguards and watchmen for

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their offices and houses. Since 1973 this task has been taken up by the JMPR. The deeply rooted regionalism and local particularism of the Cataractes Subregion is reflected in the attitude of the population toward the administration and the forces of order—the army, gendarmery/police, and CND. All are viewed as an occupying force. Speaking of the people of Luozi Zone, the local prefect observed that they "advertise their distrust of any official not from the zone." One result is that the population "has little interest in obeying the laws." But, as in seventeenth-century France, local particularism has another side—one local village or region can have disputes with another village or region that are just as intense as those with the penetrating central state. It is all a question of the level of identity at which the conflict takes place. Disputes between traditional authorities and groups in both subregions pose serious contingencies for the prefects. As late as 1975, a Cataractes official stated that "the spirit of separatism still reigns here, hate, jealousy and tribalism abound." Revolving most often around land and traditional power issues, these intense disputes often go on for decades and may occasionally "lead the population to armed conflict." Thus, one of the major order and control tasks of the prefects is to "put a definitive end to the traditional disputes which spill so much ink." Cataractes officials have a particular problem because their local disputes are often aggravated by the intervention of former residents of the area now residing in Kinshasa who drag national officials directly into a conflict. This is one of the many problems of being close to the capital.11 Another phenomenon that illustrates the tenacity of local particularism was reported in Bas-Zaire in 1973. The C N D notified the Department of Political Affairs that some village chiefs were conducting traditional or clan censuses to determine who the "strangers" were. These "strangers" did not have a traditional right to land and thus were asked to leave. Political Affairs labeled this practice contrary to the "principles of our Revolution which declared war against tribalism" and demanded a full investigation.12 Sorcery and fetishism are additional sources of uncertainty related to local particularism. A wide variety of superstitious practices poses a threat to order and stability because they stir up tur-

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moil in local populations. In 1973 the Cataractes subregional commissioner reminded his zone commissioners that "sorcery is a shameful practice." One zone comissioner called people who stir up his population with these practices "these occult malefactors." But not all the prefects are so adverse to these practices. The subregional commissioner severely criticized the Kimvula zone commissioner in 1974 for having officially sanctioned and recognized the activities of a local fetisher in Lula-Lumene. The more common administrative response is to arrest and expel sorcerers and fetishers from the local area when they are disturbing the peace. Such was the case with a "prophet" Munzemba in the collectivity of Gombe-Sud (Mbanza-Ngungu Zone) in 1968. Dealing with these problems often proves difficult because of conflicts between state and local traditional courts about how these matters should be treated. The most common forms of sorcery and fetishism in Bas-Zaire are known as kindoki and nkisi. Hommes crocodiles—individuals who supposedly transform themselves into crocodiles and menace people—are another manifestation of the political impact of the supernatural. Their supposed existence was quite a problem in Luozi in 1974, and the zone commissioner noted that "the population desires the expulsion of all men suspected of being hommes crocodiles." Such suspicions and beliefs can easily stir up a local population and pose problems for the prefects. A similar phenomenon exists in Kivu, where the individuals are called hommes léopards.13 Control of population movements is a chief concern of the administration. In both subregions the principal problems are the large number of refugees residing legally or illegally in the area, the exodus from the rural areas to the towns, and the comings and goings of foreigners, especially whites. All population movements are supposed to be monitored by the zones and reported to higher authorities. The constant struggle against vagrancy and begging is related to the population movements. Groups of vagrants often turn into organized bands of thieves. Major task-environment groups are also sources of uncertainty for the absolutist administration. Some of the important ones, such as the unions, the youth movements and the press, have been integrated directly into the state-party apparatus. The prefects and forces of order spend considerable time monitoring the activities

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of important groups that have not been directly integrated into the party such as teachers, businessmen, missionaries and other foreigners, refugees, the churches, and "social and cultural" organizations. The latter two are of particular concern because the administration sees them as fronts for opposition groups. In a letter to all his prefects in August 1970, the regional commissioner for Bas-Zaire expressed concern about the recent appearance of several new organizations. He warned that antiregime individuals often hide "behind the social character of these associations" and reminded them that no organization could operate in the region without his accord—clearly an organic-statist view of state-society relations.14 The prefects also confront a host of serious security problems. Crime in both subregions is endemic, especially banditry and armed robbery. Fed by the problems of the rural exodus, urban crowding, unemployment, and opposition to the absolutist regime, organized groups of bandits have operated widely in both Cataractes and Nord-Kivu subregions. For example, in February 1973, the Cataractes subregional commissioner complained about a "band of bandits that terrorizes the subregion." And in July 1968, the zone commissioner for Mbanza-Ngungu remarked "with indignation that armed bandits operate widely in the towns and the hinterland of our territories."15 The banditry problem caused great unrest and fear among the people and great uncertainty for the prefects. According to the prefects, the bandits often come from outside their jurisdictions—from Kinshasa for Cataractes and from Rwanda for Nord-Kivu. The problem affects just about everyone—missions, businesses large and small, state offices and houses, foreigners, travelers, residents of large towns and the smallest villages, peasants, and workers. That some of this banditry is related to the effects of exploitation and to political opposition is indicated by a 1974 confidential letter ("The Maintenance of Public Order") from the Cataractes subregional commissioner to the local head of the gendarmery. Based on information from the three previous years assembled by the subregion security commission, most of the local robberies and other crimes were committed during four main periods: the month of January, major national holiday celebrations (May 20, June 30, and November 24), Mobutu's trips out of the country, and the first few weeks of the school year.16

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Much of this crime is committed by the absolutist occupying forces—the army and the gendarmery. Smuggling is a problem for both subregions, but especially for Nord-Kivu. Some smuggling does take place in Cataractes across both the Angola and Congo borders. For example, the C N D reported in May 1970 that a village chief on the Congo border was aiding a smuggling operation, including helping illegal immigrants, and was storing munitions in his house. Nord-Kivu, however, has a severe smuggling problem. Almost everything produced or sold in Nord-Kivu is smuggled into Rwanda and Uganda: coffee, vegetables, palm oil, gold, papaya latex (papaine), cattle and goat skins, and small merchandise of all kinds. Almost all groups have been involved at one time or another: police/gendarmery, army, JMPR, state agents, traditional authorities, Zairian and foreign local businessmen, and peasants. Local prefects have great difficulty controlling this massive form of economic fraud.17

Methods of Control The foremost principle of control is the constant surveillance of the task environment. Each level of the administrative hierarchy— region, subregion, zone and detached posts, collectivities, and localities—further breaks down the task environment into more homogeneous units for closer observation. The lower units have fewer constraints and contingencies to deal with than those above them. Vigilance is the watchword of the Zairian absolutist state. Reporting mechanisms and agents are multiple, but coordinated under the principle of unity of command. The prefects are constantly exhorted to follow closely all activity in their jurisdictions and to visit regularly all sections of their units. Speaking to his zone officials in 1973, the Cataractes subregional commissioner declared that you "cannot abandon any corner of your zone under the pretext that the road is not good. I expect your presence to be felt everywhere in your zones." 18 This dictum applies equally for the other surveillance and control agents: the police/gendarmery, the army, the C N D , and the JMPR. Each of these agencies submits

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daily and monthly reports to the region administrations, usually by telephone or telegraph, although much of the CND's reporting is transmitted directly to Kinshasa. Like the regions, the subregions have security committees made up of all the subregional and zone prefects, and representatives of the army, the police/gendarmery, the C N D , the prosecutor's office, and often the JMPR. Regular monthly administrative meetings are used to discuss order and control questions. Frequent formal and informal contact is also maintained between the various control agents via administrative correspondence and personal contact. Elaborate measures of population control exist which seek to increase the state's power over its subjects. Every Zairian must constantly carry an identification card. It is the principal instrument of population control. To increase its control capabilities, the regime decided in 1972 to issue new ID cards, which would include "all information useful in facilitating administrative control in various domains." 19 These "citizen" cards must be purchased. They were first distributed in early 1973. Because theft of the new cards became a real problem, central officials had to take strict control measures in distributing them. Zairian administrative and security personnel constantly check the ID cards of their subjects. If there is some irregularity, the person can be arrested or be forced to pay a "fine." Harassment over these cards is a pervasive source of uncertainty for the population. Another form of population control is the reporting of all population movements by the prefects and their staff. Particular attention is paid to the movements of foreigners. An additional tool of population control is the census. Census and population movement data are collected by a network of civil registry offices in each zone. The government also has a policy of regrouping villages. Administrative and security surveillance are greatly facilitated. The policy has encountered grave difficulties, however, and is periodically suspended.20 The regime spends considerable time and resources attempting to stem the rural exodus into the towns and cities. In an attempt to slow this massive flow, it announced in 1975 that it was establishing a permit control system that would regulate the influx of the rural population to the cities and prevent rural villagers from staying on. Although the regime did not openly admit

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it, the announced measures are almost identical to those imposed by the Belgian colonial state in 1933. Even the forms are identical. Prior to 1975, the administration periodically rounded up vagabonds and the unemployed and returned them to their regions of origin. Bas-Zaire has a particular problem with Kinshasa youth who come into the region and create security problems. These young people are rounded up and sent back to Kinshasa. The same principle applies to criminals. The gendarmery is the principal security tool at the disposal of the prefects. They constantly complain that they need more gendarmes and that the ones they have are poorly equipped and badly disciplined. Because of insufficient transport, the gendarmes are often of little use in emergencies. The prefects can requisition the use of the gendarmery for a wide variety of tasks in addition to its routine security and patrol activities. For example, commissioners from the two subregions have requisitioned gendarmes for the following tasks: to control land disputes between various clans and town factions in Mbanza-Ngungu Zone in late 1970 and early 1971; to enforce a decision to remove a corral so that a dispensary could safely be built in Kivula Collectivity, Mbanza-Ngungu Zone, in September 1973; to maintain order in the Mbanza-Ngungu Zone court in early 1975; to help collect the CPM and other taxes in the town of Mbanza-Ngungu in December 1974; to guard the guest house of a visiting Chinese vice-minister of agriculture in August 1973; to guard administrative offices and commissioners' houses; to guard businesses recently "Zairianized" in Cataractes Subregion in February 1974 to prevent damage and theft until the new owners (many of them local administrative officials) could take over their new benefices; to protect foreign teachers from bandits in Gombe-Matadi, Mbanza-Ngungu Zone, in September 1973; to search for bandits; to guard the railroad and ports of Matadi and Boma in response to a tract threatening sabotage in June and July 1969; to transport prisoners in Walikale Zone, Nord-Kivu, in December 1972; and to help control the widespread smuggling in Nord-Kivu during the period 1971-74. 2 ' The gendarmery uses a variety of measures to assure order and security, including roving patrols, fixed surveillance posts, road blocks, checks of identification cards, and encirclement and dragnet maneuvers called ratissages. These activities are frequently

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carried out in collaboration with the Disciplinary Brigade of the JMPR. For example, in early 1973 the Cataractes Subregion suffered from a wave of banditry, murder, armed robbery, and disorder, which included widespread attacks on Europeans, including several murders. The Subregion Committee met in extraordinary session on January 29, 1973, and ordered the gendarmery to undertake special measures. In conjunction with the JMPR and the C N D and with the logistical assistance of the Presidency, the local gendarmery proceeded to conduct mobile patrols, establish barricades on the roads and control posts in towns and villages to seek out the bandits, carry out a number of ratissages, and assign guards for Europeans living in twenty isolated spots. Daily reports were to be sent to Mbanza-Ngungu and Kinshasa. Similar operations were carried out in June and December 1974.22 The ratissage is a major control and extraction tool of the Zairian absolutist state. On May 27, 1973, for example, a major ratissage was conducted as a joint operation by the army and the gendarmery in two collectivities in Mbanza-Ngungu Zone—KwiluNgongo and Lufu-Toto. It was supervised jointly by one of the assistant subregional commissioners and the local commanders of the army and gendarmery. On May 24 the gendarmery commander secretly visited the two collectivities to reconnoiter and establish a plan of action. On May 26 the assistant subregional commissioner and one of the assistant zone commissioners for Mbanza-Ngungu visited the officials of the two collectivities to inform them secretly about the ratissage; the same was done with the heads of the local sugar works. They too were sworn to secrecy. It now being late at night, the two commissioners returned to the Kwilu-Ngongo collectivity guest house to wait. About 1 A.M. troops and gendarmes started to arrive in trucks. As they arrived they were distributed to various assembly points. The ratissage began at about 6 A.M. The troops and gendarmes moved systematically from house to house, street to street, from one locale to another, demanding people to "present their identification cards in order to see if they had paid their taxes and fulfilled other requirements." Both collectivities were completely shut down; nothing functioned normally. All businesses and offices were closed, and the local outdoor market was put out of operation. Above all they were looking for irreguliers—those who

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had not fulfilled all of their "civic" duties. According to the subregional commissioner, the operation took place with complete discipline and total calm. In Kwilu-Ngongo, 439 people were rounded up, 174 in Lufu-Toto, for a total of 613. A sizable number were "Angolans." All of the detained were trucked to administrative offices for sorting and processing. The "irregularity" for each detainee was determined by administrative officials. Most of these irreguliers fulfilled their "obligations" by buying the ID card or paying the head tax (CPM) and other taxes and fines. Some had not paid their taxes since 1968 or 1969, and about fifty had no piece of identity at all. The ratissage is clearly an extractive measure. A total of 1,393 Zaires was collected, 470 Zaires in Lufu-Toto and 923 Zaires in Kwilu-Ngongo. This came from the purchase of ID cards, payment of the CPM, an identification tax, other local taxes, and fines for various "infractions." After this process had run its course, the forty-two people who remained were arrested "because they seemed suspicious to us." Two escaped prisoners were returned to prison. The subregional commissioner observed that the ratissage "took place under our direct supervision and to our very great satisfaction." He did find two dark clouds, however. The local judicial police officer manifested an "indifferent attitude" by not showing up at all until 6 P.M., and then he showed up drunk and quickly disappeared again. Most likely a local man, he did not want to be identified with this exploitative operation against "his" people. He presumably got drunk because he knew he would be punished by his supervisors for not participating. The commissioners, army and police commanders, troops, and gendarmes were probably not from Bas-Zaire. This is a classic example of the man caught between the strong pressures and attachments of local particularism and the demands of a consolidating state. The second dark cloud had to do with the ability to maintain permanent control after the ratissage, particularly for Lufu-Toto. The subregional commissioner noted that the collectivity had only five gendarmes attached to it, and, given the importance of the collectivity, the number "is plainly insufficient; it is high time we reinforced it." 23 That is an official version of a ratissage. Let us now look at

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an unofficial version of a ratissage by a victim of one. It was held a week earlier (May 6, 1973) in the town and collectivity of Kimpese, Songololo Zone. This one was supervised by the subregional commissioner himself. Six hundred people were rounded up, most of whom fulfilled their "civic" obligations and were released; twenty-two were repatriated to their region of origin. According to the commander of the local gendarmery, the population and businessmen of Kimpese were quite satisfied with the operation of the ratissage and, in fact, desired to see it done regularly. He expressed the firm belief that no abuses were committed: "The attitude of our men, soldiers and gendarmes alike, toward the civilian population was irreproachable . . . no violence took place." A local resident presents quite a different picture, however. He wrote a detailed letter of protest to the zone commissioner with copies to the subregional and regional commissioners, the departments of Defense and Political Affairs, and to the Presidency. He signed it "an observer." In the letter, he refers to the ratissage as "this dirty operation" and asserts that the soldiers and gendarmes committed robberies and rapes, beat people, committed "other abuses about which one does not dare reveal the secret because it is shameful . . . ," and arbitrarily arrested people whether their papers were in order or not. He avers that people were arrested solely "to be sent to the zone offices to put money in the State coffers because, according to the zone commissioner, they were empty." For him the ratissage was clearly an exploitative and extractive operation by an alien state. Our local subject notes that the taxes collected were way above the amount they legally should have been, and he charges that this was because the officials pocketed most of it, leaving only some for the state. He claims this same procedure was followed with the "fines" collected for often imaginary infractions. Because the town was completely shut down, the population was not permitted to eat for the entire day, children included. Speaking directly to the zone commissioner, our observer states that all these abuses show that "you make your population suffer and you do the opposite of what the Father of the Nation expects of you as his representative."24 Finally, the observer recounts that after the departure of the paracommandos, the zone commissioner gave the gendarmes "an

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important sum" from the money collected during the ratissage so they could buy drinks. This led to a drunken rampage in which the gendarmes generally mistreated the local population. They insulted people, slapped them around, stopped the trucks of businessmen, pulled out the merchandise and beat up the drivers and the businessmen without the slightest hesitation, and demanded "tips" from all the passers-by. Those who refused were detained. The observer concludes by saying: "This is what we the Zairian people of Kimpese have suffered this 6 May 1973, a date which is engraved in our hearts like the one of 4 January 1959." 25 The date of January 4, 1959, refers to the suspension by the Belgians of an A B A K O meeting in Leopoldville [Kinshasal, which led to three days of burning and pillaging. The Belgians reacted with force to put down the disturbance at the cost of forty-two killed and over two hundred wounded, all Zairians. A B A K O leaders were arrested and the party banned. The day became known as "la Journée des martyrs de l'indépendence." It is highly indicative that the observer of the ratissage equated it with this detested symbol of Belgian colonial oppression. This impassioned letter of protest did reach central regime officials. It was read by the director general of the Department of Political Affairs, who wrote to the subregional commissioner asking for an investigation. The latter responded with a terse letter in which he noted that he had directed the ratissage himself and that no abuses had occurred. In concluding, he noted that "the letter must be considered an unwelcome annoyance imposed on officials burdened by so many tasks." 26 It was the perfect response of an absolutist prefect. A fair amount of evidence indicates that the ratissage is a widely used instrument of the absolutist state. In 1973 there were ratissages in Cataractes at several places in February; in MbanzaNgungu and Inkisi on April 1 in which over two hundred people were detained, five arrested, and seventy-three repatriated; in Kimpese on May 5; in Kwilu-Ngongo and Lufu-Toto on May 27, and in various other places in July, August, and September. In June 1974 the subregional commissioner ordered ratissages for MbanzaNgungu, Inkisi, Kimpese, Kwilu-Ngongo, Lufu-Toto, Kolo-Fuma, Muala-Kisende, and Kasangulu. Nord-Kivu officials also used the ratissage.27

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Coercive Agents of Control THE SECRET POLICE Right after his coup d'état in November 1965, Mobutu placed the Sûreté under his direct control. Originally established by the Belgian colonial administration, it had been a semiautonomous branch of the Interior Ministry. In August 1969, the Sûreté was replaced by the Centre National de Documentation (CND), attached directly to the Presidency. It has very broad powers, financial and administrative autonomy, its own personnel structure, administrative apparatus, training facilities, and communications grid. Operating both internally and externally, its major mission is to "watch out for the internal and external security of the state." More specifically it is responsible for the collection, interpretation, and diffusion of political, social, economic, and cultural information regarding the security of the state, and the control of any activity that is a threat to it. A major part of its time is taken up by "surveillance of people suspected of impairing the security of the State,"28 including foreigners. The CND is also responsible for controlling immigration and emigration, issuing all passports, visas, and residence permits, and fingerprinting subjects for their identification cards. Headed by an administrator general, the CND has two special branches—Service d'Etudes and Service des Affaires Réservées, two major departments—Département de la Documentation Intérieure (DDI) and Département de la Documentation Extérieure (DDE), and an administrative and support department. DDE, the external branch, is divided into geographical areas (Africa and Madagascar, Europe, etc.). DDI is the principal internal control unit and has branches in all of the regions. The operation of the C N D in the regions takes place for the most part outside the territorial administrative hierarchy controlled by the Department of Political Affairs. C N D agents can be interrogated or arrested for abuses, professional or private, only with the direct consent of the head of the C N D . All intelligence information collected by the C N D is funnelled through its own hierarchy to Kinshasa, where it is then distributed to the relevant ministries and back down the territorial administrative apparatus. In addition to

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their information-gathering functions, C N D agents have broad powers to search, arrest, interrogate, intern, and place individuals or groups under surveillance. Thus, the principle of unity of command does not apply to the C N D . A fair degree of tension usually exists between the territorial administration and the C N D because of the latter's autonomy and because the Presidency uses it to report on the activities of territorial administrators. The subject population considers the C N D as a central component of the occupying forces. Abuses of power are common. C N D agents believe they are powers unto themselves. This belief often leads to behavior that is detrimental to the functioning of the C N D . In December 1972, the head of DDI reprimanded his agents for indiscreet and ostentatious behavior, including boasting and speaking in public of their powers, functions, rank, and position, having grand life-styles including luxury cars and "loud" clothes, and frequenting nightclubs, bars, and "filies publiques" too often or in a showy manner. Abuse of the subject population is also common. In addition to brutal treatment of suspects, such behavior by C N D agents includes using their position to frighten and bully innocent people, threatening reprisals or physical harm, and demanding "subsidies or gifts" in order that people may avoid "troubles with State security," that dossiers or certain parts of them, even imaginary ones, be destroyed, or that summonses, often imaginary, be cancelled. 29 THE JEUNESSE DU MPR Among its many functions, the JMPR has specific order and security tasks. It acts as a basic instrument of vigilance and surveillance. As such it submits daily and monthly reports on crimes, accidents, state security problems, and the attitude of the local population. The principal order instrument of the JMPR, however, is the Disciplinary Brigade, which conducts nocturnal and diurnal patrols, usually in conjunction with the gendarmery. It also assists the prosecutor's office and guards the prefects, their houses, and various state offices. The Disciplinary Brigade is used flexibly by subregional officials as a backup for any order or security task, but its major duty is conducting the diurnal and nocturnal patrols in order to control crime and the movements of the population.

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The night patrols are undertaken with the gendarmery because the JMPR cadre are unarmed and technically do not have arrest powers. In September 1974, for example, the Disciplinary Brigade for the Cataractes Subregion carried out twenty-six diumal patrols and twenty-seven night patrols with the gendarmery. In so doing they detained irreguliers, broke up fights, and pursued bandits. NordKivu officials use Disciplinary Brigade patrols particularly to control crime in Goma and smuggling. Although JMPR patrols have proved useful in both subregions for restricting crime, numerous abuses are associated with them. The patrols set up barricades without authorization, stop and harass people indiscriminately, demand "tips," and illegally detain people. These problems were so widespread by June 1974 that the state commissioner for political affairs wrote to the territorial administrators in all regions demanding that they curtail these abuses of the population. Because the conduct of the Disciplinary Brigade in the Cataractes Subregion was still unrestrained and negligent by September 1974, the subregional commissioner decided to hold a special week-long training seminar for brigade members: the brigade had become an uncontrollable gang of young thugs.30 THE GENDARMERY AND THE ARMY AS OCCUPYING FORCES The Zairian absolutist state has a gendarmery and army that are clearly early modern in character. They are poorly trained, armed, fed, housed, paid, and disciplined. In short, they constitute an occupation force that lives "on the backs of the population," and their major task is the "muzzling of the people." In addition, neither the gendarmery nor the army is particularly effective at its major security tasks. Mobutu, "better than most, knows that his army has never confronted another military force and achieved victory without external help." 3 ' This was certainly the case during the 1960-67 period when Mobutu used both UN troops and white mercenary armies to fight his most important battles, and the situation has not changed. This was demonstrated by the poor performance of the army during the Angolan civil war in 1975 and the invasions of Shaba Region in 1977 and 1978. Significant outside military assistance has had little impact on the

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performance of the military. Its two principal traits are rapaciousness and relative loyalty to Mobutu. Mobutu's mechanisms for controlling the military, particularly the periodic purges of the officer corps, assure its basic loyalty, but also greatly weaken its fighting capabilities. This is not true, however, of its capacities as an occupation force, as an instrument of internal order and extraction. The Zairian military constantly abuses the subject population in a whole host of ways: theft, extortion, and armed robbery of all kinds; arbitrary arrest; illegal fines; setting up unauthorized barricades; kidnappings; beatings; rapes; forced labor; harassment of businessmen; physical attacks and extortion in village openair markets; scavenging and pillage of crops, fruit, goats, and chickens; attacks on missions; and even fishing with dynamite, which destroys local fishing grounds. The local populations view the military as a foreign conquering force. One resident of the Cataractes Subregion put it this way: "Such completely barbarous acts deeply disturb the people and they often wonder why our military brothers who are supposed to look after our security act as if they are in a conquered land." 3 2 The traditional chief of Gombe-Sud complained in 1972 that the current situation is worse than it was under colonial domination: M y people truly suffer in a situation that we never thought we would see, even in the period when the colonial troops sowed panic. But the situation of my people, which is now the work of Zairians against Zairians, seems unnecessary. If such a situation continues without a solution, we will see some regrettable consequences because our military brothers make old people from sixty to eighty carry sacks filled with beans and march more than twenty kilometers on foot and the girls and even old women are often violently raped. The slightest resistance to these things results in a beating. It is truly inhuman citizen Commissioner. The protectors of the Zairian people fiercely attack their own brothers! 33

The soldiers and gendarmes often come from other regions of the country, particularly from areas that are most loyal to Mobutu. A great deal of inherent hostility exists between the military and the local populace. The former are "strangers" who believe that the latter are "still savage and backward"; 3 4 the reverse is also true. Complaining about the brutal treatment of his people

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by the army, a village chief recounted a "talk" he had in 1968 with a group of soldiers from Haut-Zaire: "These soldiers . . . did not hesitate to say that in Haut-Zaire where they come from, few people survived [the chaos of the early 1960s], while here there were no slaughters and that they would try in every way to provoke this area and if successful they would be the first to exterminate us all." 35 With the increasing separation of state and society characteristic of absolutist regimes, officials do not want state agents to come from the local area. For example, speaking in 1973 of a local unit, a gendarmery commander commented that "if the performance of the Gombe-Matadi section had not been very productive up to now, it is because of the familiarity of the gendarmes with the population; they are for the most part natives of the area."36 To appreciate this aspect of absolutist domination, let us examine a few concrete cases of abuse of the subject population. As the Cataractes subregional commissioner put it in December 1971, "when the population sees the gendarmes, it no longer feels safe, in fact, quite the contrary."37 In the first six months of 1970 a police officer and eight of his men committed a whole series of abuses against the villages of the local collectivity of Mfidi, which included illegal fines, extortion, beatings, theft, the illegal arrest of the collectivity chief and others, and general harassment of the villagers by confiscating identification cards. For example, a man "from the village of Sadi was truly treated like a savage beast; he was beaten, bound and forced to pay a seven-Zaire fine without a receipt."38 During this period, these police agents extracted 1,213 Zaires, 313 chickens, and 25 pigeons from 137 villagers. The Zairian regime rarely has to take public opinion into account, but these incidents took place just prior to the 1970 presidential "election." Mobutu was the only candidate, but the territorial administrators wanted to make sure the elections took place without incident. As a result, the Cataractes subregional commissioner took the unusual step of administratively removing the police officer himself.39 In late 1971 and early 1972 the zone commissioner for Kimvula reported serious problems with the local police contingent. One police agent raped several women, stole numerous possessions including nine goats, seventy-eight chickens, and two

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pigeons, and severely beat a mason; another raped a fourteen-yearold girl and then coerced her parents into dropping charges against him; a third regularly arrested people illegally and extorted money from them; a fourth severely beat a young girl of fourteen for refusing to have sexual relations with him; two others regularly collected illegal "fines" in a local market and engaged in other forms of extortion; a seventh appeared in a local village and demanded a goat in the name of the zone commissioner, and when the village refused he simply took one; an eighth stole several things from a state office; a ninth physically attacked the wife of an assistant zone commissioner while drunk; and finally, this same policeman, along with two others, set up an unauthorized road barricade, extracted two-Zaire fines from all passing businessmen, and stole merchandise from some of them. Similar things happened in Nord-Kivu as well. For example, in December 1972, the zone commissioner for Masisi complained that gendarmes from Goma were coming into his zone and collecting illegal "fines." 40 Over a seven-month period in 1968, soldiers stole more than forty-five goats from local villages around Kimpese (Songololo Zone). Using an army truck with the license plate removed, they would simply move into a village and load up the truck. Reports of rapes appeared to be unfounded, but the soldiers did force the women to "sell" them food for token prices. One woman, for example, was forced to take only thirty makuta for thirty sacks of manioc. Along the Angolan border near the villages of Kinsitu and Kindompolo, soldiers in early 1971 were forcing local women to grow crops for them, arresting their daughters, and pillaging local food supplies.41 Because the army is poorly fed and paid, this scavenging and pillaging activity is common. In short, the army eats off the fields and the plates of its subjects. The zone commissioner for Songololo was forced to suspend nightly patrols by the military in September 1971 because the soldiers were setting up unauthorized barricades, demanding "drinking money" from people, and raping women at will. These practices of coercive appropriation are endemic to the Zairian absolutist state. Similar activity was reported to the regional commissioner in October 1971. Near Kimpese and Madimba (Songololo and Madimba zones) soldiers were stopping trucks on the Matadi-Kinshasa road and inflicting "fines" of ten to twenty-five

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Zaires on the drivers. Often these trucks carried food bound for the hungry Kinshasa markets. Those who were not able or were unwilling to pay these "fines" were not allowed to pass for at least three days. If the truck contained food, it usually rotted in the tropical sun and humidity.42 On June 19, 1972 the Bas-Zaire regional commissioner received an administrative cable on four recent incidents involving the army. Several soldiers severely beat a school director who had tried to stop the rape of a thirteen-year-old girl and a male nurse who had tried to prevent the rape of hospitalized women. A twelveyear-old girl was raped in her village, and a soldier fired shots into a village to scare away the inhabitants, then helped himself to all the chickens he wanted.43 In April 1973 a village chief wrote to the commander of Camp Ebeya in Bas-Zaire and described how his soldiers harvested fruit, cut down trees, and pillaged crops that belonged to the local population. The soldiers and their wives would move into the fields planted by the villagers and fill up huge sacks with food that did not belong to them. In addition, the soldiers demanded food directly from villagers. Those who refused were threatened. The village chief asked, "We who live by farming, how will we live?"44 Soldiers are responsible for much of the armed robbery in Cataractes and Nord-Kivu subregions. Cataractes has a particular problem with soldiers from Kinshasa, who come into the subregion and terrorize the local population. For Kasangulu Zone this is a particular problem because of its proximity to Kinshasa, and May 1973 was an especially bad month. On the seventh of the month soldiers from Kinshasa harassed and illegally arrested a village chief. On the thirteenth a group of soldiers traveling in a Toyota jeep without license plates kidnapped a mechanic in Sonta-Bata and took him to Kinshasa. But the worst incident took place on the night of May 22-23, when seven soldiers moved in and terrorized the residents of Kibuanga village in the collectivity of Lukunga-Mputu. The soldiers pillaged the village, beat up its inhabitants, fired shots in the air to scare people, demanded money, destroyed a bar after consuming all the beer they wanted, looted several houses, illegally arrested or detained people, and then demanded money for their release. Anyone who resisted was ar-

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rested; several people fled into the forest. The soldiers took 381 Zaires from the village chief and extracted 162 Zaires from nine other people. Finally they kidnapped six villagers and took them to Kinshasa.45 Two months later another major incident took place in Kasangulu. Soldiers stationed on the Zaire River at Zongo to guard a power station attempted to pillage the village of Sefu and "a riot broke out between the soldiers and the inhabitants of Sefu which resulted in two civilians dead and two soldiers gravely wounded." 46 Sometimes the subjects do fight back. In addition to their brutal treatment of local populations, the soldiers often do not perform the tasks assigned to them. In July 1973 the Zairian head of the Chinese agricultural center at Mawunzi in Bas-Zaire complained to officials at Camp Ebeya that the soldiers assigned to protect the center and its Chinese advisers were simply not doing their job. Instead they drank too much and spent most of their time with their women, to the point of standing guard only two to five hours a night. An insane person invaded the living quarters of the Chinese experts one night because no soldiers were standing guard. He was detained and removed by Zairian residents of the camp. Businessmen are favorite targets of the soldiers. In September 1973 a Cataractes businessman complained to the subregional commissioner that soldiers were a major source of trouble in a bar he owned. They extorted money, beat up, and arbitrarily arrested customers and staff alike. In one incident, the local commander arrested the bartender and closed the bar because the bartender did not play the record he requested. The bar did not even own that particular record.47 From these examples of exploitation and coercive extraction, it is quite clear that the Zairian absolutist state is an early modern one with distinct limits to its control. Brutal it is; all-powerful it is not. This fact is clearly reflected in its "forces de I'ordre," which have limited capabilities, and in the poor collaboration that frequently exists between the security forces and the territorial administration.

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Forced Labor and the Zairian Absolutist State : Salongo Corvée labor was a key feature of the colonial period, as subjects could be forced to work up to sixty days a year. There were two types of forced labor: manual labor on special projects and the forced cultivation of certain crops. Maintaining the vast network of dirt roads, bridges, and ferries was the most common use of forced manual labor. The Belgians referred to forced agricultural production as "educational cultivation." African peasants were forced to grow both food and export crops such as cotton. Abuse of the subject population was extensive. Mobutu's absolutist regime has severely condemned the oppressive colonial practice of corvée labor. Nevertheless, it has continued it in one form or another. Prior to 1973, under a series of slogans such as "Let's roll up our sleeves" and "Return to the land," great emphasis was placed on the need for organized collective labor directed by the administration. Key tasks were repairing and building new roads and bridges, constructing state administrative buildings, and clearing and planting new agricultural fields, both collective and individual. In January 1973 Mobutu announced the new policy of "Salongo." Although enveloped in a thick cloud of "revolutionary" cant, Salongo is corvée labor. Like his colonial predecessors, Mobutu calls it an educational way of mobilizing the population. But, according to regime officials, it has its roots in the communalism and solidarity of traditional society rather than in the coercive nature of the colonial state: In effect we have examined traditional society and there discovered collective work which is done with enthusiasm and without constraint; colonial society on the other hand had to force people to work, to compel them to the point of devaluing the work and thus stripping it of all its ennobling content. 48

The people participate in Salongo freely and with joy, "without constraint": "Only the civic sense of the citizen persuades him to participate in the collective work." The emphasis is on collective labor in the interest of national development. Salongo is also a way in which the masses can commune with the president-founder! In launching the policy of Salongo, Mobutu appears to have

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been influenced by a trip to China. It is interesting that he was taken with the Chinese emphasis on work, discipline, and control, but not with their stress on equality and distributive justice. An absolutist state is congruent with the former, but antithetical to the latter. In a speech on January 28, 1973, Mobutu spoke to his people about "l'esprit de Youkong" in China and how they must create a similar "l'esprit de Salongo." 49 The absolutist regime referred to Salongo in 1973 as "collective work in the public interest and field work, with the stress on its voluntary, noncoercive nature." This theme is reiterated constantly in administrative reports. For example, in May 1973 the Cataractes subregional commissioner noted that "all the militants performed the work with joy." At the end of 1974 one zone commissioner wrote that "all aspects of Salongo are carried out in a spontaneous and regular manner in all nooks and crannies of Songololo Zone." On the whole, however, Salongo is anything but voluntary. Occasionally some enthusiasm can be generated if the project has particular local interest (a hospital, for example), but generally this is not the case. In administrative correspondence and regulations, the prefects refer to Salongo as "work imposed on the people" and "obligatory civic work." The obligatory, forced nature of Salongo was made very clear in a June 1975 decree by the Kivu regional commissioner. He observes that "several unthinking militants do not respond to the fulfillment of Salongo work" and that it is "not well understood by the militants." As a result, the first article of the decree orders that "all Zairian citizens living in Kivu Region are obliged to respond to the civic work of Salongo." Failure to comply can bring sanctions of eight to thirty days in jail and/or a five-Zaire fine.50 Corresponding to the colonial varieties of corvée labor, there are two basic types of Salongo: agricultural and general. Agricultural Salongo is further divided into two types: individual and collective. Agricultural Salongo is a direct descendent of the colonial obligatory cultivation policy, except that cash crops for export are not stressed. Forced cultivation of food crops was reimposed in Bas-Zaire in February 1968 and reorganized by a December 1972 decree. Citing the facts that agriculture is the regime's "priority of priorities" and that Bas-Zaire did not have enough food, the decree established "obligatory agricultural work." Under this pro-

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gram, all unemployed men must plant a minimum of fifty ares51 in manioc, maize, rice, beans, bananas, and peanuts. Women must plant a minimum of thirty ares, and all employed adults must plant at least two ares. Failure to comply carries possible sanctions of one to six months in jail and/or fines ranging from ten to twentyfive-and-a-half Zaires. With the advent of Salongo in early 1973 came the establishment of collective fields. Schools, businesses, state offices, and local administrative jurisdictions all were to create special fields to be worked during Salongo sessions.52 In the mid-1970s general Salongo normally took place on Saturday afternoons from two to five o'clock, but sometimes a whole day was set aside for it. Everything else came to a halt. Markets and all stores closed, and all movement and traffic stopped. Everybody, except special personnel such as on-duty doctors and gendarmes and foreigners, was required to work at tasks assigned by the local administration. The workers were usually required to bring their own hoes, machetes, shovels, and pickaxes, and local businesses were forced to provide their vehicles for transportation and often heavy equipment and other tools. The work was controlled and supervised by state officials, although this was often made difficult by a lack of transportation. Regular reports on Salongo activities were sent up the administrative hierarchy. Despite all the pronouncements about Salongo being oriented toward development projects that benefit large numbers of people, almost all of the projects are state-related. They are the traditional tasks of corvée labor: building and repairing roads and bridges, constructing and maintaining state offices and houses of state personnel, and generally cleaning up. The following is a list of typical projects taken from over fifty reports on Salongo activity for both Cataractes and Nord-Kivu spanning the period from February 1973 to June 1975: building, repairing, cleaning, and painting collectivity, zone, and subregional administrative offices, offices for the jMPR, the Office of Roads, civil registry offices, court buildings, gendarmery barracks and offices, prisons, administrative guest houses, and residences for state officials at all levels; building and repairing roads, streets, bridges, and fences, including cutting away debris alongside of them, building drainage canals, and erecting erosion barriers; general cleanup operations for administrative compounds, markets, parks, and assembly fields or

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arenas; making bricks for construction projects; building and erecting party monuments; and occasionally constructing or repairing hospitals and schools. From considerable personal observation in Kinshasa, BasZaire, Kivu, and Shaba over a fifteen-month period, it is apparent that there is not much enthusiasm for the Zairian absolutist form of corvée labor; lassitude would be a much more accurate word. This lassitude results not just from the compulsion involved, nor from the inconveneince, but rather from the realization that all the work goes to reinforce the power of the consolidating state. Passive resistance and minimum compliance are the norm. The vicissitudes of the Salongo policy are characteristic of the policy making and implementation style of the Zairian absolutist state. After great fanfare in its presentation, a policy is put into operation with some initial intensity, but this soon dissipates as new concerns come to the attention of the "royal" councils in Kinshasa. Sometimes a policy dies a quiet death, never to be heard from again. Other times the attention of Kinshasa will return to a lapsed policy, resulting in another burst of implementation zeal. Because of its importance to the consolidation of the absolutist state, Salongo belongs in the latter category. Between early 1973 and mid-1975, the policy of Salongo went through several of these hot and cold cycles. In May 1973 the state commissioner for political affairs cabled all regional commissioners about the implementation of Salongo; he noted that work was "scattered and without conviction or coordination." By January 1974 the state commissioner was complaining that Salongo had become "a display Salongo, completely sterile." "Improvisation must cease and be replaced by well-studied, realistic, and realizable programs. Friday is not the time to begin thinking about what to do for Salongo the next day." He ordered a series of changes to reinforce implementation, and a burst of energy followed. But Salongo activity remained uneven in both Cataractes and Nord-Kivu throughout 1974, particularly in many of the rural collectivities. In December 1974 the zone commissioner for Kasangulu chastised his collectivity chiefs because "the organization of Saturday Salongo leaves a great deal to be desired." He ordered them to have Salongo plans to him by Wednesday of each week so that he could pass them on to subregion officials. By early 1975 cen-

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tral officials realized that another major push was required. As a result, they declared 1975 to be "the year of the great mobilization for a 'new Salongo,' " which was to be inspired by new ideas from the president-founder himself. But, alas, by June the Kivu regional commissioner was again complaining that "Salongo work seems to be disorganized," that "the organization of this work is badly conceived." And so it went. By the late 1970s Salongo diminished in regularity, but it has continued to be used for special tasks and occasions.53

State Corporatist Control of Task-Environment Groups: The Churches In its search for increased state power and a more direct statesubject relationship, Mobutu's absolutist regime seeks to control all key societal groups. This is especially true of those groups, such as the churches, which constitute intermediary authorities between the state and its subjects. The major religious groups capable of posing crucial constraints and contingencies for the regime are the Catholic church, the various Protestant churches now organized in a loose agglomeration called the Eglise du Christ au Zaire (ECZ), the Zairian Kimbanguist church, and the growing plethora of local syncretic religious movements, sects, and churches. The first three groups are recognized legally, but considerable church-state tension still exists. Some sects and churches in the last category are recognized as part of ECZ, but most of them have been banned since 1972. The prefects expend considerable energy attempting to control these groups. Clearly the most powerful religious group is the Catholic church. The largest, wealthiest, and best organized internal task environment group, it constitutes a coherent alternative authority structure and one which has strong external ties. The church claims over half of Zaire's population as followers and has an effective organizational hierarchy and enormous secular power. It educates over 60 percent of primary school children and over 42 percent of secondary school children, and it provides most of the country's welfare and social programs by operating hundreds of

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hospitals, health clinics, agricultural projects, and cooperatives. It also builds roads. In many parts of the country, the church's logistical infrastructure is far superior to that of the state.54 As in seventeenth-century France, there is an ongoing church-state conflict in Zaire. Like the French kings, Mobutu wants to break the autonomous power of the church and sever, or at least severely emasculate, its international ties. He views the church as a threat to his sovereignty and seeks to control it; he wants the church actively to support his regime. Relations between Mobutu's absolutist state and the Zairian church, the largest in Africa, have always been uneasy, periodically flaring into bitter open conflict. In a 1976 interview Mobutu declared, " I am power with a capital P. Power is me and not the church." Speaking of Cardinal Malula, he said, " I don't have to negotiate with the cardinal. The church is just a pressure group. The cardinal has understood his place in society. I represent the people, not him. After all, he is only a cardinal named by outsiders." 55 Over time Mobutu has managed to diminish the autonomous power of the church and restrict some of its crucial activities, but much of its strength remains. Criticism of the regime began as early as 1968, when several church officials attacked the injustices, corruption, and crass materialism of the Mobutu government. In 1969 the church expressed concern about the centralizing and authoritarian tendencies of the regime, especially the growing tentacles of the MPR. In a 1971 direct move, Mobutu nationalized the church's university in Kinshasa, as well as the Protestant one in Kisangani. The two were merged with a private university in Lubumbashi to form UNAZA, a new, three-campus state university. 56 Later the theology faculties of UNAZA were completely abolished. The same year the government announced that all seminaries had to have JMPR sections. The church reacted vigorously and a compromise was reached, which kept them out of the "grand seminaries" but allowed them into secondary-level seminaries with restricted powers. Then in 1972 came a major confrontation over Mobutu's authenticity policies. The major point of contention was the decree banning the use of Christian first names. At first the church refused to comply, and Cardinal Malula's house was confiscated and turned into a JMPR headquarters. He was stripped of his

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membership in the Order of the Leopard and finally forced into a Vatican exile in January 1972. It was not just the issue of the names, however; larger issues were also at stake. The church found itself increasingly disturbed by the implications of the state's rapidly developing political religion, especially its overtones that projected Mobutu as a messiah. This development was consummated in 1974 by the adoption of "Mobutuism" as the official doctrine of the MPR. In 1972 a state radio broadcast declared that "the party and not religion should inspire the people" and that the people should believe in the MPR and not the Catholic church.57 The church relented on the names issue, and Cardinal Malula was allowed to return from Rome in May 1972. But the struggle was far from over. In late 1972 the government banned all church youth organizations and all radio and television broadcasts by religious groups. This was followed in February 1973 by the banning of thirty-one religious publications. The main church newspaper, Afrique Chrétienne, had been outlawed in January 1972. There was another lull until April 1973 when Mobutu prohibited all national or regional church meetings, especially bishops' conclaves. Clearly this was a direct threat to the organizational integrity of the church. It had been prompted by increasingly vocal opposition by the church and was aimed at what the government called "clandestine meetings."58 Only normal religious services were to be allowed. The church cried foul, but to no avail. The ban was provisionally lifted in March 1974, but the provisional nature of the decision clearly warned the clergy that they had to tread carefully. For much of 1974 tensions appeared to ease dramatically. But it was not to last. In late 1974 the government launched a major attack on the secular power of the church. It announced that Christmas was no longer to be a national holiday, but, much more significantly, that religious instruction in schools was to be abolished and replaced with courses in Mobutuism. In addition, all crucifixes and photographs of the Pope were to be removed from church schools, hospitals and dispensaries and replaced by pictures of Mobutu. The final blow came when the regime announced that it was taking over the entire school system. The bishops reacted with two strongly worded pastoral letters dated

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January 15 and 16, 1975, in which they reasserted their Christian faith, reminded the government of the freedom of religion guaranteed by the constitution, stressed the heavy developmental role of the church, and threatened to withdraw all religious personnel from the schools, hospitals, and social centers. At the same time they declared that the church was not a rival to the state, but a religious organization designed to serve God and the nation: "The Church, a community of those who believe in Jesus Christ, is not a State within a State, it is not a rival power, it is not a pressure group, but exists only by its faith and only to serve God and the nation." 5 9 But they did not downplay the severity of the situation: " w e live in an historic era in Zaire today which poses certain problems for the Church, putting into question its status and its ability to act in our society and putting into doubt its very development and its future in our country." 6 0 These two powerful statements were read from the pulpit throughout Zaire and were signed by almost all of the bishops, including the foreign ones. Mobutu labeled these two documents subversive tracts, and, at a rally on February 1, 1975, he severely castigated the bishops for their opposition. He warned that any opposition to the announced changes would lead to arrest and the closing of churches. But he took no further direct action against the church hierarchy. On the other hand, measures were taken to carry out the decisions of the government. Tension remained high through the first half of 1975. An incident in Nord-Kivu illustrates this. In April, an assistant subregional commissioner asked the Bishop of Goma to select a nun to attend an ideological seminar in Kinshasa. He refused, noting that "by her religious profession such a citizen has a special orientation to life which does not permit her to engage in political activities." 61 Again the church was declaring its exemption from political control. Tension remained very high in Kivu. The same was true in Bas-Zaire, where the local administration launched several special investigations into resistance to these measures.62 After mid-1975 Mobutu began to make concerted efforts to reach a reconciliation with the church. In December he reinstated Cardinal Malula as a Grand Officer in the Order of the Leopard and built him a luxurious new official residence. Relations with the Vatican improved, and Mobutu's wife and children

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had an audience with the Pope. Mobutu ceased his verbal attacks on the church, and he reminded the world that he himself was a Catholic. In 1976 his ninth child was baptized in Kinshasa by a Belgian priest. The same year Mobutu issued an administrative circular that stressed that dialogue, not confrontation, was the way to deal with the church, and he encouraged his prefects to consult with church officials as a routine matter. Much control of the schools has quietly been returned to the church, but the state still claims overall control and teachers remain subject to state regulation. Christmas has also been officially reinstated. This is not to say that tension between church and state has disappeared, however. As long as the Mobutu regime remains in power, the tension will exist. For, as in seventeenth-century France, the absolutist state and the church need each other, but they are two political giants that find it difficult to sleep in the same bed. The various Protestant churches have never been as powerful a force in Zairian society as the Catholic church. In addition to the fact that there are only about four million Protestants, they are fragmented among numerous churches and do not have the wealth, organization, or logistical infrastructure of the Catholics. They have never been openly critical of or hostile to Mobutu's absolutist state; their role has been very apolitical. Despite this fact, all of the regime's control measures were also applied to the Protestants (bans of publications, broadcasts, youth groups, meetings, and religious instruction, and the take-over of the schools, etc.). And they did not fight these measures as the Catholics did. To facilitate control of these groups, the government in 1971 forced them to come together in a loose organization called the Eglise du Christ au Zaire (ECZ). ECZ has a Zairian as its president, and it deals directly with the government in all matters that affect the various Protestant churches. ECZ is made up of regional synodes and by February 1973 had fifty-three member groups. Most of these are the regional groupings of the established Protestant churches (Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc.), but a number of officially recognized Zairian churches are also included. In short, any native Zairian church, other than the Kimbanguist one, that is officially recognized is a member of ECZ. 63 The last major recognized religious group is the Kimbanguist church, L'Eglise de Jésus-Christ sur la Terre par le Prophète

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Simon Kimbangu. It is an indigenous, syncretic religious movement, which grew out of the actions of a Mukongo prophet in BasZaire in the 1920s. This messianic movement had heavy political overtones and alarmed the Belgian colonial administration, which arrested Kimbangu. He died in involuntary exile in Lubumbashi in 1951. After it was banned the movement fragmented into a number of small sects. In 1956 Kimbangu's third son formed a Kimbanguist church council, and the Belgians finally legalized it in 1959. The church played a key role in the struggle for independence. It claimed a following of over two million in 1975, most of them in Bas-Zaire and around Kinshasa, but there are Kimbanguist churches in many other parts of Zaire.64 The Kimbanguists have been less apolitical than the Protestants and have openly sought good relations with the regime and its territorial administrators. Mobutu has always responded well to their overtures. During the height of the tension with the Catholic church in early 1975, Mobutu visited several Kimbanguist schools and social centers to show his pleasure with a group that had manifested its cooperation with the regime. Two minor incidents from Bas-Zaire also illustrate this point. In March 1972 a new commissioner took over the Cataractes Subregion. A local Kimbanguist official wrote to welcome him and stated, "We wish you good luck and good success in your heavy duties in the reconstruction of the Zairian nation." 65 In January 1974 a new subregional commissioner took over, and he wrote to the Kimbanguist church at Nkamba saying that he wished "to come meditate before Prophet Kimbangu's tomb in Nkamba and to use the occasion to have a talk with the officials of the various sections of this church in my subregion." 66 The Catholics, the Protestants of ECZ, and the Kimbanguists, then, are the three major recognized religious groups. A fourth category of religious groups is of major concern to the regime. Since 1960 over thirteen hundred proliferation sects have appeared in Zaire. Many of these are splinter groups from the Kimbanguists, but there are also Catholic, Protestant, and independent ones.67 These Zairian churches worry the Mobutu regime because it views them as fronts for political opposition. Even if they are not, the constant, occasionally violent, intersect struggles are seen as a threat to stability. Bas-Zaire has long been the most

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active cradle of these indigenous messianic and syncretic religious movements, but they exist throughout the country. In BasZaire they are often referred to as Ngunzistes from the ngunza, the Kikongo term for prophet. The colonial state always maintained tight control over all nonprofit and cultural organizations—what were normally referred to as "associations sans but lucratif" (nonprofit associations—ASBLs). Postcolonial regimes have continued this practice, and religious sects have been considered ASBLs. As such they must have official recognition in order to operate. Under a Decree-Law of September 18, 1965, all religious sects had to register as ASBLs, but enforcement was not stringent. As the religious sects proliferated, however, the state became more and more concerned. For example, under the heading "Subversive Movements and Tendencies—Activities of Sects," the 1969 annual report for Kasai Oriental Region called on central authorities to pay "particular attention . . . because these sects are growing constantly." The report goes on to list sixty-two religious sects operating in the region; some were recognized Protestant groups but most were relatively new indigenous movements.68 This proliferation was also of growing concern to Bas-Zaire officials. In February 1969 the regional commissioner wrote to all of his prefects asking them to study closely "the probable danger posed by the multiplicity of nonprofit associations called prophetic missions or churches." He noted that these multiple sects have very similar names, which sows confusion and makes them difficult to control, and he demanded that the prefects submit regular reports on their activities.69 Another official observed that "if the state does not examine the proliferation of these religions and limit religious freedom a little, we risk a division of the population. . . . Certain religions are created simply to exploit the population under another form. At present these sects are at the root of several conflicts over land." 70 Most of these sects repeatedly sought official recognition as ASBLs. For example, a small sect called the Eglise Universelle de Douze Apotres au Congo, founded in 1955 and operating in Bas-Zaire, applied for recognition in 1967, 1968, and again in 1969. This recognition apparently was never granted, although the church may simply have changed its name and tried again.7'

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By mid-1970 the problems of the sects became of major concern to high territorial officials. The sects were perceived as major threats to the state—ones that should be closely controlled. During a vigorous discussion of this problem at an administrative meeting in September 1970, the Cataractes subregional commissioner declared that "the multiplicity of churches or religions is unfortunate and a very serious danger because one cannot allow the very people united in the MPR, united in the nation, to be divided by religions." He ordered his zone agents to undertake a close investigation of all religious groups in their jurisdictions to be sure they were officially recognized. Those not properly recognized were to be closed down immediately. Those who were "recalcitrant or who dared to feel untouchable because of the popularity they achieved from their religions" were to be arrested. Nobody was to "compromise our revolutionary action or the public peace." In concluding, he exhorted his subordinates to "an intense vigilance without sentimentalism."72 As a result of this increased concern, the administration started banning sects. In May 1971 the regime banned Kinu or Dieu-Manie, a religious sect which had been operating in the Kwilu area (Bandundu Region), because "its activities gravely compromised public order and good morals."73 In October 1971 the state revoked its recognition of the Eglise Unie du St. Esprit, which had been operating in Kasai Occidental. The following set of reasons were given: because "by their behavior the leaders of this church are neither religious officials nor brothers in Jesus Christ and wish evil rather than searching for agreement and harmony within their community"; because "the conflicts which pit the leaders of this association against each other are continual and seriously menace public order and tranquillity"; and because "the leaders of this church show a total lack of respect for the high authorities of the country in sending them abusive letters."74 By the end of 1971 the regime had decided that major new action was required to handle this growing problem. The result was the heavily state corporatist Law 71-012 of December 31, 1971, which established the conditions for the legal recognition of all religious groups. Only three groups were granted official sanction: the Catholic church, the Kimbanguist church, and ECZ; all other groups had to go through the recognition processes again,

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as did all new or unrecognized groups. The attempt was clearly to restrict greatly the number of the proliferating religious sects. A l l non-Catholic and non-Kimbanguist groups had to be affiliated with the foreign Protestant groups in ECZ and their number was to be kept quite small. The law starts out by reiterating the existence of religious freedom in Zaire, but, as the administrative report on the law states: "However, the exercise of these liberties, particularly religious liberty, often leads to abuses which sometimes trouble public order." 7 5 Law 71-012 stipulates that religious sects cannot make rules or teach things that contradict state law or threaten good morals or public order, and that they have the obligation to inculcate their followers with a public spirit in accordance with the principles of the Manifesto of N'Sele. In addition, the law specifies stringent criteria for recognition by the Department of Justice. The leader of the religious sect must be at least forty years old, have a college degree or doctorate in theology or proof that he has studied four years in a foreign school of theology and that he has never held an official position in another church or sect or defected from another one (this is clearly aimed at stemming the fragmentation of groups), have good moral character, and not ever have been convicted of a major crime. O n top of these requirements, the sect must have 100,000 Zaires deposited in a Zairian bank. This stipulation alone greatly restricts the number of groups that can meet the recognition criteria. The church or sect must also submit documents that explain the sect's major teachings, list its leaders and confirm their good character, and detail the resources at its disposal to carry on its work. This state corporatist control measure allows the state to dissolve any church or sect that "compromises or threatens to compromise public order"—a very broadly defined power indeed. Anyone w h o works to maintain or reconstitute, formally or informally, a dissolved sect is liable to ten to fifteen years in prison and a fine of five hundred to one thousand Zaires. 76 Lastly, an appendix to the law listed the forty recognized groups in ECZ. Over thirty were recognized regional groupings of Protestant denominations. By February 1973 the membership in ECZ had grown to fifty-three. But again, most of these were Protestant groupings; very few were Zairian religious sects. 77

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After the promulgation of Law 71-012 in late December 1971, most of the Zairian churches sought recognition. In so doing they constantly stressed their loyalty to the state and the MPR. The head of one sect put it this way: "Nevertheless, I entreat you to have confidence in me because I am not only a believer in God but also in the State in the sense that I am a convinced militant of the MPR." 7 8 Almost all of these groups were refused recognition, but many of them, like the Eglise de la vérité spirituelle de la Sainte trinité sur la terre, continued to claim they were affiliated with ECZ when in fact they were not. In the spring of 1972, after the implementation rules for Law 71-012 had been issued, the regime cracked down on all unrecognized religious groups. In late March Kinshasa officials published the list of officially recognized groups. The state commissioner of justice instructed the regional commissioners to shut down all unrecognized churches and arrest the leaders if necessary. Recognized ones were also to be carefully watched. The Bas-Zaire regional commissioner in turn instructed his prefects to carry out this order and report to him on the results. In addition, he asked them to watch carefully those groups that had been recognized. Luozi Zone in Bas-Zaire has always been a major center of Zairian religious sect activity. One commissioner remarked that in Luozi "people like to pray, and there are religions that profit from it." A sect that had been operating in Luozi for years and did not receive recognition was the Eglise de Saint Esprit en Afrique (also referred to as DIBUNDU DIA MPEVE YA NLONGO M U AFELIKA). In April 1972 an official of the church wrote to the state commissioner of justice complaining of severe persecution of his group in Luozi: Since the publication of Law 71-012 of December 31, 1971, our church has traversed very dark times because the zone commissioner commits unbelievable, odious and shameful acts against our members and completely outside the regulations of the law. 79

According to the church official, the zone commissioner arrested members of the sect living in the town of Luozi (zone headquarters) and put them in jail without following proper legal procedures, forceably extracted the key to their church, entered the church unaccompanied by a church official, confiscated all prop-

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erty in the church without inventorying it, and closed and locked the church, keeping the key. The zone commissioner then ordered the official to deposit with him the 100,000 Zaires required by Law 71-012, and that if this were not done, he would proceed with more measures against the church. The church leader showed the zone commissioner the papers the church had submitted to Kinshasa for recognition. He claimed that the church had existed since 1918 and operated throughout Zaire and in other countries, but the commissioner refused to look at the papers because he had received orders from his superiors to dissolve the church completely. The zone commissioner then ordered all his collectivity chiefs to arrest members of the church in their jurisdictions. In Mbanza-Ngoyo Collectivity, the chief put church leaders of the local mission in jail, ordered the mission evacuated, threatened to burn it down if this were not done, and sequestered all church property. The chief of Kimbanza Collectivity imprisoned some church members indefinitely. In Kimumba, the church was ordered to evacuate all three of its mission stations under threat of them being burned to the ground. The chief of Mbanza-Mona Collectivity assembled church members and publicly humiliated one by making him dance nude before the gathering. When asked why they did these things, all the collectivity chiefs answered that they had received orders from the zone commissioner. By late 1973 the church was still attempting, unsuccessfully, to gain recognition from the central government, but under a slightly different French name—Eglise de Saint Esprit sur la Terre. The Zairian name remained the same, however. In so doing, it vigorously proclaimed its loyalty to the state and the MPR.80 In addition to the state, the real winner in this suppression effort was the Kimbanguist church, which saw its rivals or breakaway sects abolished. One of these competing sects, which claimed lineage to Simon Kimbangu, was the Eglise de Douze Apotres; in fact, it claimed to be the true Kimbanguist church. It was abolished as a result of Law 71-012 and put out of operation, at least in theory, by the territorial administration. In actuality, however, it continued to operate informally and in some places openly. In March 1973 the former legal representative of the church complained to state officials that his former followers were being severely harassed in Lunzadi Collectivity, Mbanza-Ngungu Zone. The

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local authorities were inflicting illegal and unjustified fines on former members and occasionally even locking them up because they refused to join the local Kimbanguist church. Apparently the collectivity chief was a Kimbanguist, and higher territorial officials merely looked the other way in regard to this harassment, thereby granting tacit approval.81 By the fall of 1973 some important religious sects were still operating illegally in Bas-Zaire. In September the regional commissioner issued a list of eight unrecognized religious sects "which continue to practice their religious activities in defiance of legal stipulations": Eglise de Douze Apôtres, Eglise Evangélique du Christ au Mayumbe, Eglise des Noirs en Afrique, Eglise Ntualaniste, Eglise Prophétique Zaïroise, Mission Prophétique Zairoise, Communauté (Evangélique) Réformée du Zaire, and Communauté Evangélique Luthérienne au Zaire. This list also designated their major areas of operation and the sect leaders. The regional commissioner ordered his prefects to take immediate action to shut down these sects and report to him.82 As a result of these instructions, the authorities of Muanda Zone (Bas-Fleuve Subregion) moved to dissolve the Communauté Réformée du Zaire in early November. The first time that the legal papers were served, the local church official refused to sign them, saying that the officials did not have the authority to do it. New papers were drawn up and the pastor was "threatened with arrest and submitted to inhuman treatment" in order to get him to sign them. The church was closed down. It had been on the preliminary list of recognized churches issued March 28, 1972 (Ordinance-Law 72-195), but was later denied official approval. In a rambling letter of protest, the head of the church protested the lack of recognition and the eventual abolition of the church by the administration. He pointed out that the church was "an authentically Zairian Christian community administratively, ideologically, and economically" and that the state "is not by any means able to deprive us of rights guaranteed by our constitution and our law regulating religious cults."83 Another Bas-Zaire sect that resisted abolition was the Eglise de Jésus-Christ par l'Inspiration du Saint-Esprit. It was not recognized by Ordinance-Law 73-013, which listed the fifty-three members of ECZ. The state commissioner of justice ordered its

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closure on January 22, 1974, and the regional commissioner carried out the order in April. The church operated widely throughout Bas-Zaire and it had its headquarters in Kinshasa. By mid-December 1974, the church was still operating in several zones despite the ban. For example, on December 18 the zone commissioner for Kimvula again ordered local church officials to cease operations in his area.84 The resistance of the church continued. Even those religious groups that are recognized are closely supervised by territorial administrative officials. They usually have to seek administrative approval to hold special meetings, seminars, or conferences, to bring in outside speakers, or to hold special collections. Above all, they must report all leadership changes to the administration. Responding to such a report by the Communauté Lumière du Bas-Zaire in January 1974, the regional commissioner reminded church officials that they were required to collaborate loyally, totally, and unconditionally with administrative authorities.85 This surveillance also applies, of course, to foreign missionaries.

Control of Other Task-Environment Groups The churches have been used as a principal example of how the Zairian absolutist state attempts to cope in an organic-statist manner with important task-environment groups that pose constraints and contingencies for it. But the search for sovereignty and control operates in similar ways with all other task-environment groups as well. Some of the more important groups will be mentioned here. Under its power to ban ail "associations or groups contrary to public order," the regime abolished most of the fraternal groups such as the Free Masons, Rosicrucians, and Knights-Templar in July 1971.86 All social and cultural associations are considered nonprofit organizations (ASBLs) and controlled like the churches via registration, reporting on membership, leadership and activities, and general supervision by territorial officials. This type of task-environment group includes theatrical and folklore groups; bands; educational, cultural and residential associations; sports

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groups; even groups of artists. Some examples from Bas-Zaire are as follows: Association des Anciens de Kimurumu, Union Culturelle de Kintanu, Association des Anciens Elèves des Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes, Association des Intellectuelles de Kimvula, Association des Ressortissants du Bas-Fleuve, Association des Fonctionnaires et Agents Pensionnés de l'Administration, Association des Femmes Elégantes de Madimba, and the Association de Football de Luozi. Periodically a census is taken of these groups, and the formation of any new ones must be reported and official recognition sought. Many of these groups were absorbed by the MPR after 1971. 87 The administration has no hesitation to abolish any group that it views as a threat. A good example is the Institut de Recherches Scientifiques d'Occultismes Congolais (IRESCO), which had operated in Songololo Zone since the mid-1960s. It was finally officially recognized as an ASBL by the regional administration on March 20, 1970. Due to severe internal disorder, IRESCO was indefinitely suspended on December 31, 1970. In March the C N D reported to Kinshasa that the group was still operating by holding "clandestine meetings." The CND official asserted that the group was really just a badly organized and contentious "association of fetishists or healers." The subregional commissioner was ordered to end these "subversive and tendentious activities which could trouble order and public peace." 88 All students are organized into JMPR sections,89 and the activities of the schools are controlled by the Department of Education, its local offices, and the prefects. The latter occasionally hold meetings with school directors to discuss problems. In May 1974, for example, the Kasangulu zone commissioner held such a meeting to discuss reports of female students being used as domestic help and being made pregnant by teachers, the problem of students smoking, and difficulties with school fees and books. Similar meetings were held in other zones.90 In the economic realm, workers are controlled by UNTZa, the state union federation, which is used to limit strikes and conduct bargaining with businesses. Frequently prefects and CND agents take part in such bargaining discussions. The party has sections in most large enterprises as well. Control of and contact with businessmen is also extensive both by the services of the state

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and the prefects. The latter hold periodic meetings with local businessmen such as the one held by the Kimvula zone commissioner in May 1971 with twenty-six local businessmen to discuss the creation of a permanent committee of local commerçants, the operation of local markets, price controls, and alleged sabotage by the businessmen. In regard to the last point, the zone commissioner warned the businessmen in the following terms: To criticize the state means that you wish to contradict its orders when actually it is you who must obey its orders. Next time you will see me forced to punish your sabotage. Furthermore, I demand from you discipline and respect for the laws and regulations.91 The administration watches the activity of the local businessmen and carries out periodic censuses of local businesses, their economic activities, and their property. In addition, the prefects periodically inspect local businesses as a general control procedure or to cope with specific problems. In May 1973, for example, the Cataractes subregional commissioner inspected la Compagnie Sucrière de Kwilu-Ngongo, la Société Nationale du Ciment (CINAT—a parastatal), and the Cimenterie Zaïroise (CIZA—a private firm). The inspection covered operations, equipment, composition, size and working conditions of the staff (foreign and Zairian), quantity and type of output, production problems, health facilities for the workers, the MPR and UNTZa representatives and their problems, and Salongo activities.92 The mercantilist aspects of these inspections are obvious. Local prefects are constantly encouraged to maintain regular contacts with the representatives of local task-environment groups, and they do make an effort to maintain such contact. From November 15 to December 16, 1974, the zone commissioner for Kasangulu met with the following groups: heads of local parastatals, village chiefs and notables, religious and sect leaders, a general gathering of local businessmen, local school directors, eight schools, and twelve businesses.93 One of the most difficult task-environment groups to control is that of the refugees—Angolans in Bas-Zaire and Rwandans in Nord-Kivu. At the end of 1973, there were by official count 261,634 Angolans in Bas-Zaire, 238,670 of them in the Cataractes Subregion, particularly Mbanza-Ngungu and Songolo zones

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(114,454 and 90,129, respectively). Kivu Region had 255,375 Rwandan refugees at the end of 1973, almost all of them in NordKivu Subregion. Both sets of refugees pose serious difficulties for the local prefects—problems of social, economic, and political integration, land distribution, schooling, conflicts with local authorities, uncontrolled population movements, lack of identity cards, failure to pay taxes or obey local laws, competition in the local labor market, housing, health, food and nutritional problems, and, eventually, dual nationality problems, especially in Nord-Kivu. The problem in Bas-Zaire was severely compounded by the presence of the troops of the FNLA, their military excursions into Angola, and the reaction of the Portuguese until 1974 and then the MPLA and their Cuban allies during and since the civil war.94

The Domain Consensus Tasks of Zairian Absolutism One of the principal tasks of the Zairian prefects is the establishment of a stable domain consensus. We defined domain consensus as "a set of expectations both for members of an organization [state] and for others with whom they interact, about what the organization will and will not do. It provides, although imperfectly, an image of the organization's role in a larger arena, which in turn serves as a guide for the ordering of action in certain directions and not in others."95 Domain consensus defines the role of the state and the locus and extent of political power. As Weber saw it, this entails establishing a "reciprocity of expectations between rulers and the ruled" 96 —in short, a definition of the state's domain and the meaning of the authority relationship. There are three types of domain consensus: normative, utilitarian, and coercive. Here the focus is on efforts to establish a normative domain consensus. This entails the propagation of legitimacy doctrines and myths—the manipulation of symbols in order to elicit voluntary compliance with state dictates and the establishment of a set of expectations of what the state requires of its subjects, or "citoyens," as it calls them. The core of Zairian absolutist domain consensus doctrines is a political religion that specifies and glorifies the role of the "new

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prince," Mobutu Sese Seko, who saved Zaire from disintegration and chaos. It is "a monarchical religion." 97 Underneath florid twentieth-century revolutionary language, the key absolutist concepts of divine right, ruler sovereignty, and raison d'état are clearly evident. African versions of these notions are used, as they were in seventeenth-century France, to justify the exercise of unlimited personal discretion by the "monarch" in order to achieve the higher purposes of the state, which are divinely inspired. Using both sacred and secular ideas, the Zairian political religion merges traditional African notions of kingly or chiefly power and of the state with concepts from Christianity and Roman law, both imposed by the colonial state, to depict Mobutu as an instrument chosen by God and the ancestors to bring peace, unity, dignity, and prosperity to Zaire. The new African king becomes the state, the locus of all authority and political identity. His power is virtually unlimited; he is accountable only to higher powers. His word is law, but he himself is above the law. His thoughts and actions become the new ideology, the new truth—Mobutuism. Only "He" can maintain order and bring prosperity. These organic-statist doctrines stress the rights and powers of the ruler and the obligations of the ruled. They attempt to reinforce state power at the expense of all intermediary authorities and all particularistic groups, be they regional, ethnic, religious, personal, or ideological. Although a revolutionary rhetoric of political participation and popular sovereignty is used, the substantive content of these domain consensus doctrines clearly implies a concept of ruler or princely sovereignty. Mass participation is tightly constricted and controlled; it is passive mass participation in which the subjects are organized to foster the power of the state and its king—Mobutu Sese Seko: "It will be easy to teach social discipline and the taste for work and sacrifices in the general interest to a mobilized and structured popular mass." 98 The press, radio, and television are tightly controlled so that the administration is nearly the sole source of information.99 The prefects propagate legitimacy doctrines and myths to back up the administrative and coercive power of the state—to add a normative component to the utilitarian and coercive forms of domain consensus. These domain consensus functions constitute the main "party" tasks of the territorial administration. In es-

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sence, the MPR is the propaganda arm of the absolutist state; it is not really a political party at all. In a letter to all regional commissioners in August 1974, the state commissioner for political affairs noted: The action of the territorial administration must essentially be one of mobilizing the masses. . . . Since the creation of the MPR by the Supreme Guide of the Nation, the party cadre [the prefects actually] have strived to carry the revolution to all social strata and to instill among them a Zairian patriotism. . . . This action consists basically of an indoctrination of the population via mass meetings. 100

The goal is to "persuade, to instruct, and to arouse the attachment of the population." The mobilization and propagation tasks of the Zairian absolutist prefects focus on four main types of activities: mass meetings (rassemblements populaires) held at all levels of the administrative hierarchy, animation, marches of support (marches de soutien), and constructing and dedicating monuments, signs, or symbols glorifying the state, the party, and, above all, Mobutu. Each of these domain consensus tools and the mass response to them will be examined. An important amount of the prefects' time is taken up with domain consensus functions. The regime has always placed strong emphasis on these activities, especially in terms of assessing the performance of its administrative personnel. The prefects themselves have seized upon these functions as one concrete way they can quantitatively demonstrate the vigorous performance of their duties. As a result, Kinshasa periodically has to remind them that they have other important functions. Table 6.1 presents data on domain consensus activities in the Cataractes Subregion for 1971 and 1973. It is clear that domain consensus functions are important ones, especially mass meetings and animation sessions. Popular meetings are assemblies called by local administrators in order to inform or instruct the populace about regime policies, doctrines, and expectations. The size of the crowd ranges from a few dozen peasants in a small village to thousands of urban dwellers. Administrators at all levels of their hierarchy conduct these meetings, usually on subjects dictated from above. These topics range from the latest grandiose policy changes decreed by Mobutu (agriculture number one priority, the takeover of the

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lonial period, one of them in 1920! Note that the Belgians had removed one chief because of his involvement in a politico-religious movement. The state does have the power to remove a locality chief, but it is not frequently done in Bas-Zaire at any rate. In 1971 there were more than 350 locality chiefs in BasZaire. 34 The prefects are frequently called upon to intervene in disputes between groups within a locality over the exercise of traditional power or in quarrels between the locality chiefs and their sector chief. Occasionally they step in without being asked because the conflict poses a threat to social order. A number of these conflicts arise because of the advanced age and diminshed effectiveness of many of the locality chiefs. The prefects complain constantly about these traditional authorities who serve until their death. These interventions constitute an important part of the coverover process because they promote a more direct state-subject relationship. Such actions are much less frequent or successful in the chiefdoms of a pays d'état because of the significantly greater power of the collectivity chiefs. CONTROL OF SECTOR CHIEFS: SUSPENSION AND DISMISSAL One the major characteristics of central control in pays d'élection is the ease and frequency with which sector chiefs are suspended or removed. Although the same statutory rules hold for chiefdoms, it is much more difficult for the absolutist state to remove or generally discipline the mwami of the Kivu traditional ministates. In Bas-Zaire, however, such measures are quite common. By law the prefects may reprimand, suspend for up to three months, or dismiss a sector chief. In addition, they may simply not renew a chief's five-year mandate. Such measures require approval of higher authorities, but action is often taken without such consent. In October 1973 the Bas-Zaire assistant regional commissioner complained that "more than once I have not without regret seen cases of the removal of collectivity chiefs by zone commissioners without any report relating the relevant facts being sent to me." 3 5 If the absolutist administrators desire to remove a given sector chief, a way or reason can almost always be found, especially since most of the chiefs are heavily involved in the "politics of appropriation."

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Most of the following cases are taken from Luozi Zone, but they are typical of many others from other zones for which I have dossiers. It should be remembered, however, that sector chiefs are constantly the targets of accusations of misconduct by their political enemies. In fact, the territorial administration spends a fair amount of time investigating such accusations and settling disputes between chiefs and their enemies. The cases presented here are ones in which the accusations have been confirmed by administrative investigation or judicial proceedings. In October 1971 the sector chief for Balari, Luozi Zone, was suspended for two months for helping to smuggle a sergeantmajor of Congo-Brazzaville's army into Zaire and giving him the identification card of a Zairian citizen. The Luozi zone commissioner suspended the chief of Kimumba Collectivity in 1972 for keeping the salary money of his locality chiefs. The chief of Benga Collectivity, Kimvula Zone, was arrested in 1972 for embezzling 687 Zaires from the sector treasury. In October 1972 the prefect for Luozi suspended the chief of Mbanza-Muembe Collectivity for forcing his subjects to carry him around in a sedan chair, for ordering members of the JMPR to beat up and illegally arrest local notables, for submitting villagers to "certain humiliations which cannot be tolerated these days,"and for defaming the MPR. After being reviewed by higher authorities, the disciplinary action was changed to complete dismissal in April 1973.36 Accusations were brought against the chief of Kenge Collectivity in Luozi Zone in early 1971 for serious abuse of judicial functions including bought verdicts and illegal sentences and fines, levying illegal taxes, embezzlement of funds, attempted rape, and theft and abuse of state property. He also forbade merchants to sell medicine in his jurisdiction and then had his messenger sell medicines in all the villages for him. This chief was also eventually removed, but not until 1973. Serious offenses as in the above cases are not the only grounds for dismissal; general incompetence and disobedience of routine administrative directives are sufficient. Note the following assessment of the chief of Wombo Collectivity by the Songololo prefect in 1969: Despite much advice given to him, it is with regret that I state that this chief has taken no profit from my counsel in regard to looking after local

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insitutions as the traditional authority as well as in regard to the application of laws and regulations. Given the service he renders the population of Wombo, the chief continues to shine by a notorious incompetence in the execution of the laws, regulations and decisions of the Political Bureau. This chief is not only guilty of slow execution of governmental laws and decisions, but he also refuses to enforce them despite direct orders to do so with urgence.37

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE CONTROL OF SECTORS AND THEIR CHIEFS In theory, the sectors, like the chiefdoms, are decentralized administrative units with a good deal of autonomy. In fact, however, the supervision and control exercised by the prefects appears considerable. What limits exist, and exist they do, result from the vastness and complexity of the task environment, the multiple preoccuptions of the prefects, their individual weaknesses, resource contraints, and the early modern nature of the administrative apparatus. The move from theoretical toward factual absolutism is a difficult one. The tentativeness of Zairian absolutism is striking; its limits constantly haunt its pretensions. To paraphrase Kierstead on French absolutism, Zairian absolutism is neither as sinister and despotic as its enemies claim, nor as radiant a success as its proponents believe. Five basic control measures used by the prefects will be briefly discussed: general supervision and assessment of sector chiefs, review of sector administrative activity and decisions via the minutes of collectivity meetings and regular and special reports, direct meetings with collectivity chiefs, regular and special inspections, and hierarchical communication and correspondence. Zairian prefects are often dissatisfied with the behavior of their collectivity chiefs, and they are constantly assessing their performance. For example, in 1973 the zone commissioner for Luozi felt that only two of his ten sector chiefs were performing their duties well. In fact, he sought the replacement of four of them. 38 Short of seeking the suspension or replacement of chiefs, the zone prefects severely chastise deficient chiefs in hope of getting better results; they rarely get them. In July 1974, the zone

Control of Local Collectivities

35 7

commissioner for Kimvula wrote to all three of his chiefs: "your administrative activities are practically nonexistent because of a lack of organization and know-how on your part; you must be rated as failing." 39 He proceeded to list a series of specific actions they must take to correct the situation. I watched the correspondence and administrative reports for the next eight months, and very little improvement was forthcoming. Most major sector business is discussed at meetings of the council, which are presided over by the collectivity chief. Local notables not on the council, villagers, representatives of the zone administration, and members of the sector staff also usually attend. The most common topics discussed at these meetings include hiring and payment of sector personnel and locality chiefs; collection and use of head-tax revenue; preparation of collectivity budgets; creation of new local taxes (beer, dog, bicycle, canoe) or changes in tax rates; results of a financial inspection; repayment of lOU's to sector treasury; purchase of building materials or a vehicle; functioning or creation of new civil registry offices; a local census; construction of a new market, police camp, administrative building, chief's residence, or school; road and bridge maintenance; damage caused by a severe storm or crop disease; compulsory agricultural cultivation; sale or transport of agricultural products; inflation of food prices; regulation of local markets; Salongo; entertainment of visiting state officials; functioning of the local traditional court and replacement of judges; level of bride wealth; local crime; location of new villages; disputes between localities over land or boundaries; selection of a new locality chief; creation of an animation group; problems with schools; JMPR activities; and current national issues—authenticity campaigns, national census, "Objective 80" development projects, Mobutu's activities, Zairianization, and so on.40 Minutes of these meetings have to be sent to the zone commissioner, who comments on the items discussed and the decisions taken. His written comments and the minutes are then passed up the administrative hierarchy to be reviewed at each level, in theory at any rate. If prefects at any level disagree with a decision taken, the sector council must change that decision. One example will suffice. The collectivity of Timarisi, Mbanza-Ngungu Zone, held a

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

council meeting on April 24, 1972. It was attended by ten of the thirteen locality chiefs, six councilors, a zone agent, and numerous villagers; it was presided over by the collectivity chief. The council decided to rotate some civil registry officials because of abuses, and the chief chided his locality chiefs for not reporting the abuses sooner. In his written commentaries, the zone commissioner agreed with this decision. The council then turned to the corruption of local agricultural agents who were levying illegal fines and taking things from young girls by force and decided to complain about it. The zone commissioner promised to investigate. Next the council members complained about the functioning of the sector court, especially unfair fines and prison sentences and the favoritism of the chief judge toward some groups. In his written commentary, the zone prefect reminded the council that the state, as tradition, sets maximum fines for given offenses, which must be respected. He also suggested that the court rely more on fines than prison sentences because it costs the collectivity money to keep people incarcerated. As for the chief judge, the prefect indicated that if his behavior did not change the council should submit a report requesting his removal. "i ne subject of road and bridge repair caused considerable, heated debate. Many complained about having to repair the roads and felt the task belonged to the state. Besides, they did not have the necessary funds or material. One councilor suggested they ask the state for a bulldozer; this created considerable mirth! In his response the prefect took a stern position: "The council must make the population understand the necessity of road repair in order to stimulate its enthusiasm for the work. . . . I do not understand the council's reticence. The population must go to work without further delay." Private dispensaries in several villages were the next topic of discussion. Many people had complained of the bad, often dangerous, medical care they were providing, and the council lamented the difficulty of controlling them. The zone commissioner ordered that they be closed immediately. The JMPR was the last topic, with the councilors complaining about its many abuses of the local population, including illegal fines and beatings. One councilor complained that the JMPR "does not respect the rank of councilor or village chief." The blame

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was laid on the sector chief, who was told to control the JMPR so as to avoid these abuses. Both the minutes of this collectivity meeting and the zone commissioner's later written comments were reviewed by the subregional commissioner seven months later.41 The absolutist administrative apparatus works slowly. Since Law 73/015 abolished collectivity councils, only the chief, several collectivity officials, the head of the JMPR, and the locality chiefs were formally allowed to attend collectivity meetings. Others usually continued to attend informally, however. Commentaries similar to those made by the prefects for collectivity meetings are also made for other reports submitted by the collectivity chiefs. Administrative meetings between prefects and the collectivity chiefs are another major form of control in the coverover process. At the zone level, they are to be held monthly or whenever special circumstances dictate. Problems of collectivity administration, questions of import for the whole zone, and national policy decisions are discussed in these meetings. In terms of collectivity administration, most of the subjects listed above for collectivity meetings are also discussed at the zone level. The prime importance of these meetings is the direct contact between the prefect and the collectivity chief; they are the crucial point at which the absolutist apparatus connects with the local intermediary authorities. Speaking of these meetings, one zone commissioner notes: "Here we have asked the chiefs to do all that is necessary to organize properly the administrative apparatuses of the collectivities, and they must do all they can to reestablish respect for authority by their personnel who have become accustomed to scoffing at it." 42 It is indeed a difficult and frustrating task. Inspections, both regular and special, are also an important part of the coverover process. Although not usually undertaken as frequently as the regulations require, semiregular administrative inspections of collectivities constitute a major form of state intervention into the local activities of traditional and quasi-traditional officials. In conducting these inspections, the prefects, both zone and subregional, give direct instructions to the sector chiefs about how to correct problems and settle disputes. Regular inspections usually cover the following areas: general administrative practice (reports, files, correspondence), the usually cata-

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

strophic financial situation (budgets, expenditures, deficits, taxes, other sources of local revenue, accounting procedures or the lack of them, corruption, and nonpayment of local personnel), civil registry procedures, the functioning of the sector court, the JMPR, Salongo (especially road maintenance), animation, and "development" projects, if any. Special inspections are made to cope with particular problems: a deteriorating security situation, economic decline, unrest over forced cultivation, strained relations with state officials (usually zone, gendarmery, or army), damage by severe storms, and disputes between local authorities (chief and council, chief and locality chiefs, chief and religious officials, etc.) or between villages over land, boundaries, markets, and so on. In fact, one of the most effective coverover processes is the intervention of state officials in local disputes that arise between traditional authorities or villages. The common pattern is for the group that is losing the battle to demand intervention by zone officials. For example, in April 1970 the Kimvula zone commissioner traveled to several villages in Lula-Lumene Collectivity to settle a dispute between two locality chiefs over the border between their respective villages, which arose when a land census was being conducted. Both sides claimed ancestral rights to a given area. Only the central state was able to enforce a resolution of the conflict. Even so, the conflict will probably resurface in the future when the losing group feels it can reverse the decision. 43 In July 1970 the subregional commissioner ordered the Mbanza-Ngungu zone commissioner to investigate a dispute between two clans in Kivula Collectivity. One clan had erected a cattle corral on land claimed by the other. In addition, the cattle were destroying the crops of the complaining clan. The villages of the two clans were in a great uproar, with threats of violent action being traded back and forth. A local official reported that he had "tried to counsel them to settle the dispute according to custom, but they could not agree." He wrote to the subregional commissioner asking for intervention: "It is urgent that this situation be settled in order to avoid bloodshed because the moods of the two parties are greatly inflamed." A representative of the offended village also wrote to the subregional commissioner requesting state intervention. He stated: "[B]e assured that the people of Kingyambila village seek your counsel and appeal to your wisdom in order to settle completely and definitively this land

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dispute which resulted from several unhappy incidents; even now it could lead to bloodshed."44 The absolutist state finally stepped into this dispute. COURTS A N D FINANCES: KEY TARGETS OF THE COVEROVER PROCESS

The two most distinctive functions of early modern states are extraction and adjudication. It was in these two areas that the intendants of seventeenth-century France became most active in asserting absolutist control over local traditional authorities. The same is true for absolutist Zaire, and the activities of the prefects and their assistants in both of these areas will be examined. The Mobutu regime has consistently attempted to assert its authority both informally and formally over the entire court hierarchy. As one commentator put it: "Even.the magistracy is not spared." One of the most common and effective means of control at the higher levels is the careful selection of judges. They must demonstrate their "unfailing attachment and unconditional loyalty to the President-Founder."45 When this form of patrimonial control is not considered sufficient, the absolutist regime creates special courts to handle particularly sensitive cases. The Court of State Security (Cour de sûreté de l'Etat) is a good example. Another control method, announced in January 1974, is the appointment of special lawyer-counselors for the regions who defend the interests of the state before the courts.46 But, as one high official admitted the next month, it is the absolutist prefects above all who assert control over the courts in the regions: Regional authorities do not often hesitate to give orders to judicial agents to undertake judicial proceedings against people, however innocent, who displease them or to make sure that a decision or judgment in a given case goes one way or another.47

This intervention has both formal and informal aspects. Although préfectoral intervention exists at all levels of the court hierarchy, the focus here will be on the quasi-customary courts of the zones and the customary courts of the sectors. In both cases, but particularly in the latter, the state asserts some control over traditional judicial matters. Zone courts are considered quasi-customary courts be-

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cause they have the right to hear cases involving both statutory and customary law. The zone prefects, like all Zairian prefects, are immune from state prosecution except in very special cases, and they combine their administrative duties with judicial ones by sitting on zone courts. Usually it is the assistant zone commissioners who fulfill these duties. The rest of the judges are supposed to be notables who have a good knowledge of local customary law. In this capacity, the prefects are able to review the judgments of the fully customary courts of the sectors. It is at the zone and collectivity levels that Roman and "royal" law come into contact and compete with customary law. Like seventeenth-century France, Zaire suffers from the tangled confusion of a multiplicity of customary systems of law which act as a major barrier to central penetration. Every area has its own system of customary law which acts as a major bulwark of local particularism. Mobutu's law is but one among many. As in early modern Europe, absolutism plays a great part in the spread of Roman law in Zaire. It is an important tool of the consolidating patrimonial-bureaucratic state. Like Colbert, Mobutu has established commissions that are attempting to codify customary law, but the task is immense and the various types of law continue to exist side by side. The autonomy of customary courts in the collectivities remains important, but the prefects attempt to emasculate it. In this coverover process, the prefects are more successful in the sectors of the pays d'élection than in the chiefdoms of the pays d'état. In 1968 the regime announced a formal move to abolish the autonomy of the local traditional courts. The aim of the reform was the "integration of the traditional jurisdictions" into a court hierarchy completely controlled by the centralizing state. The "distinction between jurisdictions of written law and so-called native jurisdictions" was to be eliminated by replacing the customary courts with new "peace courts" (tribunaux de paix)—"a new jurisdiction merging the traditional courts with the police courts." 48 These new, centrally controlled courts were to be gradually introduced. This effort constitutes one of the few cases in which the Mobutu regime has sought to go beyond the structure of the colonial state, but, like the major administrative reform of 1973, it has failed. The peace courts are still not widely established. While waiting for these new courts, the zone and collec-

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tivity courts have been regulated according to Belgian colonial practice ("Arrête royal du 3 mai 1938 coordonnant les décrets sur les juridictions coutumières"). Judges of sector customary courts are of two types. The sector and locality chiefs are members by law, and the sector council selects others from among local "traditional notables" who are well-versed in the customary law of the area. All of the judges must be approved by the central state. Not all of the judges sit for each case. They are paid a small fee from collectivity funds for each case they help to judge, except for the chiefs, who receive administrative salaries. The latter do not always function as judges because of their other preoccupations, but they usually exercise a great deal of influence over the court. Because of their size, some sectors have more than one court. In most cases, however, the one court is itinerant. The sector council also hires a court clerk (greffier), who must also be recognized by the state. The prefects have the power to remove both judges and clerks from local courts, and they establish the fees paid to judges. The state must also approve the creation of any new courts. While the state regulates to some degree the structure of sector traditional courts, cases are decided by the judges according to local customary law. Statutory or written law does, however, regulate the level of penalties that can be imposed and also determines which cases should go to the quasi-customary zone courts. Some statutory offenses are, however, handled by sector traditional courts.49 Overall, then, the particularism of local customary law remains strong. This is not to say, however, that the sector courts do not have a repressive character. In fact, they usually act to reinforce the power of the chiefs and, indirectly, the centralizing state in areas such as forced cultivation and corvée labor. Table 7.6 is a breakdown of the cases heard by all of the customary courts in the Cataractes Subregion in 1974. The offenses most directly related to chiefly and state authority are those involving the civil registry, village hygiene, insubordination and public affronts toward authority, and forced labor. Together these 898 offenses constitute 41 percent of the total of 2,186.50 In terms of the early modern character of the society, note the 157 cases of sorcery (7.2 percent). Land disputes were a major preoccupation of the courts before they were banned by the regime. An example of the effect the repressive nature of these courts

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Table 7.6 Cases Heard by Customary Courts, Cataractes Subregion, 1974 Infraction Conjugal abandon Felling palm trees Abuse of confidence Adultery Clan disputes Slander Assault Malicious destruction of plants and fruit trees Debts Disputes Miscellaneous Divorce Slavery Civil registry False testimony Hygiene Injurious charges Fire Public abuse Public drunkenness Threats Disobedience toward authority and the law Public abuse of authorities Rebellion Broken engagements Sorcery and fetishism Nocturnal disturbances Forced labor or cultivation Vagrancy Breaking and entry Theft Rape Indecency Palaver Fraud Hanging Bush fires Property rights Total

Number 23 — 25 132 — 27 207 16 240 66 17 15 2 16 3 44 11 1 107 3 38 778 19 — 27 157 2 41 2 2 156 — 1 1 2 2 1 2 2,186

S O U R C E : "Statistiques des condamnations à des sanctions pénales prononcées par les juridictions coutumières et des infractions qui les on provoquées," Annual Report, Cataractes Subregion, 1974, p. 5.

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has on the population is presented by a Luozi Zone prefect in 1973: "The citizens have become very obedient in regard to public work activities [forced labor] because they will do anything to escape the fines levied for noncompliance by the traditional courts." According to another state official, the cause of the increasingly repressive character of these courts is to be found "generally in the extension of their competence to include infractions of written law, notably in regard to forced labor and decisions taken by traditional authorities as well as in a weakening of clan solidarity."51 In Bas-Zaire, inspections of sector courts are carried out by zone commissioners, their assistants, or zone staff p e r i o d i c a l l y , if not always regularly. Speaking of the Mongala Subregion in Equateur, Schatzberg notes that the "lack of inspection is almost legendary, and the courts in one zone in Mongala were visited for the first time since independence only in 1974." 52 This is clearly not the case for Cataractes Subregion in Bas-Zaire, where inspections have been undertaken with some regularity and care. And it is not just zone officials who are involved, but subregional ones as well. In addition, the general administrative reports submitted periodically by the zone prefects include data on the functioning of the courts (number and types of cases judged, etc.). The inspection reports are usually quite detailed, covering the following areas: number, age, and condition of the judges and assessments of their performance; number and type of cases submitted and judged and sentences rendered; judgments executed or pending; a close examination of judgments not executed; collection and accounting of the fees and fines levied; itinerancy of the court(s); payment of judges; the selection, training and performance of the court clerk, especially his handling of the numerous records and registers that must be kept, and an examination of procedure and results for individual cases. A particular area of concern is the accounting of monies collected because of the pervasiveness of the "politics of appropriation" at the collectivity level. These are patrimonial institutions, and the line between the public and the private is often very thin. If the inspection is carried out by a prefect, he will occasionally meet directly with the judges to discuss their performance in general or in relation to specific cases. The prefects have the power to review cases and annul decisions. One Kasangulu prefect reported: "At the time of

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

the inspection, the judgments rendered were evaluated in a meeting with the judges and in this manner we were able to focus on certain problems, especially sorcery."53 These court inspections allow absolutist officials to intervene directly into traditional areas of activity in the sectors, and the more disarray they see from their perspective as agents of a centralizing state, the more they seek to intervene—a key characteristic of the coverover process. Witness the views of one Kimvula zone commissioner. After conducting a series of inspections in early 1971, he reported to the subregional commissioner on "the profound disarray of the traditional courts in my jurisdiction." From his absolutist perspective the essential mission of these customary courts is to "promote social order and maintain the peace in the area." This they were not doing: "The present situation is simply lamentable. . . . The weakness of their courts is a principal cause of the population's discontent."54 Above all he stresses the repressive character of these courts. As noted in discussing resistance in seventeenth-century France, peasants often have to struggle against absolutist and traditional forms of exploitation. The prefect notes the venality and lack of independence of the judges, who "seem above all to want to please the local authorities, the collectivity and groupement chiefs." The judges do not hesitate to get involved in "cases which interest one of their members"; they "extort money from those who come before the court in order to acquire more revenue for the collectivity treasury." Proper procedures are not followed; "tradition is not respected"; illegal fines are levied; the distinction between penal and civil cases is not respected; judgments are not executed properly, and, above all, "the training of the clerks leaves a great deal to be desired." The prefect concludes that these customary courts must be supervised much more closely.55 One of the indicators the prefects watch most closely is the number of cases tried by the customary courts. If there is a decline from one year to the next, they become concerned because they want to pull as much activity as possible into courts over which they have some control. A good deal of adjudication still goes on outside the formally constituted customary courts, in what the prefects call "clandestine courts." In 1969 a regional official noted that "certain zones are not working hard enough to achieve

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the maximum number of cases. . . . This decline is due to the existence of clandestine courts." According to the Luozi zone commissioner in 1973, "Recently certain citizens prefer to settle their disputes on their own rather than going before the courts." When this problem becomes serious the prefects usually act to deal with it in order to create a more direct state-subject relationship. But the peasants continue to resist contact with the centralizing state, even with courts it only supervises. Witness the action taken by the Mbanza-Ngungu zone commissioner in 1971: Although they are judges by law, the groupement chiefs have no right to create courts in their villages. This practice handicaps the functioning of the sector courts. These abuses which are common throughout the zone were seriously discussed during the last meeting with zone agents and the collectivity chiefs. It was decided that all cases, whatever their importance, must first of all be submitted to the sector chiefs who will determine the proper jurisdiction (village chief, sector court or police court). Village elders or notables never have the right to impose fines, only physical damages (chickens, wine, pigs) of not more than five Zaires.56 The zone prefects constantly assess the performance of the judges in the sector courts and have the power to remove them. This power stems from the fact that they are technically judicial officials because they sit on the zone courts. Administrative reports are replete with assessments such as the following for the collectivity of Lukunga-Mputu in Kasangulu Zone: "In general the judges have rendered poor service; they leave the court in the hands of the clerk." Periodically a prefect will remove a judge from a sector customary court. In the collectivity of Gombe-Sud in 1969, the zone commissioner removed a judge from the customary court because he was fomenting land disputes, among other things. According to the prefect, this judge "never ceases to distinguish himself by his scandalous and mediocre behavior. I can no longer tolerate that a judge like him is so frequently the cause of a climate of insecurity and tension in the sector, especially when it is his duty to repress such misdeeds." The same holds true for court clerks, who are renowned for their incompetence and their corruption. The prefects remove them, and the sector councils must then seiect another one: "Citizen Luyeke manifests a notorious

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incapacity to exercise his duties. I believe he should no longer be court clerk. He must be removed immediately. The collectivity council must submit for your [zone prefect] approval another person more worthy and conscientious."57 Administrative officials will often try to counsel and educate both judges and clerks in order to improve their performance according to the criteria of the absolutist state. Finally, like their early modern French predecessors, the Zairian prefects have the right to review and annul decisions of the customary courts. Either a judgment is revised or annulled outright or the case can be reviewed by the zone court on which the prefects sit. The following case illustrates the direct intervention of absolutist prefects into the activities of traditional courts: Case No. 19/69 of 13 January / 969 Complaint against Ntemina Marie concerning forced cultivation. Ntemina Marie was found guilty and ordered to pay a fine of 62.5 makuta, without court costs. Remarks. This action of the judges does not meet my approval; this woman's fine of 62.5 makuta is not enough because forced cultivation is ordered by the State.

In another 1969 case, the chief of the village of Kimatutu (MbanzaNgungu Zone) was brought before his sector court for failing to keep his village clean. He was ordered to pay a fine of 400 makuta and court costs of 63 makuta. In his comments on the case, the zone prefect noted that "if an entire village is not clean it is not only the fault of the village chief but also of each inhabitant who did not clean or sweep around his house." According to the prefect, either each inhabitant must be charged or the village as a whole, but not the chief alone. He ordered the sector court toreimburse the chief his 463 makuta.58 The collectivities are free to undertake expenditures as long as they are justifiable. — A zone commissioner 59

As in seventeenth-century France, the finances of traditional jurisdictions are a key avenue for increased control by the centralizing absolutist state. As in the judicial realm, the collectivities have formal autonomy in this regard. All collectivity revenue, except the salaries of the chiefs, is generated locally, and expenditures are determined by collectivity personnel and the council.

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In fact, however, the prefects exert considerable control, direct and indirect, over collectivity finances, especially in the sectors of a pays d'élection like Bas-Zaire. The prefects, like the intendants before them, have a readily available rationale for increasing central control—the catastrophic condition of local finances. Based on a detailed report of the financial condition of sixty collectivities in Kasai Occidental Region conducted in late 1971 and early 1972, the minister of interior issued a general assessment of collectivity finances. He asserted that "the absolutely catastrophic condition of the administrative units is the same throughout the territory of the Republic." The collectivities ran perpetual deficits (fifty-nine out of sixty); taxes were poorly and improperly collected, with the head tax (CPM) rarely reaching above 50 percent of the possible; personnel were irregularly paid, if at all, and corruption and mismanagement were widespread. As causes of the situation the minister listed the incompetence of many collectivity chiefs and staff and the poor control exercised by the prefects. According to the minister, "serious redressing is required which will come about only by energetic and constant action by the prefects at all levels." He called for more contact with collectivity officials, more regular and better quality inspections, better training of collectivity personnel, and "implacable repressive action" against those that commit abuses.60 This is certainly true of the sectors of Bas-Zaire. Assessments like the following from financial (caisse) inspection reports are typical: "The finances of this collectivity are very badly administered. The chief set a bad example with 1,399.27 Zaires [in lOUs to the collectivity treasury] to his credit"; and "as a whole the funds of this collectivity are very badly administered because the amount available has no correspondence with this collectivity's financial records." And as one prefect noted, "Most of the local collectivities make no effort to ameliorate their financial situation."6' The major sources of collectivity revenue are the head tax (CPM), a series of other taxes which can be levied with the permission of the subregion prefect, judicial fines and fees, and miscellaneous income such as the rare repayment of debts. The following is the income breakdown for the collectivity of Balari, Luozi Zone, for 1972:

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Category

Amount in Zaires

Percent of Total

2,380.40 1,041.01 951.48 270.00 4,642.89

51.3 22.4 20.5 5.8 100.00

CPM (head tax) Judicial fees & fines Other taxes & fees Repayment of lOUs Total

Except possibly for the repayment of the loans, these percentages are typical of sectors in Bas-Zaire. Receipts are almost always below the budgetary estimates. In the above case, CPM receipts were 1,460 Zaires short of the estimate, and other tax and fee receipts were 398 Zaires below the expected. Judicial receipts were 38 Zaires higher than expected.62 The CPM is the main source of collectivity revenue, usually about 50 percent. It is the successor of the head tax of the colonial state. Prior to 1969 the collectivities were allowed to keep only 50 percent, with 30 percent going to the zone and the rest to the central state. It affects those who do not pay income tax via withholding and whose income is less than 240 Zaires a year. In short, it falls mostly on the peasants, who constitute the bulk of the population. The amount is determined on a sliding scale from 40 makuta to 9.60 Zaires depending on the average income of an area as set by the central government. For 1973 the rates for the Cataractes Subregion were as follows:63 Zone Songololo Mbanza-Ngungu Kasangulu Madimba Luozi Kimvula

Set Income

Rate of CPM in Zaires

1002 1002 852 852 752 752

4.402 4.402 3.602 3.602 3.602 3.602

The head tax is collected by designated collectivity officials, and, as we have seen in the discussion of the ratissages, coercion is often used. The prefects are supposed to supervise and control collection procedures, but abuses and incompetence are widespread. Rarely does the full amount possible reach the collectivity treasury. Fifty percent or below is more the norm. Does this mean that the tax is simply not collected? Although partially

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true, it is not the whole answer. It is common practice for tax collectors and other collectivity officials simply to keep a portion, sometimes a substantial portion, of what has been collected. This constitutes an informal form of tax farming in an early modern patrimonial-bureaucratic state. There is even a minor formal taxfarming rule, which allows tax collectors to keep 1 percent of their intake, but, in fact, they usually keep many times that percentage. When linked with the other local taxes and fees, this tax burden becomes quite substantial for the peasants of Zaire. Some observers estimate that the state extracts between 25 and 50 percent of the average peasant's yearly income, not including bribes and other illegal forms of extortion.64 From what I observed in Bas-Zaire and Kivu, this is probably a reasonable estimate. Passive tax resistance is a common practice, and overt, violent protest is not unknown. And, as in seventeenth-century France, the exploited rural population gets next to nothing in return for its taxes. In addition to the CPM, a whole host of other local taxes exists. The collectivities may impose them with the consent of the subregional commissioner. The following is a list of most of the collectivity taxes prevalent in Bas-Zaire in the early 1970s: birth, marriage, divorce, and death registration fees; identification tax; land transfer tax; boutique or store tax; residence tax; road tax; radio tax; water consumption tax; gas tax; dog tax; cattle tax; canoe tax; bicycle tax; building authorization tax; arms permit tax; craftsmen tax; bar tax; butcher tax; baker tax; lodging tax; and even a hospitalization tax. The^o taxes differ from sector to sector as do their rates, thus creating an incredible jungle of local extractions. The absolutist state has sought to bring some uniformity, but the results are mixed at best. Local particularism manifests itself in local taxes as in other realms. These taxes bring in about 20 percent of a collectivity's revenue. Sectors often create new taxes or increase the rates of others when their financial situation becomes more desperate than normal. In December 1970 the officials of Lula-Lumene Collectivity in Kimvula wanted to raise the rates on thirteen local taxes because of "the financial difficulties suffered by the collectivity at present; the collectivity does not have much income." The council proposed the following rate changes:65

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Tax

Old Rate

Proposed Rate

Identification Goods display Boutique Lodging Drinks Festival Marriage Divorce Birth Death Convocation Warrant Craft

10 10 500 10 100

K* K K K K

600 K

150 500 30 20 15 40 250

K K K K K K K

300 600 40 30 20 100 300

20 K 20 K

20 K 150 K

+

K K K K K K K

*K = makuta; 100 makuta = 1 Zaire. +After "mature reflection" the council abolished this tax because it made merrymaking too expensive.

The rate change proposal was forwarded to the subregional commissioner who rejected it: "I do not agree with the collectivity chief on this point; to augment taxes means to increase prices in the markets." Another concern of the prefects is the suppression of illegal taxes, which are often arbitrarily created by collectivity chiefs. Illegal market taxes are one of the most common types, especially after Mobutu declared their reduction in a speech on July 30, 1972.66 In these and many other ways, the absolutist prefects limit the financial autonomy of the sectors. There is one more tax collected at the collectivity level that needs to be mentioned—the party contribution. This flat twenty makuta tax is paid by everyone once a year as a "free" contribution to the MPR, and the money is not kept at the collectivity level. Every year each collectivity prepares an elaborate budget for the coming year. Estimates are made for both revenue and expenditures in all the major areas: administration, salaries, judicial affairs, public works, economic affairs, medical affairs, and diverse or accidental matters. These budgets are submitted to the zone prefects, who make detailed comments on them. In this way the centralizing state is supposedly able to control local expenditures. The only major problem is that these budgetary estimates have no

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link to reality whatsoever. Categories are inflated, and the money spent for other purposes. An interesting category to watch is "organization of public festivities." For 1972, Balari Collectivity in Luozi budgeted 90 Zaires for this category; 500.21 Zaires were spent, about 12 percent of the total collectivity expenditure.67 No correlation exists between budgeted amounts and what is actually spent. The budgets are always balanced, but when the spending figures (themselves not overly accurate) come out at the end of the year, the collectivity is deep in the hole again. By far the largest real expenses are the salaries, benefits, and indemnities of collectivity personnel, which usually constitute between 55 and 75 percent of the total amount spent.68 The personnel rolls of the collectivities are usually grossly inflated because of the patronage of the chief, the secretary, and the accountant. Even so most are not paid regularly because the money goes for other purposes, legal and otherwise, or it simply never reaches the sector coffers. This, of course, leads to further corruption on the part of the unpaid workers who have to support their families. A vicious circle of corruption and exploitation is thus created. As a result of their perpetual deficits and financial chaos, the collectivities are always asking the state for financial help. For example, in May 1973 the collectivity of Kinkenge in Luozi borrowed 2,200 Zaires to buy a small truck and was unable to pay off the loan when it came due in 1974 "because of a lack of financial possibilities" and "a difficult year." The sector chief wrote to the subregion asking for assistance. The request was passed on to the regional administration, which denied that it had funds to help. But the requests continue to come. At a large three-day administrative meeting in June 1972, the subregional commissioner told the thirty-five collectivity chiefs present "not always to count on the state because 100 percent of the CPM is put at the disposition of the collectivities and there are other taxes which bring large returns for the collectivity treasuries which allow them to realize their projects."69 Special administrative meetings like the one just mentioned are one of the methods used by the prefects in their attempts to control the financial chaos of the collectivities. The other principal control tool is the periodic inspection of collectivity fi-

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nances by state agents. These inspections cover the books of the civil registry offices, collection records for the CPM and other local taxes, the payment of personnel, and the books of the collectivity treasury itself. But these inspections merely document the financial chaos of the collectivities. The prefects can order the removal of collectivity secretaries and accountants, but it rarely seems to do any long-term good. There are cycles of tighter and looser controls, but the chaos goes on—a clear indication of the limitations of the Zairian absolutist state. How can one account for the chaotic state of collectivity finances? Certainly incompetence of collectivity officials and inadequate controls by state agents play a part, but the most salient reason is clearly the "politics of appropriation"—financial corruption that follows from having a political position. The road to power, status, and wealth in Zaire is via the state. The greatest social aspiration is to become part of the political aristocracy, to share in the spoils of the absolutist state. The politics of appropriation reaches from Mobutu and his "presidential family" down through the state hierarchy to the lowest collectivity official. It is a pervasive phenomenon of an early modern patrimonial-bureaucratic state in which the line between the private and the public is thin or nonexistent. In this realm patrimonial characteristics of administration are predominant. The list of techniques used in the politics of appropriation is almost endless, and the methods are often quite imaginative. Bribery for everything conceivable is one of the most prevalent techniques—for the performance of ordinary administrative services (a form of benefice administration), for having documents destroyed or forged, for the fraudulent use of the official seal, to get a job or keep one, to get children into the schools, for favorable recommendations, etc. Corruption also involves blackmail of subordinates, misappropriation of travel or housing benefits, taking pay but not working (especially multiple salaries for jobs not performed), remaindering of salaries, false tax declarations and bills, and so on. And one must not forget plain old embezzlement.70 Of course these practices affect the collectivities as well as the rest of the state apparatus. The collectivity cash box always seems open and ready for plundering. Again the methods are multiple. Much of the revenue collected never reaches the local

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treasury. Considerable funds are misspent or embezzled after reaching the collectivity coffers, and illegal fees, fines, and taxes are common.71 Despite the pervasiveness of these phenomena, it is often hard to document the politics of appropriation beyond merely repeating accusations. But I have some good data on one of the most common forms of appropriation—what are called bons pour (lOUs). Under this system state agents or family and clients of state agents "borrow" money from collectivity coffers. These sums are rarely paid back, and the "loans" wreak havoc with collectivity finances, being one of the most common reasons for the perpetual deficits. The regime is well aware of the practice,72 but little is done to abolish it because state agents at all levels benefit from it. By mid-1972 the financial chaos of the collectivities in the Cataractes Subregion had become so severe that the subregional commissioner called a special administrative meeting to deal with it. Table 7.7 presents data on the bon pour situation for seven of the subregion's thirty-six collectivities. Several things need to be pointed out about this data. The data are for only seven collectivities. Nineteen prefectoral personnel account for 62.3 percent of the total owed (6,564 Zaires), and one of the nineteen, a former zone commissioner, is responsible for 15.2 percent of the total and 24.4 percent of that owed by the prefects. Note that almost all (86.8 percent) of the people with lOUs are state or collectivity employees, that no farmers were listed, and that the higher an individual is in the administrative hierarchy the larger his lOUs are. Finally, no current subregional prefects are listed; this does not mean they did not have any lOUs. The collectivities may have been chosen so as not to embarrass any of them. It is no wonder that the collectivities are in a perpetual state of financial chaos.

Kivu: Absolutist Control in a Pays d'Etat The level of central absolutist control of Kivu is significantly less than for Bas-Zaire. Chiefdoms outnumber sectors, and a good number of the chiefdoms are the direct descendants of precolo-

Table 7.7 IOU Situation for Seven Cataractes Subregion Collectivities, 1972 Individuals

Collectivity

No./IOUs

Amt.lZaires

2 former SR comms. Former zone comm. Former asst. zone comm.

Mbanza-Ngungu Mbanza-Ngungu Mbanza-Ngungu

11 5 1

2,050 410 30

Collectivity Total Collectivity chief 6 collectivity officials

Timansi Timansi

17 1 6

2,490 13 44

Collectivity Total Regional official Former SR comm. 2 former asst. SR comms. 2 zone comms. Former zone comm. 3 asst. zone comms. JMPR secretary 8 collectivity officials

Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo Kwilu-Ngongo

7 1 1 2 3 4 1 8

57 40 1,000 140 641 28 30 60 241

Collectivity Total Zone com. 4 asst. zone comms. Unknown Collectivity chief 3 collectivity sees. Zone agent

Kintanu Kintanu Kintanu Kintanu Kintanu Kintanu

22 1 4 1 4 3 1

2,182 1,165 1,028 140 1,461 99 55

Collectivity Total 5 court clerks 3 C N D agents Zone accountant

Mfidi Mfidi Mfidi

14 5 3 1

3,948 328 29 154

Collectivity Total 2 zone agents 8 collectivity officials 4 workers 2 ticket sellers Judicial police officer 6 messengers 7 unknowns

Wungu Wungu Wungu Wungu Wungu Wungu Wungu

9 3 8 4 2 1 6 8

511 56 193 24 32 11 21 61

Collectivity Total SR JMPR secretary 7 locality chiefs 2 collectivity officials 9 clerks Court president 5 policemen 3 zone agents 2 state service agents Agricultural agent Midwife 3 workers

Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma Mfuma

32 1 7 2 9 1 5 3 2 1 1 3

398 20 105 22 391 19 45 80 235 10 3 12

Collectivity Total Seven-Collectivity Total

2

35

942

136

10,528

SOURCE: Subregion administrative meeting, Kwilu-Ngongo, July 15, 1972.

Control of Local Collectivities

3 77

niai ministates which have retained a high degree of coherence despite tampering by colonial authorities. The mwami are selected according to custom, and the collectivities operate to a large extent following traditional norms. Traditional authority predominates over that of the centralizing absolutist state. The structure of the latter is merely superimposed, and loosely so, on top of these traditional structures; state-subject relations are very indirect indeed. Speaking of Kivu, one Zairian scholar notes: "The traditional structures remain the main focus of identity against which the State must struggle. The struggle for the creation of the Zairian nation continues."73 In 1969 the Kivu regional commissioner admitted that the Mobutu regime "had difficult beginnings in Kivu." He assessed the cause of these difficulties in the following manner: "To be objective and complete let's immediately say that the inhabitants of Kivu are used to receiving and obeying orders from their traditional chiefs, the mwami, before launching into any political activity."74 In short, the coverover process confronts severe constraints and contingencies in this pays d'état. In December 1971 the absolutist state decided to strike a blow at the heart of this traditional power. By Law 71/008 of December 31, the state abolished "purely and simply feudalism in all its forms in the Republic of Zaire." The aim was to eliminate a couple of practices that reinforce the hierarchical power of these traditional ministates: tribute (Kalinzi and Bugabo) and traditional corvée labor. Kalinzi are payments, usually in cattle or money, to the mwami or nobles for the acquisition of land use rights. The key to these traditional states is the control of land: "The land belongs either to the mwami or to the great nobles who have paid Kalinzi to the mwami or any other person who has also paid Kalinzi to a noble." Bugabo involves the exchange of cattle in "friendship" in feudal patron-client relationships. Traditional corvée labor consists of work for the mwami and the nobles by men, women, and even children; it usually involves cultivating their fields or tending their cattle. Even those who work in private businesses are not spared. But, as with all things in this early modern state, the gap between central decision and implementation is large, and the power of local particularism is great. The absolutist prefects simply informed the mwami of the decision and recommended that they comply. Obviously this "recommendation" did not have

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too much impact. The regional commissioner reported that for 1973 "feudalism was more anchored than ever" in several key zones: Kabare, Masisi, Walungu, and Kalehe.75 The mwami especially, but also the heads of regular chiefdoms, often do not comply with orders from the local absolutist prefects. They replace judges, collectivity officials, locality chiefs, and village heads at will; they issue judicial decisions without the slightest regard for state-approved legal procedure; they disregard direct orders and fail to submit reports or supply requested information; they use collectivity funds as they see fit; the politics of appropriation is simply a patrimonial right. In short, they are powerful and rather autonomous intermediary authorities who frequently go their own way. As in early modern France, however, there is more than one level of conflict. The conflict discussed above takes place between the mwami and the centralizing absolutist state. Within these traditional feudal states considerable conflict exists between various factions of the nobility, between locality and village heads and the mwami or some of his nobles, and between the peasants and any of these groups. Frequently these struggles become quite violent; assassinations are not rare. The colonial state and the Zairian absolutist state have merely added another level to the quarrels. Many of these disputes were aggravated or, in fact, caused by the tampering of the colonial state. More tampering took place during the first five years of independence. When Mobutu came to power the situation was so chaotic that he decided the country would revert to the situation as it was at the time of independence in June 1960. The traditional states thus have their own problems with local particularism. As in seventeenth-century France, the Zairian absolutist state attempts to intervene in these conflicts, but usually without too much success when it threatens the interests of the ruling mwami. State intervention is often inefficacious "because of the poor understanding of tradition" by the prefects. The power of some mwami is sufficiently strong and territorially extensive that their chiefdoms are designated as zones. In 1968 Mobutu decided that some of these mwami would simultaneously hold the positions of collectivity chief and zone commissioner. In short, they were to become absolutist prefects as well

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as traditional leaders. Real prefects were assigned to them as assistant zone commissioners to help with their préfectoral duties. This practice was referred to as dédoublement or le cumul; there were two such cases in Nord-Kivu: Masisi and Rutshuru. Obviously this recognition of considerable traditional authority did not reinforce the power of the centralizing absolutist state. In theory, "the quality of zone commissioner takes precedent over the one of mwami," but quite soon it became apparent that there were serious problems with this arrangement. In May 1970 the regional commissioner noted that these mwami "confuse administrative institutions with traditional ones." Several months later one frustrated Nord-Kivu assistant zone commissioner vented his anger at his subregional commissioner: "In Rutshuru, Mwami Ndeze has a tendency to do without the collaboration of his assistant zone commissioners and does everything himself, so much so that the latter have nothing to do all day but twiddle their thumbs." About the same time, the regional commissioners, at a meeting in Kisangani, recommended abolishing the "fusion of the roles of traditional chief and zone commissioner." The situation was finally rectified in October 1972 when the mwami were removed from their positions as zone commissioners.76 But, as we shall see, this did not lead to much increased control over their activities. We will examine the efforts of absolutist prefects to control three of the more powerful mwami in Kivu: Mwami Kabare (Kabare Zone, Sud-Kivu Subregion); Mwami Kalinda (Masisi Zone, Nord-Kivu Subregion); and Mwami Ndeze (Rutshuru Zone, NordKivu Subregion).77 KABARE Kabare is now a collectivity of over 200,000 people along the western edge of beautiful Lake Kivu, but it is the direct and vigorous descendant of a traditional state. As one Zairian observer notes, it is "a state society of the feudal type with absolutist tendencies." This allows us to "understand to a great degree the many difficulties confronted by the administration." At the time of my research in Kivu in 1975, the mwami of this chiefdom was still the venerable Kabare Rugemanizi. He traces his ruling lineage back through twenty mwami. Born in January 1913, he be-

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

came mwami in 1929 and was officially recognized by the Belgians. Relations with the Belgians were often strained, however, and in 1936 they removed him. Kabare was not rehabilitated in his functions as mwami until December 1959, about six months before independence. Conflict with the state has always been a fact of life for Kabare: "The mwami has always considered the administration his great enemy. Why? Because the administration continually encroaches on his powers."78 In the early 1970s the assessment of Mwami Kabare by the absolutist state was characteristically schizophrenic. Despite his age and ill health, the prefects were well-aware of his continued authority: "Kabare, although completely weakened by age and illness, remains for his subjects a venerated and obeyed chief." They found him generally cooperative and "loyal to the father of the Nation" as long as his direct interests were not threatened. In fact, the mwami would collaborate with the absolutist state as long as it did not directly intervene in areas of traditional rights and powers (control of land, tribute, and labor, the appointment of notables, etc.) and as long as it supported him in all traditional power struggles. But, at the same time, the prefects bemoaned their lack of direct administrative control and sought ways to replace him or otherwise extend state control over him. In short, he remained a real thorn in the side of the administration. Two of the most commonly mentioned proposals were replacing him with one of his sons (one more amenable to the state, of course), and appointing a state-selected "assistant chief." Mobutu's decision to "abolish" feudalism was, in part, aimed directly at Mwami Kabare. But, as one prefect noted in mid-1972, "In Kabare Zone, feudalism continues on its way." A Zairian observer summed up the situation in early 1974 this way: "Despite these multiple crises, Mwami Kabare remains equal to himself, mistrustful of the modern power and influential with his subjects."79 The mwami's reaction to charges against him made by the zone commissioner in early 1972 is a good example of his efforts to defend his threatened interests. The mwami believed, correctly, that the zone commissioner wished to replace him, and, as a result, all collaboration between the two had ceased.80 In a letter to the regional commissioner dated March 26, 1972, Mwami Kabare reminds him that according to Ordinance-Law 69/012 "the

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length of office of a chiefdom chief is determined by tradition." He goes on to wonder how the citizen commissioner who reads this ordinance to us so often can compare me with chiefs of sectors and centers; yes, I am already old, but according to the traditions of the Bashi that I have governed since my birth I am the mwami like my ancestors who were all traditional like me. If I am now a man to be expelled as it says in this report, why at this hour that I speak to you do my people continue to submit to my authority without force?81 He also accuses the zone commissioner of wanting to replace certain notables chosen according to custom by the mwami. This is one of the most dangerous areas for the absolutist state to meddle in. For, as Kashara notes, "However strong the intervention of the state may become, it will never substitute for the mwami as far as the appointment of notables is concerned."82 In addition, the mwami accuses the state of constantly attempting to intervene in traditional disputes. He mentions the case of Irhambi Locality, which had been a separate chiefdom between 1963 and 1967, and notes that "these troubles are provoked by the administrative authorities who inject themselves without reason into traditional and customary affairs." He wonders "if the commissioner has also become the chief of Kabare Collectivity." These interventions are rarely successful. Finally, the mwami castigated the administration for meddling in the financial affairs of the chiefdom: "I ask myself often if the treasury of the chiefdom is to be found in Uvira (the subregion headquarters) or in Kabare."83 Despite all the maneuvers of the absolutist state, Mwami Kabare remained in power. As we shall see, he even made it through the direct challenge of the implementation of the Law 73/015 reforms. In the end the absolutist prefects did not dare remove or transfer him for fear of the popular reaction. So, by early 1975, the prefects reverted to an earlier proposal—that of temporarily appointing an assistant chief. He was to have the confidence of the mwami and was to be called "delegate of the chief."84 In sum, the power of local particularisms in pays d'état poses particularly severe problems for absolutist states. The struggles continue as elsewhere, but success comes much more slowly and requires considerably more finesse than in pays d'élection:

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

At present in Zaire traditional structures are in their death throes. But this agony is more or less slow depending on the existence of a solidly structured traditional society or not. For well organized traditional societies, and Kabare Collectivity is one, it would be risky to want to abolish a single feature of their structure. That would engender conflicts; moreover, the events of April in Kabare, a consequence of the attempt to implement Law 73/015, convince us of this.85

MASISI

Masisi Zone in Nord-Kivu has only one collectivity—the collectivity of the Bahunde (280,000 inhabitants), which is ruled by Mwami Kalinda Miteetso. This important chiefdom is also the direct descendant of a traditional ministate. The Bahunde state is ruled by the mwami, his ruling family, nobles, and appointed administrators. There is a royal court and a traditional high council. But the heart of this traditional state is the patrimonial power of the mwami himself: "In principle the mwami has absolute power and is considered owner of all the goods of the region—land, livestock and men. He is good, generous and magnificent. He is not only considered to have sacred powers but also as a person of divine origin." Kalinda Miteetso was born in 1904 and became mwami in 1922. In August 1969 he also became the zone commissioner for Masisi.86 Mwami Kalinda and his people have cooperated with the colonial and postcolonial authorities only when it did not threaten their traditional interests. When the centralizing state threatens these interests, they fight vigorously to defend them. Zairian prefects periodically complain about a general undercurrent of resistance to the absolutist state that exists among the Bahunde. After observing that "the people are apparently respectful and submissive toward central authority," one prefect deplored "a certain lack of sincerity and the frequent use of falsehood" such that "it is often difficult for authorities to know what they are thinking, and thus their real intentions. This greatly handicaps the work of the administrators."87 This resistance became much more apparent between 1969 and late 1972 with the fusion of the functions of mwami and zone commissioner. Here the contradictions between the patrimonial

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characteristics of traditional authority and the emerging bureaucratic nature of the absolutist state become most manifest. It was attempted because the mwami of Masisi, Kabare, and Rutshuru "are very powerful with their populations"; it "allows regime officials by way of the mwami to control the Bahunde population" and thus "the risks of revolt are attenuated." But *he costs of this situation were very high for the absolutist state in terms of its ability to control powerful local rulers. The mwami simply ignored the dictates of the prefects; his traditional interests took precedence over those of the centralizing state. As a result the state had almost no control at all. The officials of Nord-Kivu Subregion had many difficulties giving orders to the mwami, who felt he did not have to take orders from anyone: Thus many of their decisions are not quickly applied or are simply ignored whatever their urgency because they might hurt the interests of the mwami even if they are in the general interest. The question of respect for hierarchical authorities means absolutely nothing to the mwami who is absolute master in his chiefdom. This is why he generally does not recognize the authority of the subregional commissioner much less his representatives who are considered youngsters without much experience in life.88

The tension between the mwami as zone commissioner and subregion officials was always high. The latter constantly attempted to extend their normal hierarchical control over the mwami as prefect, but he just as emphatically resisted it. The mwami knew that, unlike most zone commissioners, he could not be transferred. In his investiture speech, he made it quite clear that he would resign his position as zone commissioner if necessary "because we do not wish to leave our chiefdom and our men under the yoke of others."89 Two real prefects were usually assigned to mwami Kalinda as assistant zone commissioners to assist him. Some were co-opted; others quickly became frustrated and asked to be reassigned. For these reasons, the assistant zone commissioners were changed frequently. In June 1972 the subregional commissioner sent a new assistant zone commissioner to Masisi along with a letter specifying the duties of both the assistants. Mwami Kalinda responded with an angry letter two weeks later in which, quoting adminis-

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

trative rules, he reminded the subregional commissioner that the power to specify the duties of his assistants was his alone. In addition, the mwami sent the list of duties that he had established for his two assistants, and it differed considerably from the one drawn up by the subregional commissioner. The list of the latter shifted all control of traditional (i.e., collectivity) affairs to the incoming assistant; evidently the existing one had been co-opted by the mwami and his traditional officials. The mwami's list of duties greatly altered this arrangement.90 Having thus failed to ameliorate the situation, the subregional commissioner in mid-August ordered the removal of the collectivity secretary, who was in fact a noble appointed to the position by the mwami, and transferred the co-opted assistant zone commissioner to subregion headquarters in Goma. The mwami reacted swiftly and decisively. He loaned his car to the two agents for a week so that they could go to Bukavu, the regional capital, to appeal the decision of the subregional commissioner. They were successful; the decision was overruled by regional officials. Both individuals were to remain in their positions.91 This incident points up the fact that the mwami often have powerful friends in the regional headquarters and usually in Kinshasa. In fact, one of mwami Kalinda's sons was a p e o p l e ' s commissioner (commissaire du peuple) in the Legislative Council in Kinshasa. As a result, the power of subregional officials is greatly undermined. Mwami Kalinda and his collaborators also never hesitated to harass visiting subregional prefects. In one case they accused an assistant subregional commissioner of squandering one hundred Zaires in the hotels of Masisi in four days. This prefect later swore he would have nothing further to do with Masisi. A whole host of abuses flourished as a result of this lack of control by the subregion. The collectivity budgets were improperly prepared and executed, funds were embezzled at will as no inspections of the treasury were carried out, and illegal taxes were collected freely. Similar problems existed for zone finances, and, in fact, no real distinction existed between collectivity and zone finances. Other abuses had to do with collectivity personnel. Positions not recognized by administrative regulation such as a "secretary general of the collectivity" existed, and often these positions had greatly exaggerated salaries and indemnities. Accord-

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ing to the collectivity budget the chiefdom had 617 employees! Obviously many of these were fictitious. The collaborators of the mwami for both the collectivity and the zone were all members of the nobility, and quite clearly they were all getting rich. It was also, as we have seen, impossible to remove them. The contrast with the situation in the sectors of Bas-Zaire is striking. The mwami and his officials also maintained a tight grip over judicial affairs, and, in this case, over both traditional matters at the collectivity level and zone judicial matters, individuals did not bother to appeal cases from the traditional courts of the chiefdom to the zone level because the mwami controlled the zone courts as well. In addition, no inspections were made of any of the courts, and "clandestine courts" tended to flourish. Abuses in the collection and distribution of taxes, especially the CPM, were also widespread. In short, the absolutist state had very little control over the Bahunde Chiefdom.92 Out of desperation, the subregional commissioner finally started disciplinary proceedings against Mwami Kalinda in his role as zone commissioner in September 1972,93 but the decision had already been taken in Kinshasa to remove all the mwami from their prefectoral posts. Kalinda reverted to being only mwami of the Bahunde Chiefdom the next month, and a real zone commissioner was assigned to Masisi. Did this change increase absolutist control of the Bahunde ministate? Only partially. Mwami Kalinda's power always had rested predominantly on his traditional control of the Bahunde Chiefdom and that continued. Kalinda still refused to comply with orders from the prefects that threatened his traditional interests. This was particularly true in regard to customary power disputes. He continued to revoke and appoint chiefs and village heads at will, suppressing any resistance that arose to such decisions. In doing so, he made use of spies called "secrets" by the population. In addition, he refused to let the state intervene in such disputes if it appeared the prefects would decide against him. Control of the courts and taxation also remained with the traditional power structure. No effort was being made to collect the general party contribution either. Basic state functions such as civil registry and census duties were simply not carried out; roads were not properly maintained; many lower-level collectivity officials were

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

still not paid regularly; zone-assigned Salongo tasks were not carried out; and orders from zone officials were ignored or perverted. Relations between zone agents and traditional locality chiefs actually worsened: "State agents placed at the disposition of locality chiefs all complain of the attitude of the chiefs. In effect they demand to return to zone headquarters." 94 This was in 1974, two full years after the end of dédoublement. Mwami Kalinda and his private and traditional collaborators, most of them relatives, continued to harass the zone prefects. For example, in May 1973, the mwami sent his nephew, Shamamba Kalinda, who acted as a legal adviser to him, to Bukavu to meet with the regional commissioner to complain about the new zone commissioner and his assistants. The specific complaints were that the zone officials were embezzling collectivity funds, misappropriating collectivity resources (gasoline in particular), and abusing collectivity personnel, and they had appointed a state agent as an "assistant collectivity chief" who was being groomed to replace the mwami. The regional commissioner responded by saying, "I have already noticed that each time we send a zone commissioner to Masisi, you say he is bad." Shamamba, a member of the Bahunde aristocracy, hinted that they had powerful friends in Kinshasa. The regional commissioner refuted the charges and then questioned Shamamba's right to represent his uncle to the territorial administration: " I have never heard of a judicial councilor in a collectivity before." In fact, the mwami has many such officials not recognized by administrative regulation; they are traditional officials who draw salaries from the collectivity treasury.95 Because of his advanced age and poor health, Mwami Kalinda progressively turned more of his responsibilities over to traditional officials who acted as his representatives. This was contrary to all administrative regulations of the absolutist state. The most important of these officials was the wetemwami, who acted as the official "representative or delegate of the chief of the collectivity of the Bahunde." For much of 1973 and 1974, he actually ran the collectivity and in doing so committed numerous abuses, including the mass firing of collectivity employees. In reaction to this, the subregion, at the direct request of the regional commissioner, moved to appoint a state agent as collectivity sec-

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387

retary. The regional commissioner stated: "I do not want to hear any more about a representative of the chief, a title which is moreover unknown in the statute which regulates politico-administrative officials." Mwami Kalinda responded quickly. He informed the administration that he was again taking over his duties and that he really did not need another state agent. He noted that he already had one state agent to help him and that this agent had "an optimal output"—an excellent indication of co-optation.96 Mwami Kalinda remained powerful enough to be spared in the implementation of the Law 73/015 reforms. As in Kabare, the Bahunde Collectivity is constantly racked by traditional power disputes, which usually have their roots in the colonial and early independence periods. They all directly affect the power of the mwami as he tries to impose his own solution. These disputes often generate considerable disorder and unrest, and, as a result, the absolutist state usually attempts to resolve them, most often unsuccessfully. These conflicts go on for years. Three main disputes exist in Bahunde: power conflicts over traditional succession in two localities (Nyamaboko and Bugabo) and a third locality (Bashali) that demands autonomy as a separate chiefdom with its own mwami. In the first two cases, the mwami has appointed his own men and has managed, often violently, to keep them in power. In the case of Bashali, he fights vigorously to prevent the loss of the locality.97 The situation became so chaotic by early 1973 that the subregional commissioner called a special collectivity meeting in Goma to attempt to cope with these three traditional disputes. He noted that "for a long time the zone of Masisi has caused us trouble. Spoliation of the land, power disputes, assassinations, and troubles of all kinds live there." In addition, he carefully indicated that "his role here is not to remove traditional authorities as some ill-disposed persons contend but rather to search for ways and means of reaching a normalization of the general situation in Masisi Zone." 98 In the case of both Nyamaboko and Bugabo, the disputants asserted that Mwami Kalinda "does not respect the tradition of which he is supposed to be the guardian." As for Bashali, the Belgians had made it a part of the Bahunde Chiefdom in 1930 based on traditional claims by Mwami Kalinda. It is a good example of the subimperialism that frequently existed during col-

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onial rule. The trouble stems from the fact that there are three competing groups of the Bahunde ruling family. Bashali regained its autonomy between 1963 and 1967. Since 1967 it has constantly struggled to regain this autonomy. As one Bashali leader put it: "Thus we remain between the hammer and the anvil. We simply wish to remain independent in order to occupy ourselves with the destiny of our ancient kingdom." 99 Mwami Kalinda has been able to prevent the fragmentation of his chiefdom by controlling all appointments, stacking the membership of the collectivity council, and fending off the administration. The absolutist regime has simply been unable to intervene successfully in these disputes; the power of this local particularism remains too strong. At the end of this special meeting the subregional commissioner summed up his feelings: "As always, the problem of Masisi remains. Despite our efforts we have gathered no fruit. It is therefore a fiasco." 100 By late 1974 the general situation in Masisi so disturbed zone and subregion officials that they proposed two solutions to their superiors. In a confidential letter of October 18, 1974, the zone commissioner proposed replacing Mwami Kalinda with someone younger from the ruling family. The subregional commissioner concurred and forwarded the proposal to the region. The next month the subregion proposed breaking the Bahunde Collectivity up into three parts: a collectivity for the town of Masisi, a Bashali Collectivity, and a smaller Bahunde Collectivity. The regional commissioner approved the proposal and forwarded it to Kinshasa in early 1974. One prefect explained the purpose of this proposal: "The envisioned split aims at the penetration of the population in view of its flowering. Not only would the administration fulfill its civilizing mission, but it would make the economy viable thus aiding social action in the rural areas." ,01 Again the absolutist state covers its state formation aims in developmental rhetoric. By August 1975 nothing had come of either proposal; the power of this local particularism remained intact. RUTSHURU Rutshuru Zone in Nord-Kivu now has two collectivities: Bwisha and Bwito.'02 Bwito was absorbed into the grand chef-

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ferie of Bwisha in 1920 and remained a part of it until shortly after independence, when it again became autonomous. In 1967 Bwito again became a part of Bwisha, but its traditional leaders struggled vigorously to regain their autonomy. This was achieved in November 1970. The ruler of Bwisha has always been Mwami Ndeze Rubago II (Daniel). He was also mwami for Bwito during the colonial period and between 1967 and 1970. From 1967 to 1972 Mwami Ndeze was also zone commissioner for Rutshuru. As a result, between 1970 and 1972, Ndeze was mwami for Bwisha and zone commissioner for both Bwisha and Bwito. Like the mwami Kabare and Kalinda, Ndeze cooperates with the centralizing state only when it is congruent with his traditional interests.103 Mwami Ndeze was born in one of the small Bwisha chiefdoms that was controlled by the Tutsi. In June 1919 he became a chiefdom chief. In early 1920 the Belgians decided to group the region into one "traditional" unit as a chiefdom of Bwisha. According to Ndeze, he "reclaimed the power exercised by his ancestors," particularly "his ancestor Rugabo," who was the first to settle the land after coming from Bunyoro (now in Uganda). Ndeze became mwami and Grand Chef coutumier de la Chefferie du Bwisha: "The Great Chief Mwami Ndeze Daniel was chosen as successor of his ancestor Rugabo and whoever does not wish to obey him will be severely punished."104 Ndeze took the forty-four small chiefdoms and molded them into nine localities, each administered by a delegate of the mwami. Thus, although Bwisha was not the direct descendant of a viable traditional ministate, it was operated as one by Ndeze from 1920 on. And he ruled with a firm and vigorous hand, probably the more so because of the semiartificial character of the chiefdom. Tradition often being a fluid and malleable notion, Bwisha had easily become a "traditional" ministate by independence. Mwami Ndeze became zone commissioner for Rutshuru in December 1967. At the time Bwisha was the only collectivity in the zone. As the subregional commissioner put it, "This formula will avoid the useless duality in the administration of the territory which has existed until now." Ndeze made it quite clear that he was both mwami and what he called "administrator-chief of the zone of Rutshuru." In a letter to regional officials in March 1968,

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he underlined his special case: "My case as mwami of Bwisha is different from those of the agents of the administration." He reminded them that his "contract with the people of Bwisha is for life" and, thus, he could not be transferred like other prefects.105 Clearly he was indicating to the absolutist regime that the position of mwami predominated over his functions as a prefect. Early on, Mwami Ndeze made it very clear that he would run his chiefdom and "his" zone in his own way, and the administration quickly realized it was a rather different way—the way of a traditional patrimonial state. He established three offices and appointed three personal "representatives," all of whom were relatives: his zone office headed by his private secretary Kajibwami Joseph, his chiefdom office headed by Ndeze François, and his MPR office headed by Ndeze Timothée. The last two were merged when the administration and the party were fused. In addition, the chiefdom as zone had three types of officials, all considered "traditional authorities." Two categories were normal: hereditary locality chiefs (called Bisogna), and hereditary village heads (called Bakungu). But a third, and unusual, category also existed. Most zones have state agents called chefs de poste. Instead Mwami Ndeze appointed direct patrimonial officials called mutwale w'intebe, that is, "those who have the right to sit next to the mwami." They too are traditional authorities, but they are nonlineage-based, nonhereditary patrimonial administrators. The mwami alone has the right to appoint them, transfer them, and remove them. The mwami stated that he places them "in the regions to inspect the work, just as the State names agents to occupy detached posts. But they are agents of the chiefdom." In short, they are neither semiautonomous traditional authorities nor agents of the absolutist regime; they are patrimonial officials in a traditional state who have not been able to appropriate their positions. They have tried, however. Whenever the mwami would dismiss one of them, the individual would appeal to the subregion prefects. Although the absolutist state tried repeatedly to intervene successfully in these disputes, it was never able to do so. Lastly, the mwami has his own police and appoints and controls all judges.'06 As one prefect noted, "Commissioner Ndeze is above all mwami of the Bwisha Collectivity." Despite his advanced age he keeps a firm hand on his two jurisdictions. Above all, he is highly

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authoritarian, and brooks no dissent. A good example of his style of rule comes from a statement he made in a 1967 memorandum to all his "compatriots large and small." He ended his memorandum with the following exhortation: "Drunkenness, idleness, contempt for authority will be severely punished. Arise! Everybody to work." But the authority to be served is that of the mwami and not of the absolutist state. The tight grip is reflected in the fact that the roads are always well-maintained and the CPM collection rates run very high, 75.2 percent in 1972. Insubordination accounted for 23.8 percent of the local court cases in 1972. It was the largest category by far; the next highest was assault (8.8 percent). During the entire time Mwami Ndeze was zone commissioner, there was not a single state inspection of local traditional courts, and he replaced judges at will, despite repeated subregion warnings and complaints.107 This is not to imply that abuses did not exist. They did, but they only tended to reinforce the power of the mwami, his family, and his collaborators. Only a few examples will be given here. Embezzlement was common. At the end of 1971, there were twenty-ninefaonspours in the treasury for a total of 3,557.68 Zaires, most of them owed by family and close collaborators of the mwami. Salaries, indemnities, and budget categories were padded: 3,000 Zaires for miscellaneous expenses, for example. A "traditional" tax existed, which brought in 8,100 Zaires in 1971 (30 makuta per person). Half of it went to the chiefdom treasury; the other half went directly to the mwami. Also, very little distinction existed between the collectivity and zone coffers. Despite all the revenue, many lower-level collectivity employees went unpaid for months at a time. The mwami owns a local fishing cooperative (COPILE) as private property, and subregion officials constantly received complaints that its workers were not being paid.108 The list of abuses is practically endless. How did Mwami Ndeze carry out his duties as zone commissioner according to the absolutist prefects? Not very well, said the subregional commissioner in July 1968; he recounted the difficulties he was having because of "Mwami Ndeze's attitude of insubordination": "the obtuseness, stubbornness and the arrogant and insulting attitude of this chief make the administration of his region quite difficult and make him unpopular in the eyes of other

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chiefs in the surrounding region." He complained in particular about the illegal removal of locality chiefs by the mwami, his giving the zone police court "the air of a true popular tribunal held in the open air in front of the zone office," workers not being paid, and the inability of the assistant zone commissioners to sit on the police court or to handle administrative correspondence. The latter was handled only by the mwami's private secretaries. Lastly, he noted that "several agents demand to leave this zone and new ones refuse to go there." 109 In 1968 there were several assistant zone commissioners; by 1972 there was only one. The regional commissioner responded to his subregional commissioner's complaints, and the nature of the response reveals a great deal about how the absolutist state chose to deal with powerful traditional authorities in a pays d'état: "you must moderate your policies in regard to Mwami Ndeze. Chiefdoms being regulated on the basis of tradition, administrative authorities must make decisions with prudence and adroitness. Before reacting each time to the decisions of Mwami Ndeze, I ask you to seek my advice in order to avoid disorders and misunderstandings. . . . You must not substitute yourself for the mwami in matters relating to his authority. I counsel you instead to resort to methods of persuasion when you seek to intervene." 0

Clearly the centralizing absolutist state decided to treat these traditional authorities very carefully. They are not to be given free reign, but the methods of intervention have to be much more subtle and cautious than those used in the pays d'élection. The whole tenor of the coverover process is different. For his part, the mwami is forever loudly proclaiming his undying loyalty to Mobutu and his absolutist state. In itself, this is a way of keeping the encroaching state at a distance. When the state begins to push too hard, however, the mwami will take decisive action. In 1970, for example, the activities of the local C N D agent crossed the boundary of what the mwami thought was appropriate. As a result, in October he expelled the C N D agent from Rutshuru and allowed his office to be sacked, after which several dossiers were missing. After this incident the subregion C N D administrator noted that "it is the very presence of the C N D in his zone that he refuses to accept in a barely disguised manner no

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matter what agent we send there."111 If this incredible act of resistance had been tried by a collectivity chief or zone commissioner in a pays d'élection, the individual would have been instantly arrested, imprisoned, and probably removed from his position. None of these things happened to Mwami Ndeze, even in his capacity as zone commissioner. The lack of state control in Rutshuru was vividly described in a two-part article published in a Kinshasa newspaper, L'Etoile, on October 4 and 5, 1969. The article was entitled "A Province Within a Province?" Among other things, the writer accused Mwami Ndeze of mixing his functions of mwami and zone commissioner, to the detriment of the latter. The mwami does not cooperate at all with the state agents sent to him, from assistant zone commissioner down to doorman. In fact, the state agents become "mere courtiers and not officials of the State." The mwami ignores all instructions from the state administrative hierarchy. Instead of devoting himself to state business, the mwami spends his time holding court, "everybody sits around the mwami as courtiers would": "All day long the chief and his collaborators do nothing but settle disputes, whether it is a noble angry with his village head or an agricultural agent who has a dispute with a peasant, etc." The writer also accused the mwami of grossly mistreating his subjects: "The absolutism of this traditional chief is felt in all areas." For example, the peasants, according to the article, "do not see why they must divide the fruits of their sweat with the officials of the chiefdom." The mwami exiles and confiscates the property of anyone who seriously opposes him. He also imposes outrageous traditional fines ranging from ten to fifty Zaires. If the peasant does not pay, he "becomes a slave of the chief." The mwami's police, rather than those of the state, arrest his subjects for any infraction. And these arrests "take place as they did in the days of the suzerains": "Before being conducted to prison, an arrested villager is spit on in the face and is required not to wipe it off until he is in the depths of the prison, that is, not in the presence of the mwami." Finally, the writer notes that Mwami Ndeze "feels that these austere measures contribute greatly to the maintenance of discipline. The chief does not hide his satisfaction and his pride in this discipline that he boasts of having established with the snap of a finger."112

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A high official in the Interior Ministry sent Mwami Ndeze a copy of this article, and he responded to it with an eight-page letter to the regional commissioner. In the letter he either denied the charges or vehemently defended his actions. He certainly showed no regret! In addition to qualifying the writer as a deranged liar, Mwami Ndeze reminded everyone that Mobutu himself had given him his double position, and that as a result, the writer "indirectly attacks the Chief of State." As for himself, "I occupy myself with my duty as zone chief-commissioner and traditional chief in following the directives given to me by my hierarchical superiors."113 By late 1971 the situation had not changed much. In October Mwami Ndeze sent one of his private secretaries rather than an assistant zone commissioner to a subregion administrative meeting in Goma. The subregional commissioner interpreted this as a major affront to state authority because the mwami sent a traditional, patrimonial official to fulfill his préfectoral duties. The mwami's private secretary was sent packing and the mwami severely chastized, but it was not until a year later that Kinshasa took the decision to abolish dédoublement. Mwami Ndeze was "retired" as zone commissioner for Rutshuru on October 17, 1972, but he continued to be mwami for the collectivity of Bwisha. A permanent zone commissioner, a real absolutist prefect, arrived in early February 1973.114 Did absolutist control over Mwami Ndeze and his subjects increase after he ceased to be zone commissioner? Only marginally. Ndeze continued to keep a very firm grip on his subjects and cooperated with the new zone officials only when his direct interests were not adversely affected. He will work closely with these state agents, however, when state dictates tend to reinforce his own power. Such is the case with Salongo, which simply legitimizes the traditional practice of corvée labor. Mwami Ndeze is a great advocate of Salongo as long as he can determine which tasks are to be performed, and this is almost always the case. In an open letter to his subjects in September 1973, Mwami Ndeze castigated his subjects for their slovenly Salongo performance. In no uncertain terms, he made it clear that his subjects should "work for the good of the entire Zairian Nation. As you know I do not like lazy people and drunkards because I consider them sowers

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of trouble and disorder." The collection of the CPM is another good example, because the collectivity gets to keep all the revenue collected. Mwami Ndeze warns his subjects that he knows full well that they have the money to pay the CPM: "Nobody can say they do not have the makuta because I know very well that my people have many goods, even the inhabitants of the surrounding area come to my collectivity in search of provisions." 115 Despite the authoritarian nature of Mwami Ndeze's rule, the enthusiasm of his subjects for the state and the MPR remained low. He did little to assist the penetration of the MPR and its ideas into his chiefdom. The subregional commissioner severely criticized the new Rutshuru zone commissioner in May 1973 because of the local population's lack of support for the party: "You do not seem to have in hand the situation of the party in this part of the subregion where the population lacks the necessary zeal. . . . It is the same with the administrative personnel working under your orders [collectivity and locality officials], personnel who give the impression of living on the margin of the Revolution."" 6 And that is exactly where Mwami Ndeze wants to stay—"on the margin of the Revolution." The autonomous patrimonial authority of this powerful representative of local particularism continued, and, as we shall see in the next section, he easily survived the implementation of the Law 73/015 reforms. It is to those efforts that we now turn.

Law 73/015 and Absolutism: Beyond the Coverover Process? The announcement of the Law 73/015 reforms created considerable anxiety and even some open unrest. The functioning of collectivities throughout the country was adversely affected. About a week after the law was promulgated the state commissioner for political affairs noted "a certain agitation among the traditional chiefs," which "risks disturbing the normal functioning of these units." He asserted that the law "does not justify any agitation on the part of the traditional chiefs" because "it does not harm them, but rather better guarantees the general interest of the coun-

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try."" 7 But the fears of the traditional authorities were wellfounded. The state commissioner announced that all collectivity chiefs were considered to have resigned. A process of candidacy submission was initiated in all the zones. Anyone, including the "former" chiefs, could submit their candidacy as long as they met the criteria established by the law (two years of postprimary schooling, physical and mental competence, and sufficient militantisme). Obviously many of the chiefs did not meet these criteria, and others were eliminated from consideration by zone and subregion prefects. Unrest appeared in some areas as a result. But this process was terminated by Kinshasa in mid-June 1974 before the final selections were made, apparently because of the resistance that had appeared." 8 In fact, the absolutist regime completely gave up the idea of selecting new collectivity chiefs. Instead, the state commissioner for political affairs announced on August 8, 1974, that all chiefs, with the exception of some grands chefs, would be transferred to new collectivities. Clearly the new qualifying criteria were not taken into account. The transfers took place in two waves. In September and October most chiefs from the "ex-" chiefdoms, sectors, and centers were ordered to move to new collectivities. Considerable resistance to this decision appeared, particularly in the chiefdoms, and on October 18 Kinshasa backed down. The state commissioner announced that the decision applied only to "administrative" chiefs (those from sectors and centers) and not to "customary" chiefs (those from chiefdoms). In the second wave, all chiefdom chiefs were returned to their collectivities by early December. Most of the other chiefs, however, were ordered to stay in their new posts. Throughout this period Kinshasa provided only basic guidelines for the local prefects; they had to develop their own criteria for implementing the central decisions based on local conditions—a good example of the exercise of discretion in deconcentrated administrative units in a centralizing state facing a heterogeneous and shifting task environment. Central officials attempted to recoup somewhat in March 1975 by announcing that all poorly functioning old chiefs could be replaced by the local prefects. Sector and center chiefs could be replaced with state administrative agents, but those from the "former" chiefdoms had to be replaced with individuals who fulfilled both the traditional and new criteria." 9 Clearly the major objectives of Law 73/015

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were not achieved because of strong societal resistance, especially in the chiefdoms of the pays d'état, and the limited administrative and coercive capacities of an early modern state. We will now examine and compare the absolutist state's efforts to implement Law 73/015 in two pays d'élections (Bas-Zaire and Kasai Oriental) and two pays d'état (Kivu and Shaba). BAS-ZAIRE The announcement of the Law 73/015 reforms generated considerable concern in Bas-Zaire. The regional administration moved immediately to formulate proposals for new collectivity chiefs. This was accomplished by April 8, 1973. The proposals were to be kept secret, but, as the Cataractes subregional commissioner noted, they quickly became "an open secret." Many chiefs traveled to Kinshasa seeking to find out their fate. As a result, there was "a very remarkable slackening in the functions and activities of the collectivities." Collectivity revenues dropped precipitously; embezzlement became more widespread than usual; collectivity services practically ceased to function; and a state of "deterioration or systematic destruction of the property of the collectivities" existed in many areas. The prefects took action to arrest this situation, and, as time passed and the reforms were not implemented, things began to return to normal.'20 Finally, on August 8, 1974, the order came from Kinshasa to transfer all existing collectivity chiefs. By September 2 the regional administration had made and issued its transfer orders. The moves were to be completed by September 15. At the time, the region had forty-seven collectivities in two subregions (thirty-six in Cataractes, twenty-one in Bas-Fleuve). Forty-one collectivity chiefs were ordered to move to new collectivities; there were six vacancies due to three deaths, one resignation, one imprisonment, and one desertion. The chiefs were shifted between zones and subregions; there was no direct pairing of zones, however. For example, the eight chiefs from Mbanza-Ngungu Zone (Cataractes) were transferred to Kimvula, Madimba, Luozi, Seke-Banza (Bas-Fleuve), Lukula (Bas-Fleuve), and Tshela (Bas-Fleuve) zones.121 All the chiefs were ordered to move—the competent, the incompetent, the old, and the young. Despite some maneuvering, resistance, resignations, and

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moving problems, the prefects managed to ram most of the transfers through and make them stick, at least in the short run. The effort in this pays d'élection was greatly facilitated by the relative ethnic homogeneity of the area and the use of French and Kikongo throughout the region. By late October almost all the chiefs had moved. The October 18, 1974, decision by Kinshasa not to move chiefs from chiefdoms did not affect Bas-Zaire because it did not have any chiefdoms. So there was no real second wave in Bas-Zaire. This is not to say there were no problems or resistance. A couple of examples illustrate this point. By the regional transfer order of September 2, Chief Dikiadi of Lukunga-Mputu Collectivity in Kasangulu Zone was ordered to Bamboma Collectivity in Songololo Zone. His place was to be taken by Chief Kulelana from Balari Collectivity in Luozi. Kulelana arrived in Lukunga-Mputu, but Dikiadi refused to leave and agitated to stay where he was. An administrative cable notes that he occupied this "post in response to wishes of the people of this collectivity." Because of this resistance, subregion officials agreed to leave Dikiadi in Lukunga-Mputu. To fill the now vacant post in Bamboma, the prefects temporarily appointed a state agent (a former chef de poste). But what to do with Chief Kulelana? He was shifted to Boko Collectivity in Mbanza-Ngungu Zone, where the incoming chief had resigned for "health" reasons. In fact, however, Kulelana never got to Boko because the prefects reassigned him to Kasangulu Collectivity in Kasangulu Zone. Chief Bivuvu from Kivunda Collectivity in Luozi had been ordered to this collectivity, but he was in prison for theft. His Luozi prefect had noted that "he distinguishes himself by not implementing the instructions transmitted to him; he continually engages in useless and sterile discussions." In mid-February 1975, however, regional officials overruled the subregion and ordered Dikiadi, whom they described as "scheming to stay on" in Lukunga-Mputu, to go to his original assignment of Bamboma in Songololo Zone. Chief Kulelana was ordered to assume his originally assigned post in Lukunga-Mputu.'22 Some chiefs simply refused to move, and the prefects finally ordered that all those who refused be suspended. Most of them finally moved. Moving itself, however, was often very painful and difficult. There were problems with lack of funds, trans-

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portation, and schooling for children. Some chiefs were also very poorly received by the local population. Chief Mabumbi was transferred from Patu Collectivity, Boma Zone (Bas-Fleuve), to Kenge Collectivity in Luozi. After arriving in Kenge he was robbed several times. He did not resign, but in December he requested a transfer to another collectivity.'23 A number of chiefs actually did resign after taking up their new posts. In April 1975 the Cataractes subregional commissioner reported that the chiefs of Wungu (Madimba), Mfidi (Madimba), Kimpese (Songololo), and Fuma (Madimba) collectivities had resigned. The commissioner asked them why, and he received the following type of reply: "Despite the fact that we have left our home areas to work in other collectivities we note that the State no longer offers to guarantee our employment until we wish to leave honorably." The prefect noted that "for me this reason is not valid. The chiefs who resign are for the most part incapable of following the rhythm of our revolution." The chief from Kimpese had tried to resign in March 1974 while he was still chief for Ngeba Collectivity in Madimba Zone. He used his advanced age of sixtyeight years and alleged poor health as his reasons, but as his zone prefect pointed out in a confidential letter two weeks later, he had just acquired a store in Inkisi as part of the November 1973 "Zairianization" of the economy. This chief moved to his new post in Kimpese, but then resigned, again using age and health as reasons. The store in Inkisi probably had a great deal to do with it, however. The chief from Mfidi resigned to return to Nganda-Sundi in Tshela Zone, Bas-Fleuve, because his farm and large banana plantation were falling apart without him.124 The chief from Wungu had been chief of Wombo Collectivity in Songololo Zone. In 1973 he had tried to resign in order to "occupy himself with his business and his farm in his own locality of Matundulu." The resignation was refused. He became "totally discouraged" and left the collectivity headquarters to return to his native village. After the September 2, 1974, transfer order, he refused to move. A prefect described his behavior as "unworthy, reactionary, and conservative." By December he still had not moved, but eventually he did go to Wungu. In March 1975, however, he again resigned for health reasons; he said that the change of climate had done him great harm. These resignations

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caused problems because the chiefs returned to their former collectivities where they frequently continued to exercise considerable informal authority in competition with the new chief.125 The crucial point is that the positions of the resigning chiefs were all filled by state agents, not other chiefs or other collectivity officials. This greatly reinforced the position of the absolutist state in this pays d'élection. Despite some posttransfer inertia the collectivities slowly began to function, and the overall impact of the Law 73/015 changes was probably positive from the point of view of the absolutist state. The coverover process just shifted more resolutely to the locality level.126 KASAI ORIENTAL Kasai Oriental is clearly a pays d'élection like Bas-Zaire. It has seventy collectivities in two subregions, Kabinda and Sankuru, only eight of which were chiefdoms. Although the situation in Kasai Oriental was very similar to the one in Bas-Zaire, there were two main differences. First, the chiefs were rotated between zones within the two subregions. This was most likely due to the fact that, in addition to French, the two subregions have different Zairian administrative languages. For Kabinda it is Luba; for Sankuru it is Tetela. Second, unlike Bas-Zaire, Kasai Oriental has some ethnic heterogeneity. There are five main groups: non-Mongo (Songye, Mputu, Kuba, etc.), non-Tetela Mongo (Nkutshu, Kela, etc.), savanna Tetela, forest Tetela, and ex-auxiliary Tetela (Sambala). Considerable violence took place between these groups during the 1960-66 period. There appears to have been a conscious effort made to switch chiefs between ethnic groups or subgroups. In the first wave of the transfers all but one of the chiefs were moved; the one exception was an important and elderly LubaKasai chief, Mutombo Katshi. In Sankuru Subregion all but one of the forty-three chiefs came from another zone, and the one exception was only temporary. Only three intraethnic group changes took place out of the forty-two moves in Sankuru. The prefects in Sankuru also used this occasion to retire ten chiefs for reasons of age, health, legal convictions, or poor performance. No real second wave of transfers took place after the October 18, 1974, de-

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cision by Kinshasa not to switch chiefdom chiefs, as there were only eight in the whole region. In Kabinda Subregion however, several chiefs were returned to their traditional collectivities. The prefects had to find new assignments for the chiefs who had been transferred to these collectivities. In Sankuru Subregion there were only two chiefdoms, and their chiefs had been retired because of age and illness. On the whole the changes were accomplished without major difficulty, and the collectivities appeared to function well. Tax collection and road repair improved in some areas. Favoritism by chiefs declined dramatically, but it has probably reemerged, only on patron-client rather than kinship grounds. The ethnic switches worked well where there were cultural and linguistic similarities. For example, the savanna Tetela people of Ngandu-Wumu Collectivity in Lubefu Zone (Sankuru) accepted their new chief, who was a forest Tetela, because he spoke their language and was a descendant of the same ancestor, Ngandu. Where this congruity did not exist, there were difficulties. In the Basonga Collectivity of the same zone, the locality chiefs refused to cooperate with their new Tetela chief because he did not belong to their ethnic group and did not speak their language.127 As in Bas-Zaire, the power of the centralizing absolutist state probably increased somewhat in this pays d'élection, and the coverover process merely shifted resolutely down one level—to the traditional authorities of the localities.

KIVU

As a pays d'etat, Kivu was greatly shaken by the promulgation of Law 73/015. It caused considerable unease and inertia in many collectivities. The candidacy submission and evaluation process took place at all levels in the region throughout 1973 and early 1974. In the 1973 regional annual report, the regional head of Political Affairs noted: The notorious indolence of certain chiefs during 1973 must be noted. Since the promulgation of Law 73/015 several collectivity chiefs who do not fulfill the conditions required to direct a collectivity in regard to the revolutionary innovations have remained discouraged and disheartened. As a result, their performance has been almost worthless.' 23

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This process was stopped by Kinshasa in mid-June 1974. Then, on August 8, central officials announced their transfer decision. A week later regional officials in Kivu announced the transfer assignments for their collectivity chiefs. In August 1974 Kivu had thirty-eight chiefdoms, thirty-one sectors, and four centers in three subregions: Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, and Maniema. This does not include the eleven urban collectivities of Bukavu, the regional capital. In the first wave, the chiefs were transferred to collectivities in one of the other two subregions. Of the four center chiefs, three were moved; of the thirty-one sector chiefs, twenty-eight were moved. Of the total seventy-three collectivity chiefs, 75.3 percent were moved, but 36.8 percent of the chiefdom chiefs were not moved in this first wave. None of the grand chefs or mwami discussed previously (Kabare, Kalinda, or Ndeze) was moved, and this was not just because they were too feeble or too old. Noting that many of the older chiefs were not very productive, a region Political Affairs official made an exception to his rule for Mwami Ndeze: "However, although very old, Chief Ndeze is an exception. Each day he works from six o'clock to six o'clock. He moves about in his Mercedes and is able to control half his collectivity in one day. Despite his advanced age he deserves to be maintained." But the main reason they were not moved is because they were powerful traditional political authorities whose transfer would probably have unleashed serious resistance, and the state simply did not have the coercive capability to control it in the long run. On the other hand, 90.3 percent of the sector chiefs were moved. For Nord-Kivu, of the sixteen collectivity chiefs, eleven were moved (68.7 percent), five were not (31.3 percent).129 Considerable resistance to these moves was in fact generated, particularly among the twenty-four traditional chiefs ordered to move. Some chiefs or their relatives even went to the point of traveling to Kinshasa to plead their cases with the state commissioner for political affairs or other high "royal" officials. Others simply refused or stalled. One regional official noted the chiefs from Maniema Subregion complied most readily. Maniema is the subregion with the most sectors and centers (twenty-three) and the only one with more sectors and centers than chiefdoms (63.9 percent). In the other two subregions compliance was less

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forthcoming: "The chiefs of the other subregions refused . . . eventually, they didn't refuse, they complied with our orders, but not quickly. They sent messages saying they were sick, etc." 130 In some instances resistance was more obstinate. Take the case of Bwito Collectivity in Rutshuru Zone, Nord-Kivu. As noted previously, Bwito became an autonomous chiefdom again in November 1970. According to tradition Hangi Bukavu became mwami. He was assisted by a regent or sha-mwami, Buunda Birere, who was also a member of the ruling clan. Because Mwami Hangi was old, in poor health, and drank too much, Buunda became chief in February 1974. He was officially installed as mwami on June 27, 1974. Then in August Kinshasa decided to transfer all chiefs. According to the transfer decision of the Kivu regional authorities of August 13, Amisi Yengayenga, a sector chief of Wazimba wa Mulu Collectivity, Kasongo Zone, Maniema, was to become chief for the Bwito Chiefdom. Amisi was installed as chief of Bwito on October 11, 1974. Buunda did not leave Bwito, and, in fact, continued to act as mwami. On October 16 Chief Amisi wrote to the regional commissioner to describe "the difficult, actually catastrophic, situation that I have encountered in the collectivity." He reminded the commissioner that the sector chiefs of Kasongo Zone, Maniema, had responded in a revolutionary manner to the transfer decisions. He asserted that in Bwito he confronts "an atmosphere of insecurity caused by my predecessor who warned his former collaborators not to recognize my authority." According to Amisi, Buunda "sends his messengers to create in the population a climate of hope for his return to his reign," brags that he will regain his collectivity within four months, and sends delegations to the Political Bureau and Executive Council in Kinshasa seeking his reinstatement as mwami. Chief Amisi also accused Buunda of having illegally stripped the collectivity of three thousand Zaires before his arrival. Mwami Buunda did not have to wait even a full month. On November 1 the regional commissioner ordered Chief Amisi to come to Bukavu. He was reassigned to another chiefdom—collectivity of Basile, Mwenga Zone, Sud-Kivu. But that was not the end of his wanderings; on April 4, 1975, he was ordered to become chief of Babuye Collectivity, a sector back in Maniema Subregion. Mwami Buunda again took

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

control of Bwito. 131 In this case the power of local particularism clearly held sway over the desires of the centralizing absolutist state. Thus the first wave of transfers in Kivu was a decided failure in regard to chiefdom chiefs in particular, but in regard to many sector chiefs as well. Regional officials transferred only sector chiefs in the second wave. The reassignment of sector chiefs was still going on in April 1975.132 The power of the absolutist prefects took considerable punishment in Kivu as a result of the attempted implementation of these reforms. It did in Shaba as well.

SHABA

Like Kivu, Shaba is a pays d'état. Numerous strong descendants of precolonial states exist—Lunda, Luba, Yeke, among others. The region has ninety-nine nonurban collectivities: fiftyfive chiefdoms (55.6 percent), thirty-seven sectors (37.4 percent), and seven centers (7 percent) in four rural subregions—Haut-Shaba, Lualaba, Haut-Lomami, and Tanganika. Only Haut-Shaba Subregion has more sectors and centers than chiefdoms: 133 Subregion

Collectivities Chiefdoms

Haut-Shaba Lualaba Haut-Lomami Tanganika Total

7 19 12 17 55

Sectors

Centers

Total

13 6 6 12 37

1 1 1 4 7

21 26 19 33 99

The announcement of Law 73/015 caused considerable consternation here, too: "As for Law 73/015 . . . where traditional authority disappears in its old form, a certain uneasiness has overrun the traditional chiefs and since then they have been uncertain about their future." 134 In actuality, given the results of the implementation efforts, they had little to worry about. Local particularism in this pays d'état is simply too strong for the centralizing absolutist state.135 In the first wave of the transfers in September 1974, fifty-two (52.4 percent) of the collectivity chiefs were switched to new posts, fortythree (43.4 percent) remained unchanged, and there were four

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vacancies.136 The subregions were paired so that Lualaba and HautShaba exchanged chiefs and Haut-Lomami and Tanganika exchanged them. None of the important grands chefs was transferred: the Mwaat Yaav, "emperor" of the Lunda;137 Chief Mwenda Munongo of the Yeke (a successor of M'siri); and the Luba chiefs Kabongo and Kasongo Nyembo. Only 30 percent of the chiefdom chiefs were switched, while 77 percent of the sector chiefs and 86 percent of the center chiefs were transferred. The chiefdom chiefs who were rotated came from the smaller collectivities, and they were usually the younger ones. With the second wave of transfers in December 1974, all of the chiefdom chiefs who had been moved were switched back to their own collectivities. Almost all sector and center chiefs were also switched, including five who had not been moved in the first wave. Fourteen chiefs were switched twice. After the second wave, only twenty-five (25.3 percent) of the collectivity chiefs in Shaba had been moved to new collectivities—not a stunning victory for the absolutist state. The official line is that there was no resistance to these efforts to extend absolutist control: "no hostile demonstration to the decision was observed."' 38 In fact, however, resistance did exist. Some chiefs simply refused to be moved. One chief in Dilolo Zone explained that his child was ill and his wife had just undergone an operation. This chief remained in his collectivity, and the people still brought their problems before him as the informal but actual chief. His replacement could only go through the motions of being chief. After the second wave, returning chiefs in Dilolo Zone often retaliated against those who had cooperated with the new chiefs. In sum, the results of the Law 73/015 reforms in this pays d'état were marginal indeed; as in Kivu, the prefects probably lost some power. They certainly lost considerable prestige.139 What, then, were the overall results of the efforts to implement Law 73/015? Above all they reveal the distinct limits of this early modern state and its inability to go beyond a coverover strategy in its search for factual absolutism. In the pays d'élection like Bas-Zaire and Kasai Oriental, the absolutist state probably increased its control, but the coverover process was not transcended, simply, but importantly, shifted down to the level of the

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The State-Society Struggle in Zaire

localities. In the pays d'état like Kivu and Shaba, the absolutist state may have, in the short run, actually lost ground. Some observers had warned that the state needed to tread carefully in implementing this reform: [A] certain prudence is imperative. We believe that the replacement of "traditional" institutions by new ones cannot take place too rapidly, and especially not too brutally. In effect, it is necessary to prevent the peasant masses who have been submitted to traditional authority for centuries from having a reflex conservative reaction. It is equally necessary to prevent the "modern" power which seeks to replace traditional power from showing its weakness, its lack of authority and the incompetence of its agents. 140

In fact, both of these things happened. Absolutist officials were aware of these risks. In January 1974, before the transfers were announced, the state commissioner for political affairs voiced his concern about resistance to the reform: "It is evident that if imperatives of a customary or traditional nature were such that the reorganization would risk creating serious opposition or political disorders, there would be good reason to suspend it."' 4 ' As it turned out, the regime had to do just that—back off. Traditional chiefs who were not moved accumulated increased prestige, as did chiefdom chiefs who were returned to their collectivities. In these areas the centralizing state's prestige took a considerable beating. One Zairian observer comments that the regime "must have known that these collectivity chiefs that they planned to move would react and should have as a result anticipated solutions to such a situation. That would have had the advantage of guaranteeing its authority and not showing its weakness. But instead of this preventive measure, the authorities were obliged to draw back before the reaction of these chiefs." 142 The point is exactly that the absolutist state does not have the capability to force compliance on a wide scale. The absolutist state attempted to go beyond its capabilities and failed. Without these capabilities, the only alternative is to try to change the attitudes of the subjects. The Zairian observer believes it is necessary to prepare the populations of the former chiefdoms, to habituate them to seeing their chief as an agent of the administration

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rather than as a representative of the ancestors and guardian of the land. This will obviously take a good deal of time, but it is the only way a chief from elsewhere will be able to have legitimacy.'43 To some degree this is beginning to happen in the pays d'élection, but it is a very difficult task given the nature of the domination of the Zairian absolutist state. The attempt to emasculate severely the power of hereditary traditional intermediary authorities failed. As was noted in chapter 4, the absolutist state eventually, and formally, admitted its defeat in law as well as in practice. In 1982 OL 82/006 explicitly resurrected the chiefdom/sector distinction, making plain again the layer character of the absolutist state like the colonial state before it. In explaining this new law, State Commissioner for Territorial Administration Vunduawe observed that the experience of Law 73/015 "at least has the merit of showing us what we could no longer do," 144 thus tacitly admitting that the coverover statesociety struggle would continue. In short, it is almost impossible for an absolutist state to go beyond the coverover strategy. Zaire remains a centralizing, but deconcentrated, early modern state in which traditional intermediary authorities retain varying, but important, power. A direct state-subject relationship is far from being achieved. The answer to the question in the heading of this final section is, no—the Zairian absolutist state has not been able to go beyond the coverover process. It continues slowly, haltingly; the state formation struggle goes on.

8 Conclusion

r

he preceding chapters have examined the rise and operation of a Zairian absolutist, patrimonial-bureaucratic state that has a "modern" single-party overlay and uses a coverover strategy of state formation in a search for power, unity, and glory in an era of nascent nationhood and have compared it to authoritarian states in Latin America and to the absolutist state in seventeenth-century France. The Zairian presidential monarch and his royal servants have an organic-statist authoritarian perspective emphasizing order, unity, and extraction with little mass welfare content. The book has also dealt with the nature of patriarchal patrimonialism and the extension of central control over a complex and turbulent early modern society through the use of state corporatist structures of control and a patrimonial-bureaucratic administrative apparatus of a prefectoral type. In the state-society struggle, the resulting administrative monarchy is engaged in a search for sovereignty, centralized control, and a more direct, unmediated state-subject relationship. This is a highly coercive and extractive process in which the state whittles away the powers of traditional authorities in the periphery, which are modified but not destroyed. The power of the state is increased but nonetheless remains limited in character. The regime becomes an early modern Leviathan, but a lame one. Zairian absolutism is one variant of a relatively generalized pattern of early modern authoritarian rule in Africa that draws heavily on a centralist and often corporatist authoritarian colonial

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Conclusion

tradition, resulting in centralizing patrimonial administrative states that are very organic-statist in orientation. This pattern is similar in important ways to the early postcolonial period in much of Latin America and is not likely to disappear quickly. Neither totalitarian nor stable democratic regimes are likely in any number in Africa under current conditions. Variations on a common early modern authoritarian theme are more likely, or what one observer refers to as "changes within the genus authoritarian."1 As argued in chapter 1, however, this is not a deterministic argument as regime structures emerge from complex state-society and stateexternal actor struggles. Democratic regimes are possible, as Nigeria and Ghana illustrate. How stable or effective such regimes will be is another question, but then, on the whole, African authoritarian regimes have not been particularly stable or effective either. This concluding chapter will delineate some major differences between the two cases of absolutism, discuss some of the normative consequences of absolutist domination, and briefly speculate on the future of Zairian absolutism.

Absolutism in Dissimilar Historical Eras: Differences The benefits of comparative analysis include the specification of differences, their causes, and their consequences. The focus here is on some of the more important singularities. Obviously not all of them can be treated here; I will discuss only major ones that have important consequences for structure, style, and process. Some of the most important differences stem from the fact that, unlike the seventeenth-century French monarchs, Mobutu operates in an international age or environment of mass politics in which ideological myths and legitimating doctrines stress and glorify popular as opposed to ruler sovereignty and the upgrading of mass welfare rather than domination. Mobutu operates in the "modern world," which has witnessed the liberal democratic revolutions of the West, various Marxist-inspired revolutions, and the decolonization "revolutions" of the Third World. The effects of this dramatically different historical context can be seen in a

Conclusion

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number of areas—legitimating doctrines and the use of revolutionary language, the creation of a political "party," reliance on "elections" (usually plebiscites—the elections of tyrants), other forms of pseudoparticipation, the use of certain "mass mobilization" techniques, and, more recently, efforts to look good on human rights assessments. Although Mobutu must operate in an international environment where legitimacy is granted to rulers who allow mass participation and seek to improve mass welfare, his goals are identical to those of the French absolutist monarchs. The ruled in absolutist states are very much subjects, not citizens. This Janusfaced quality of Zairian absolutism is powerfully demonstrated by one small indicator. Mobutu abolished the use of the terms monsieur, madame, etc., in favor of citoyen and citoyenne: "the language of Fanon and Mao . . . the revolution and the radicalization of the revolution. But this is what the revolution is about: kingship."2 How did this come about? There are two main interrelated sources: the type of colonial state and the nature of the decolonization process; and the ideological thrust of the postcolonial "developing" world. In the aftermath of decolonization and its severe crisis of order, some members of the Zairian political elite underwent a latent or private acceptance of the authoritarian and extractive values of the colonial state. At the same time they loudly proclaimed democratic and egalitarian values. This resulted from the dual inheritance or legacy of the colonial power—an authoritarian one (colonial practice), and one stressing participation and equity (the metropolitan values of the colonial power). The former was implanted during seventy-five years of imperial domination; the other was a last-minute hypocritical legacy. The European powers wanted to leave behind the most impressive feature of their civilization—democracy. In a sense, both legacies were adopted by the new rulers, but with differing substantive impacts. They took up the authoritarian legacy with a vengeance in practice, and the participatory, egalitarian one only in legitimating rhetoric, as a sort of new political language, and in pseudo-institutions like the single party. The rhetoric stemming from the second legacy is reinforced by the various elements of the political lexicon of the Third

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Conclusion

World—revolution, justice, equity, participation, antiimperialism, nationalism, condemnation of racism, and so on. In his search for sovereignty, p o w e r , glory, and recognition, Mobutu has occupied just about every possible ideological position in a whirl of legitimating eclecticism. But his values are clearly no different from those of the French absolutist monarchs, who did not have to espouse these doctrines for internal and external legitimating purposes. Although mass welfare is the legitimating myth of patriarchal patrimonialism and was a factor in seventeenth-century France, this did not include real participation by the subjects of the French absolutist state. Mobutu does use a revolutionary rhetoric of popular sovereignty, mass welfare, and nationalism, but the substantive content of these domain consensus doctrines clearly implies notions of ruler sovereignty and raison d'état. They just are not as explicit as they were in early modern France. As we have seen, a good deal of this ideological posturing is aimed at internal groups, but its greatest substantive impact comes from international actors, especially major powers and other Third World states who can provide assistance, recognition, and legitimacy. The Zairian absolutist state is much more dependent on external support for survival than was the seventeenth-century French state. The single party is a mechanism for creating the illusion of popular sovereignty and the formality of mass participation and mobilization. Political parties are the twentieth-century tools of authoritarian rulers for the illusion- and myth-making prescribed by Machiavelli for new princes. After all, a successful prince must be part lion and part fox, that is, courageous and yet deceptive. Thus the political party has come full circle. Originally it emerged from political conditions in which societal groups sought to challenge the sovereignty of the ruler in the name of popular sovereignty so that subjects could be transformed into citizens. Now parties are used for precisely the opposite reason. They are created and used by rulers, rather than subjects, to promote their power, to limit and emasculate participation. If Louis XIV had ruled in an age of mass politics, he would have created a single Divine Right Party to foster the centralizing power of his absolutist state, and his intendants probably would have had a series of "mobilization" functions similar to those of the Zairian prefects. The key indicator here is that, like most parties in African states, the MPR

Conclusion

413

is inclusionary; everybody is a member of it whether they want to be or not. The MPR has no autonomy of its own; it is a state party, the mobilization arm of the territorial administration. It is part and parcel of that administrative apparatus, not separate from it in any way. As such, it facilitates one-way communication from rulers to subjects. As described in chapter 4, these ritual dances of the MPR include the plebiscite for the presidency, the phony "elections" for the Legislative Council, and then as a direct result of international pressure, the post-Shaba "liberalization" measures. Mass participation is tightly constricted and controlled at all levels and in every way; it is passive mass participation in which the subjects are organized to foster the power of the state and its king— Mobutu Sese Seko. The French kings also sought to limit as much as possible the participation of their subjects, and they too did so by keeping its Srm. As Tocqueville notes: Indeed, we have here a small-scale illustration of the way in which governments of a wholly despotic order can assimilate some of the features of the most thorough-paced democracy, and, as if oppression were not enough, it can be combined with the ostrich-like absurdity of feigning not to see it.3

In addition to these ritual dances of the MPR, there are other structural features that result from the emulation of the "party" in this age of mass politics. These include a series of "mass mobilization" techniques that were unknown or not widely used by the French absolutist state. The more important ones have been examined: animation, mass meetings, marches of support, and the JMPR. Animation techniques were used to glorify the French kings, but not on the same systematic mass level. The JMPR has provided the Zairian absolutist state with a control instrument the French kings did not have. And, from what we have seen, the French peasantry should be thankful. Just as Louis XIV would have had his own Divine Right party if he had ruled in an age of mass politics, so he would have created royalist animation troupes and had his intendants and their assistants stage mass meetings to preach the political religion and tell his subjects what was expected of them and organize marches of support glorifying the Sun King and manifesting the devotion of his people. The peasants usually see

414

Conclusion

right through these efforts; all they have to do is watch what the state does rather than listen to what it endlessly says. Another difference between the two cases in this realm is that alternative legitimacy doctrines are much more prevalent, formalized, and powerful for Zaire than they were for seventeenth-century France. In that century, the French kings did not confront as serious a situation, although the doctrines of the Protestant proto-state had to be eradicated in a radical way. By the eighteenth century, however, the French kings faced much more severe challenges on this front with the rise of coherent doctrines of popular sovereignty. They constituted radically different definitions of the state's domain. The existence of these alternative definitions of the state's domain may, at least in part, account for Mobutu's efforts to occupy just about every ideological position that exists—one of the benefits of making "Mobutuism" the official ideology. Indeed, he attempts to co-opt them, a fact which may prove troublesome for any successor regime that tries to distinguish itself from its predecessor. But the existence of these alternative domain definitions has not seemed to help the Zairian opposition become less fragmented, at least so far. One of the key questions about the future of Zaire deals with its ability to go beyond traditional personalistic notions of legitimacy and political authority toward some effective concept of social contract. The result would not necessarily have to conform to the standard definitions of democracy. The colonial conquest state accounts for many of the similarities between the two cases of absolutism, but it is also the source of some differences. The colonial conquest state in essence imposed the administrative structure of an absolutist state on what is now Zaire. Mobutu subsequently patrimonialized it, and early modern characteristics became more salient as it was fully Africanized. Unlike the situation in colonial Latin America, the Belgians brought a fully developed administrative structure to Zaire, the structure which was the end result of European developments. As a result, it was more fully organized, systematized, and formalized than the structures that were still emerging, still slowly and unevenly taking shape in seventeenth-century France, or which were exported by the Spanish monarchy to Latin America. The colonial state in Latin America was exported mid-stream,

Conclusion

415

so to speak, and, as a result, it was much more a patrimonial state than the colonial apparatus imposed in Africa. The patrimonialization of this apparatus by the Zairians has reduced the effectiveness of these more developed structures, making them more early modern in character. For example, the existence of more state "services" in Zaire than in seventeenth-century France is one legacy of the Belgian colonial conquest state. But there has been a very real functional, if not formal, contraction or atrophy of these services under the Mobutu regime. Many of them barely operate at all, and, in this sense, the Zairian absolutist state produces only a few more "services" than the French absolutist state. And the functioning of these additional services is more oriented toward control and extraction than toward mass welfare. Another legacy of the colonial conquest state is that it is responsible for creating the dual Zairian economy and integrating it into the world economic system upon which it is greatly dependent. But, despite the dramatically different world economic and technological environment, the Zairian economy is very much like the one of early modern France, and absolutist rule in Zaire has resulted in mercantilist policies that are strikingly similar to those of seventeenth-century France in their thrust, content, and limited success. The linkages between the Zairian absolutist state and the world economic and politico-strategic systems and the economic and fiscal policies of this state were discussed in chapters 1 and 4 and will be the principal subject of a forthcoming book on Zaire's debt crisis. Let it simply be said here that Mobutu has learned to maneuver quite effectively within the world system to protect and further his absolutist goals of power and glory. Zaire, unlike France, does not have a well-established concept and history of monarchy. Mobutu is the new prince, the first presidential monarch, unless one chooses to count the first patrimonial ruler of the Congo—King Leopold II. As Machiavelli has shown, there are both advantages and disadvantages to this situation. The major consequence of this newness is the uncertainty of any kind of orderly transfer of power to a second presidential monarch. Although a well-established concept of monarchy did exist in early modern Europe, no student of that period would be so bold as to say that succession was always easy, that the identity of the new king was always clear, or that the position

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Conclusion

was always uncontested. The fact that Mobutu is the new prince, the président-fondateur, and the heavy patriarchal patrimonialization that has taken place around him will pose legitimacy problems for his successor. These are difficult but probably not insurmountable problems. Thus, can an African absolutist state under current conditions outlast its creator? Events in Kenya, another African patrimonial administrative state, after the passing of jomo Kenyatta and the long rule of the PRI in Mexico indicate that it is at least possible. In Kenya there is clearly a new king who was "elected" by the political aristocracy. The ritual dances of the single party may facilitate and help legitimate this process in the African context. As for the survival of the absolutist state under a new king, it must be remembered that in early modern Europe and precolonial Africa, the abilities of kings varied greatly. Such will also be the case in Zaire, with all the possibilities for turmoil that this entails, but the underlying centralist and authoritarian administrative legacy will most likely endure despite changes in regime type, much as it has in France. Due to the effects of the colonial conquest state, Zaire has a weaker, less developed bourgeoisie and intelligentsia than France had in the seventeenth century. This has tended to make the political aristocracy that much more powerful, and, in fact, the Zairian bourgeoisie will likely develop more out of its ranks than in France. The French bourgeoisie, for a whole host of reasons, had less of an autonomous position than its early modern English equivalent, but the Zairian one will, if current trends continue, most certainly have less autonomy than the French bourgeoisie. This should facilitate tighter control by the absolutist state, if it survives. I have noted, however, indications of the incipient development of a relatively autonomous commercial middle class. Mobutu's regime also has several potentially threatening task-environment groups that did not pose real problems for the French kings. These "modern" groups include students, industrial workers, and urban youth, controlled by the state corporatist structures of the single party. At current levels of socioeconomic development and political control, they are not likely to have any major effect on the nature of the absolutist state. The Zairian early modern authoritarian state has not reached the stage of socioeco-

Conclusion

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nomic development where a democratic or authoritarian populist regime like those that captured and altered the patrimonial state in Latin America between the 1930s and 1960s is likely. As argued in chapter 1, neither is a "new" bureaucratic-authoritarian regime of the type that is so common in Latin America today a likely possibility. External warfare has clearly played infinitely less of a significant role in the development of absolutism in Zaire than it did in France, where it was a primary engine in the development of absolutism in the seventeenth century. In large part this is accounted for by the nature of the international and continental contexts in which Zaire operates. The international system has supported the creation of African states and continues to support their persistence. It will most likely continue to do so, resulting in a lower state failure rate than in early modern Europe, but this should not be taken to mean that internal state formation processes are not still remarkably similar. The struggle for unity, sovereignty, and control goes on and is affected by the complex interplay of internal and external political and socioeconomic factors. As Zaire, Nigeria, Angola, and now Chad, Uganda, and Ethiopia indicate, internal or civil warfare often can have crucial state formation consequences. There are also indications that a more conflictual African continental state system may be emerging, especially as interstate disputes mount and are fanned by increasing big-power competition on the continent, which has been so apparent since 1974. As Otto Hintze and others have so clearly stressed, state formation in early modern Europe occurred simultaneously on two interacting fronts. The internal did not precede the external or the reverse; nor does it in Africa now. As shown in chapter 4, Mobutu, unlike Louis XIV, does not have, despite considerable external assistance, a military force capable of effective combat on any scale. Each major military threat to the regime has had to be dealt with by external forces—foreign troops and/or mercenaries. Without this support the absolutist regime might simply not exist. Despite the absence of a real army, Mobutu has not been free from visions of imperial conquest and glory, as his intervention in the Angolan civil war and his designs on oil-rich Cabinda demonstrate. Unlike Louis XIV, however, he does not have a military capable of carrying them out success-

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Conclusion

fully, but this has not stopped him from trying. For balance, it should be noted that his failure also results from the assistance provided to Angola by foreign troops. Although the French kings, even Louis XIV, had considerable difficulties with their military leaders, Mobutu's are more severe. In great part this is due to the extensive pattern of military takeover in Africa. This pattern did not really exist in early modern Europe, at least not that of centralized military rule. A military coup d'état may well put an end to Mobutu's absolutist state, but it probably would have little effect on the territorial administrative patterns, particularly the coverover process vis-à-vis traditional authorities. It might not even affect the consolidating political aristocracy. Mobutu has been quite successful at controlling his military leaders so far, but the techniques he uses have directly retarded growth in military effectiveness. In sum, clear differences do exist between Zairian and seventeenth-century French absolutism; they are to be expected as each case of absolutism is unique, especially when it exists in a strikingly different international historical era. These differences are important, but not in terms of the generic quality of absolutism as a form of organic-statist domination. On balance, the similarities are more significant than the differences, particularly in the nature of authority relations and patterns of internal domination. As noted in chapters 1 and 4, the internal effects of the different historical era and of contemporary emulation patterns by African states are seen most clearly in the mechanisms of the single-party appartus. It has also been stressed that while external actors have clearly kept Mobutu's absolutist state alive, they have been unable to alter basic patterns and structures of this early modern apparatus of domination. What is striking, then, is that such an absolutist state exists at all in an international and historical environment so dramatically different than that of seventeenthcentury Europe.

Normative Consequences of Absolutist Domination The Zairian absolutist state does maintain basic order, but at a very high cost. It brutally exploits the population, weakens or destroys

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liberty, local autonomy, intermediary authorities and associations, and community spirit. Moreover, it creates inequality, fosters dependence on the state, and prevents incremental political change. In short, it creates a gap between state and society. Absolutist rulers divide and manipulate societal groups, and most sociopolitical and economic issues become administrative matters. This section examines some of the normative consequences of absolutist domination in Zaire. Here is where the longer temporal dimension provided by a historical comparison is of particular value.4 Above all, the cost in terms of human suffering is substantial, and the major victims are the peasants and the urban poor. In short, most of the population is subjected to organized oppression and extraction. The rulers of these authoritarian states are not greatly concerned with mass welfare. Not only does the state not assist its subjects to improve their welfare, it often prevents them from improving their lot. In addition, the administrative monarchy destroys popular rights, makes a mockery of justice, and provides few services. Its forces of order and tax collectors are everywhere. Extraction is a full-time and often brutal business. Absolutist monarchs have a tendency to overreach themselves, and the resulting exploitation of resources and human suffering can reach staggering proportions. With the development of the French absolutist state in the seventeenth century, the "conditions of life among the lower classes—the great majority—worsened as the century progressed."5 This also appears to be happening in Zaire under Mobutu's absolutist state. This may not be a generic characteristic of absolutism, but it clearly holds true here. Witness the comments of two Catholic archbishops—one French, François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, archbishop of Cambrai, the other Zairian, Monsignor Kabanga, archbishop of Lubumbashi—on the condition of their countries under absolutist domination. In a pleading letter to Louix XIV in 1695, Archbishop Fénelon vividly portrays the sad condition of France: Your people, Sire, whom you should love as your children, and who up to this time have been so devoted to you, are dying of hunger. The land is left almost untended, towns and countryside are deserted, trade of all kinds falls off and can no longer support the workers; all commerce is at a standstill. . . . Rather than take money from your people, you ought to feed and cherish them. . . . All France is now no more than one great

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Conclusion

hospital, desolate and unprovided. . . . You are importuned by the murmurs of the crowd. And it is you, Sire, who have brought these troubles on yourself. . . . The very people . . . are full of bitterness and despair. Little by little the fire of sedition catches everywhere. The people believe you have no pity for their sufferings, that you care only for your own power and glory. They say that if the king had a father's heart for his people, he would surely think his glory lay rather in giving them bread and a little respite after such tribulations. 6 In a c o u r a g e o u s pastoral letter in M a r c h 1976, A r c h b i s h o p Kabanga discusses the sad state of affairs in Zaire: The thirst of money thus transforms men into assassins. How many poor unemployed are condemned to misery along with their households, because they do not have the means to pay the one who is hiring? H o w many children or adults die without care, because they do not have the means to pay the nurse who has to care for them? Why is there no longer medicine in the hospitals, when it can be found in the markets? H o w did it come there? W h y in our courts do people only obtain their rights by paying the judge liberally? W h y do the prisoners live forgotten in prisons? They do not have anyone who can pay the judge who has their dossiers at hand. W h y in our offices of administration, like public services, are people required to return day after day to be able to obtain their due? If they do not pay the clerk, they will not be served. Why must parents go into debt at the beginning of the school year to pay the principal of the school? The children who cannot pay will not have school! Whoever obtains a scrap of authority, or some means of pressure, profits from them to pressure and exploit people, particularly in the rural milieu. All methods are good to obtain money or to humiliate the human person. 7 A n d , as o n e of the most famous opposition tracts of the seventeenth century asserts, "if w e examine the use that is made of these i m m e n s e sums that are c o l l e c t e d with such abuses and extortions, w e shall find all the characteristics of oppression a n d t y r a n n y . " 8 Z a i r e today is m u c h like o l d regime France w h e r e " e v e r y thing w a s c a l c u l a t e d to discourage the l a w - a b i d i n g instinct." 9 N o sense of c o m m u n i t y exists or is a l l o w e d to d e v e l o p as a result. T h e stratification gap between the rulers and the ruled widens, facilitating class f o r m a t i o n and the division and separation of s o c i a l groups from e a c h other. G r o w i n g inequality and oppression often

Conclusion

421

lead to repressed rage and humiliation, which periodically break out in what the French called the fureurs (savage rage), which are brutally put down: "When their passions were roused (as sometimes happened), the least incident became the signal for an outbreak of mob violence, and usually such movements were followed by summary and brutal reprisals, not by trials of the offenders."10 As mentioned earlier, such an eruption occurred in Zaire in January 1978 near Idiofa in Bandundu Region. In The Old Régime and the French Revolution, Alexis de Tocqueville discusses some of the consequences of early modern centralization. Although Tocqueville tends to overestimate somewhat the degree of effective centralization under the Old Régime, the basic thrust of this argument still rings true and has, I believe, import for Zaire.11 This is particularly true because of the continuity of centralization efforts between the colonial and Mobutu eras. Centralized state power is relatively neutral in that it can serve a variety of social and political values. Centralization can protect liberties or it can destroy them—a point which Tocqueville did not appreciate. Centralization in democratic states can permit the right to freely associate; centralization in absolutist or other types of early modern authoritarian states prohibits it. Centralization can be used to increase greatly mass welfare, but absolutist centralization does not. As Tocqueville notes, the French absolutist state tried to control everything: "throughout this period local autonomy was everywhere becoming a dead letter"; "there was in France no township, borough, village or hamlet, however small, no hospital, factory, convent, or college which had a right to manage its own affairs as it thought fit or to administer its possessions without interference;" and "nothing could be done without consulting the central authority, which had decided views on everything" (pp. 73, 51, and 46). All directions came from Paris; whenever there was a problem "the only remedy they [the rulers] could think of was to tighten the central government's control over local authorities."12 Clearly, in Zaire, these things are also taking place; freedom is lost, and local autonomy and initiative are seriously threatened. The Zairian absolutist state does try to do and control everything. "Nonetheless, the peasants cling to these last vestiges

422

Conclusion

of the old order and local self-government" (p. 51). Like the ordinary Frenchman, the Zairian subject might be willing to leave some matters in the hands of the authoritarian central power, "but he bitterly resents the idea of not having a say in the local administration of his village" (p. 51). Absolutist centralization begins to destroy or at least weaken the power of traditional authorities. In the Zairian chiefdoms, particularly in the pays d'élection, the centralizing state tends to weaken, slowly and unevenly, the privileges and power of traditional and quasi-traditional authorities, but it replaces it with the oppression of the absolutist monarchy. In this sense, Zairian subjects become more "equal" before the centralizing state, but it is more equal in oppression. Is this a preferable situation for them? It is a complex matter, but, over all, I doubt it. Centralization tends to weaken local community spirit, identity, and initiative. Relative freedom and autonomy are exchanged for dependence on the state. Tocqueville contends that with the emasculation of traditional values of community and assistance, centralization and individualism grow apace. Signs of this can be seen in the cities, towns, and sectors of Zaire, although communal values and ethnic identity remain very important. This process reinforces dependence on the central state, and the people end up petitioning it to fulfill their needs: "It never occurred to anyone that any large-scale enterprise could be put through successfully without the intervention of the state" (p. 69). Admittedly, this is a long-run consequence of absolutist centralization, but evidence of its existence is easy to spot in Zaire today. Besides the power and autonomy of traditional authorities, the only other countervailing force to centralization and its abuses is the right and art of private association—the desire and ability to associate freely in organized groups. But, as we have seen quite clearly for Zaire, absolutist centralization inhibits this as well, again reinforcing dependence on the state. Absolutist centralization can partially free people from the "tyranny" of customary authorities and ways, but at what cost if it is done in such a way as to prevent the free formation of other autonomous groups and association which could take the place of traditional ones. In the long run, as socioeconomic development increases and social needs multiply, the tendency may be to rely on the central government,

Conclusion

423

rather than on private initiative, on both the local and national levels. The destruction or emasculation of all intermediary authorities, traditional and nontraditional, creates a disjuncture between state and society, "a vast gulf between the government and the private citizen" (p. 68). Individuals and groups are prevented from taking part in any freely organized or effective way in affecting the future of their own lives or that of their region or country. What Ernest Barker says about the French absolutist state holds equally well for Zaire: "acting only by way of administration, and making an administrative system the whole of the constitution, the monarch excluded the great bulk of the community from any share in that constitution and from any place in public life." 13 The absolutist state in Zaire inhibits all incremental change that might lead to a more balanced view of the relationship between state and society. This may also lead, as it appears to have done in France, to a tendency toward radical, all-encompassing visions of sociopolitical change—the "dream of an ideal state" as Tocqueville called it. As he showed, the power and continuity of centralization are very strong, so much so that even the radical reformers decided that it should become the instrument of reform: Though the men of '89 had overthrown the ancient edifice, its foundations have been laid immutably in the minds of all Frenchmen, even its destroyers; thus there was little trouble in re-establishing it not only rapidly but in a more stable, shockproof form.14

Even if some form of democracy should come to Zaire, the powerful colonial and absolutist legacy of centralization may well leave local institutions stillborn. Zairians have had little practice with democratic institutions. This was vividly and brutally seen in the first years of independence, and Mobutu's absolutist state has certainly done nothing to modify it. Absolutist domination may also breed such an intense hatred of privilege and inequality that liberty may be threatened when it finally arrives. When, and if, the time for change comes, the Zairians, like the French before them, will have to decide whether they want to emphasize equality or liberty. Absolutism does maintain basic order, but at the same time it stifles useful change at all levels.

424

Conclusion The Future of Zairian Absolutism

Predictions of the imminent collapse of the Mobutu regime have been repeatedly voiced on all sides since the coup d'état in 1965. But the regime continues. M o b u t u and his administrative monarchy have shown an amazing capacity to survive, despite the severe challenges of external invasion, internal unrest, and the financial and economic crises of the last decade. Mobutu and his absolutist state can most likely continue to rule as long as he stays alive, his will to dominate lasts, he is blessed with fortuna, external assistance remains available, his opposition continues to be divided and ineffectual, and his control of the military continues. A change in one or two of these conditions might lead to a change of regime. The change to a different type of regime could be difficult and possibly quite bloody. A successful Shaba III is possible, but not likely given the nature of external assistance. A military coup is the most likely form of change, but the chances of it disintegrating into chaos and a number of centers of power are high.' 5 A n d , as before, the temptation to external intervention would be almost irresistible. A combined Fronde of the Princes and Fronde of the Parlements is also a possibility, in which civilian and military leaders combine to remove Mobutu and either choose a new king or restructure the state. If it had not been aborted, the 1 9 7 7 1980 "liberalization" might have gone in that direction. Another variant of this possibility would entail an invigoration of the existing formal structures of the M P R , particularly in the direction of a political machine. In such a situation bargaining and some representation of demands and interests would exist, although still in an authoritarian or quasi-authoritarian context. In a similar vein, Kasfir has discussed a balanced form of departicipation—tight enough to maintain basic authority, but loose enough to allow some representation of demands and interests.16 Such a balance is difficult to achieve, however. The chances of a French-style 1789 revolution or a successful guerrilla revolutionary war are remote at this point. If some sort of revolution does occur which leads to the establishment of a democratic regime, the possibilities of another breakdown are high. Whatever type of regime successfully comes to power, the administrative centralization of the colonial

Conclusion

425

and absolutist states will most likely continue. This would certainly be the case in the short run because control would be impossible without it. But even in the long run, the centralization and coverover processes will probably continue. Until one of these possibilities actually occurs, however, the mass of the Zairian people will continue to suffer under its absolutist state. Mobutu is only in his fifties and could rule for many years yet. Assuming he does, can the Zairian absolutist state outlast its creator? It is quite possible that, if Mobutu does not leave an heir apparent from within his own family (he has available sons, especially Colonel Mobutu Niwa) or his circle of closest royal servants, the political aristocracy will "elect" a new king. The political aristocracy might have too much to lose to let the country collapse into chaos again. The lesson of that eventuality for Zaire is still very much alive. The possibility of an elected monarchy also has strong precolonial roots in the Kingdom of the Kongo, where the political aristocracy chose the new mani-Kongo (king): There was, then, no royal clan and there was room for a genuine election. There was an electoral college of nine or twelve members. . . . Candidates to the throne usually began to prepare for their candidacy by seeking support years in advance, and when a king died, there were most often two factions at the court backing the two important challengers. The electoral council would then usually nominate the prince who seemed to have the strongest backing. The factionalism involved all the high territorial commands. 17

As with Kenya, this process would be facilitated by the ritual dances of the state party. The newly selected king would then be "elected" by the people in a plebiscite, and he would become the next president as established by the constitution. He would not be the président-fondateur, however, and he would have to be very skillful in assuming his patriarchal patrimonial position. One variation of this scenario would be for Mobutu to "retire," leaving power to a chosen successor as has happened in Senegal and Cameroon. Finally, what the great French historian Georges Pagés said of Louis XIV's absolutist state also holds true for Mobutu's: But although she achieved a work of national significance, she was unable to give her authority a national basis. . . . She . . . was unable to develop without emptying of substance the institutions that might have

426

Conclusion

sustained her. She committed the irreparable error of believing that it suffices for a government to be strong. The administrative institutions created by Louis XIV and Colbert provided no remedy; they increased the strength of royal power but did not associate it with the nation.' 8

But one consequence of the disastrous effects of Louis XIV's reign for the welfare of the French people was that "thinking men once more embarked upon the never-ending search for a principle of authority that would both ensure stability and advance the public good." 19 Zairian absolutism established basic order out of chaos, but it most certainly has not worked to improve the lives of its subjects. Let us hope that Zaire is able to find such a principle so that the suffering of its people may at least begin to diminish.

Notes PREFACE

1. Harold J. Laski, Foundations of Sovereignty, p. 314. 2. A major step in this direction was taken by the volume edited by Charles Tilly, Formation of National States in Western Europe. While my work was originally inspired by a rereading of Alexis de Tocqueville's The Old Regime and the French Revolution just before I went to Zaire to do field research in 1974, it applies the issues raised by the Tilly volume to one contemporary Third World state and its European colonial roots. 3. David Easton, Political System, p. 108. 4. Ibid., p. 113, emphasis added. 5. The phrase "historical conditions" is not to imply, in my usage, stages in an evolutionary process, but rather conditions that may appear at any time in the history of a society or group of them. 6. J. P. Nettl, "The State as a Conceptual Variable," p. 590. Nettl has a misleading sociocultural concept of the state and commits the common error of making too dramatic a distinction between party and state in most Third World countries; he also maintains that "the problem of sovereignty is, for social scientists, a dead duck" (p. 560)! 7. See Tilly, ed., Formation of National States; Raymond Crew, ed., Crises of Political Development; Randall Collins, Conflict Sociology; Cianfranco Poggi, The Development of the Modern State; Reinhard Bendix, Kings or People; Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, and "Bringing the State Back In"; Alfred Stepan, The State and Society; Stephen D. Krasner, Defending the National Interest; Peter Katzenstein, ed., Between Power and Plenty; Eric A. Nordlinger, Autonomy of the Democratic State, "The State," Daedalus; Ralph Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society, and Marxism and Politics; Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes; Claus Offe, "Structural Problems of the Capitalist State"; Claus Offe and Volker Ronge, "Theory of the State"; Göran Therborn, What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules?; and Erik Olin Wright, Class, Crisis, and the State. The state was also the theme of the 1981 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in New York City. 8. Crawford Young, Politics in the Congo, p. 607. 9. Tocqueville, The Old Regime, pp. viii, ix. 10. Tilly, Formation of National States, p. 632. Aristide Zolberg and Irving L. Markovitz have both suggested the usefulness of such a comparative referent for the study of

428

Preface

politics in postcolonial Africa; see Aristide R. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 154,

a n d Irving L. M a r k o v i t z , Power

and Class in Africa,

pp. 3 - 5 .

11. See Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 33-39; Theda Skocpol and Margaret Somers, "Comparative History in Macrosocial Inquiry"; Victoria E. Bonnell, "Theory, Concepts and Comparisons in Historical Sociology"; and Peter Burke, "Concepts and Continuity and Change in History."

1. MOBUTU'S ZAIRE: AN AUTHORITARIAN STATE IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

1. Nguza Karl-i-Bond, MOBUTU, "Introduction." 2. |an Vansina has asserted that "ultimately, I believe Mobutu's political model harks back to the precolonial politics of big men" ("Mwasi's Trials," p. 67). In regard to traditional notions of power and legitimacy, Vansina refers to "mystical coercion":

By 1971 rumor had it that the regime derived its strength from its command over charms and sorcery, and since then that feeling has grown. It harks back to the legitimacy of traditional leaders in precolonial days. In the eyes of many, mystical coercion explained the success of physical coercion—and no one doubted of that success, (p. 63) O n an organic-statist orientation, the continuity and power of modified tradition, the early modern character of state and society, and patrimonial notions of authority and domination, see (ean-Francois Bayart's excellent Vital au Cameroun, especially pp. 14-19, 5354, 108, 183, 229-30, 233, 236, 252-56, 277-79.

3. Juan J. Linz, "An Authoritarian Regime," p. 297. On authoritarianism see, Amos

Perlmutter, Modern

Authoritarianism.

4. Susan Kaufman Purcell and John F. H. Purcell, "State and Society in Mexico," p. 204. As w e shall see, Zaire has several similarities with Mexico, but there are even more important differences.

5. Susan Kaufman Purcell, "Decision-Making in an Authoritarian Regime," p. 30. 6. Ibid., pp. 46-47 and 37-38; student and teacher opposition in Zaire periodically erupts into violent protest and is dealt with in the above manner. An example of an issue that threatened to mobilize a significant sector of the ruling coalition into opposition was the set of tight foreign exchange controls imposed by the representative of the International Monetary Fund to the Bank of Zaire in 1978. Mobutu had to find ways around the restrictions, and he did. 7. Juan J. Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes," p. 280. 8. See ibid., and Juan J. Linz, "The Future of an Authoritarian Situation," pp. 24144 and 250-52. 9. Femardo Henrique Cardoso, "Authoritarian Regimes in Latin America," p. 37. 10. Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes," pp. 321-26. 11 . Ibid.,

p. 355.

12. Ibid.,

p. 2 5 3 .

13. Ibid., p. 254. Many nineteenth-century Latin American caudillo regimes had pseudodemocratic facades that might qualify them for Linz's modern authoritarian category. In fact, he considers them traditional authoritarian regimes; they will be considered as early modern authoritarian regimes here. 14.

Ibid.

15. For a more detailed discussion of the notion of the early modern state in the African context, see pp. 32-46, 61-65. 16. Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber, pp. 417-18. 17. Ibid.,

p. 383. T h e authors of Formation

of National

States in Western

Europe,

"converge implicitly on the notion of stateness [modern stateness, actuallyl: an organiza-

1. Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

429

tion which controls the population occupying a defined territory is a state insofar as (1) it is differentiated from other organizations operating in the same territory; (2) it is autonomous; (3) it is centralized; and (4) its divisions are formally coordinated with one another" (p. 70). 18. Reinhard Bendix, ed., State and Society, p. 152. 19. Tilly, Formation of National States, p. 7. "Perhaps that is the most important historical insight the book has to offer: as seen from 1660 or so, the development of the state was very contingent; many aspiring states crumpled and fell along the way . . . most of the European efforts to build states failed" (p. 38; also see pp. 71-72). This statement holds for what we know about state formation efforts in precolonial Africa. In contemporary Africa, this tendency is mitigated by the effects of the international system, which tends to maintain the persistence of states. Zaire is, in fact, a good example. The case of Gambia, however, is an interesting counterexample. 20. Bendix, State and Society, pp. 71-72. 21. On the importance of looking at historical background, colonial and precolonial, to understand the diversity of authoritarian regimes in the Third World, see Elbaki Hermassi, Leadership and National Development in North Africa, and Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun. 22. Stepan, State and Society, p. 27-58 and chs. 2 and 3 generally. 23. See Young, Politics in the Congo, ch. 2, on the platonism of the Belgian philosopher-kings and the corporatist thrust of the colonial administrative state. 24. Stepan, State and Society, pp. 35-37; also see Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France, pp. 3-22 and passim. On the notion of a breakthrough strategy, see Kenneth T. Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development, and chapter 2 of this book. 25. As we shall see, this concession theory of association was central to the Belgian colonial state and remains very important in Mobutu's patrimonialized version of that state, especially the continuation of the colonial practice of controlling "les associations sans but lucratif"; see chapter 6. 26. Stepan, State and Society, p. 46. For Philippe Schmitter's definition of corporatism see "Still a Century of Corporatism?" p. 93; also see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 336-56, 277. 27. On the concept of "departicipation" see Nelson Kasfir, Shrinking Political Arena. 28. For this distinction see Stepan, State and Society, pp. 46, 52, 71-74. 29. On this debate see Claudio Veliz, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America; )ames M. Malloy, "Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America," pp. 6 - 7 ; Stepan, The State and Society, pp. 52-59; and Howard Wiarda, "Toward a Framework for the Study of Political Change," pp. 206-35. 30. Stepan notes the "resonance" of organic-statist and corporatist ideas in the African context; State and Society, p. 58. 31. Stepan mentions Chile, Argentina, Brazil, and Peru, ibid., p. 53. 32. Ibid., pp. 41 and 44; and Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes," p. 311. 33. See James Petras, "State Capitalism and the Third World," pp. 1-17. 34. Stepan, State and Society, p. 45. 35. See Douglas A. Chalmers, "The Politicized State in Latin America," p. 35. 36. Richard M. Morse, "The Heritage of Latin America," pp. 155-57. 37. Veliz, Centralist Tradition of Latin America, pp. 80-82; on the operation of the intendant system in Spanish America see )ohn Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration, J. R. Fisher, Government and Society in Colonial Peru, and Miles Wortman, Government and Society in Central America.

430

1. Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

38. O n the colonial period in Zaire, see Roger Anstey, King Leopold's Legacy; Georges Brausch, Belgian Administration in the Congo; Robert Comevin, Histoire du Congo; and Young, Politics in the Congo, pp. 10-31. 39. John Lonsdale, "Slates and Social Processes in Africa," p. 176; he also comments: "Successive pragmatic rules of power which become norms, new layers of institutions to cope with new problems, get written into the historical structure, partially rubbed out and written over again, so that all states are 'palimpsests of contradictions" (p. 154). Also see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 14-19, 53, 233. 40. Stepan, The State and Society, p. 16, also pp. 4 and 39. 41. See Ralph Miliband, "Marx and the State," pp. 278-96. 42. Nicos Poulantzas, "The Problem of the Capitalist State," pp. 67-78. 43. For example, see Hal Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, vol. 1, State and Bureaucracy, pp. 464-72. For a cogent critique of this tendency in recent work on the rise of the "modern world system," especially that of Immanuel Wallerstein, see Aristide R. Zolberg, "Origins of the Modern World System." Zolberg notes that although Wallerstein acknowledges that the transformation entailed epochal changes in political and economic organization, he attempts in vain to demonstrate causal precedence of the one over the other. My comments . . . indicate that an alternative framework, positing interactions between two structural linkages—with the political as basic as the economic—would provide a better fit for the historical account under consideration. Zolberg correctly points out that we must "view political structure as an irreducible and relatively autonomous systemic element" (p. 275) and stresses the importance of international factors of a politico-strategic nature. Also see Peter Courevitch, "The International System and Regime Formation." Courevitch makes similar points about Wallerstein's work, and he also notes Perry Anderson's (Lineages of the Absolutist State) useful stress on international economic and political factors, particularly the role of war, while correctly taking him to task for rejecting Engels' useful balancing notion of the absolutist state in favor of a view of it as a revitalized form of aristocratic domination. From my point of view, Anderson, like Poulantzas, nicely underscores the early modern, transitional nature of absolutism, particularly in its state formation characteristics. For an account that nicely weighs the importance of all factors, see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. 44. Frederick Engels, The Origin of the Family, pp. 290-91. 45. Lonsdale, "States and Social Processes in Africa," from the draft version presented at the Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Bloomington, Indiana, October 21, 1981, p. 15. 46. One leading analyst of Zaire, Nzongola-Ntalaja, characterizes Mobutu's regime as Bonapartist; see Class Struggles and National Liberation, pp. vi, 47-48, 55, 7475. The use of the notion of Bonapartism in the contexts of Kenya and Zaire is discussed later in this chapter. For a critique of Marxist usage of Bonapartism, see Frank Parkin, Marxism and Class Theory, pp. 119-42. For Marxist views of absolutism, see Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, pp. 464, 475-82; Ralph Miliband, State in Capitalist Society, pp. 136-39; and the excellent discussion in Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. 157-67. 47. Philippe Schmitter, "The Portugalization of Brazil," pp. 184-90, and Guillermo O'Donnell, "Corporatism and the Question of the State," pp. 60-62. 48. O n Bonapartism see Draper, Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, p. 482 and passim; Miliband, State in Capitalist Society, 135-39; and Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. 281-85. O n Louis Napoleon see ). M. Thompson, Louis Napoleon and the Second Empire.

1. Mobutu's Zaire: Authoritarian State

431

49. Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, p. 164. 50. Ibid., p. 163. 51. Ibid., pp. 165n13 and 167. 52. In particular, see O'Donnei I, "Corporatism and the Question of the State," pp. 5 0 - 5 3 and 77. While pointing to the long neglect of the state as a useful concept, particularly because of "societalist" viewpoints common to pluralist, systems, and Marxist analysis, O'Donnell cautions that without care a focus on authoritarianism can go too far the other way, toward what he calls "politicism" or "statism." He calls for a middle ground that neither overlegitimizes, advertly or inadvertently, the state nor underemphasizes "the dynamic of civil society itself and its location in the international context" (p. 53). This view is congruent with the emphasis here on the state-society struggle and its dynamic character affected by both internal and external factors. One additional comment is necessary at this point. This discussion of the new Latin American corporatism is not at all meant to imply that such regimes are either "natural" or "inevitable." Douglas Chalmers has usefully stressed that "most Latin American countries have, in this century, experienced several types of political institutions, with shifting combinations of democratic and authoritarian, federal and centralized, populist and conservative characteristics. These regimes have usually replaced each other dramatically and rapidly in the midst of crisis and confrontation" ("The Politicized State," pp. 23-24). Peter Gourevitch makes a similar point for early modern Europe: "The range of forms into which these common features could be fitted was nonetheless considerable: constitutional England, republican Netherlands, absolutist France. So was the variance within countries" ("The International System," p. 433). As the recent political history of Ghana, Nigeria, and Uganda has shown, a similar point holds for Africa. 53. In particular, see Guillermo O'Donnell, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism; "Reflections on the Patterns of Change in the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian State"; "Corporatism and the Question of the State"; and "Tensions in the BureaucraticAuthoritarian State." For an assessment of this argument and the work it has generated, see David Collier, "Overview of the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model" and the volume The New Authoritarianism in Latin America generally; see also Karen L. Remmer and Gilbert W . Merkx, "Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism Revisited," and O'Donnell's "Reply to Remmer and Merkx." 54. David Collier notes that "African countries are generally pre-industrial, oriented around agriculture and mineral exports, with relatively low levels of popular sector activation" ("Overview of the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model," pp. 396-97). 55. This does not mean, however, that Zaire is not heavily dependent on the world economy, for it is very susceptible to fluctuations of commodity prices, particularly of copper, cobalt, and diamonds. O n the political economy of Zaire, see Guy Gran, ed., Zaire: The Political Economy of Underdevelopment, especially Bogumil Jewsiewicki, "Zaire Enters the World System," and Ghifem Katwala, "Export-led Growth"; André Huybrechts and Daniel Van Der Steen, "L'Economie: structures, évolution, perspectives"; Comité Zaire, le dossier de la récolonisation; World Bank (IBRD), Zaire: Current Economic Situation and Uncertainties; Jean-Phillipe Peemans, "The Social and Economic Development of Zaire Since Independence"; Jean-Louis Lacroix, Industrialisation au Congo; Jean-Claude Willame, "Le Secteur multinational au Zaire"; M. K. K. Kabala Kabunda, "Multinational Corporations and Externally-Oriented Economic Structures"; Ghifem Katwala, "Blockage Mechanisms, Disincentives and Economic Crisis"; Wolf Radmann, "The Nationalization of Zaire's Copper"; Crawford Young, "Zaire: The Unending Crisis"; Young, "Zaire: The Politics of Penury"; and Thomas M. Callaghy, "Absolutism and Apartheid." Also see chapter 4 of this volume. 56. In this regard, Zaire is most comparable to the single-party regime in Mexico,

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but with its structures much less institutionalized. See Purcell, "Decision-Making in an Authoritarian Regime," Purcell and Purcell, "State and Society in Mexico," and Jose Luis Reyna and Richard S. Weinert, eds.. Authoritarianism in Mexico. 57. Purcell, "Decision-Making in an Authoritarian Regime," p. 35. 58. For an excellent short exposition of this colonial tradition and a model of the patrimonial state, see Morse, "The Heritage of Latin America," pp. 151-57; also see Veliz, The Centralist Tradition of Latin America. 59. "The [earlyl modern institutions of absolute centralism, shaped by men such as Richelieu and Louis XIV, were transplanted to Spanish America to revive an equally centralist imperial hold, grown weaker more as a result of indifference than because of any triumphant challenge from without or within" (Veliz, The Centralist Tradition, p. 83). The operation of an Intendant system in a state-society struggle is one of the central themes of my comparison between seventeenth-century French absolutism and Mobutu's absolutist state in Zaire; see chapters 2 - 3 and 5 - 7 . 60. King Leopold's Congo Free State was, of course, a veritable patrimonial state in all key aspects; see Ruth Slade, King Leopold's Congo, and Jean Stengers "The Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo." 61. Richard Morse notes: "It cannot be said, therefore, that 'nationalism' was an ingredient of the Latin American independence movement. Simon Bolivar, the Uder maximo of independence, was torn between the generous vision of a transnational amphictyony of the Hispanic American peoples and a keen perception of the feuding local oligarchies and earth-bound peasantries from which only phantom nations could be formed." "The Heritage of Latin America," pp. 160-61. The same basically holds true for Africa as well, and the parallel between Bolivar and Kwame Nkrumah is striking. 62. Ibid., p. 137. 63. Ibid., p. 164. 64. Malloy, "Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America," p. 5. 65. See chapter 4 and Young, Politics in the Congo. 66. K. H. Silvert, "Caudillismo," p. 347; this definition overemphasizes the charismatic elements of caudillismo while underplaying what Morse quite properly stresses are its patrimonial characteristics. Also see Robin A. Humphreys, "Latin America, the Caudillo Tradition." 67. Morse, "The Heritage of Latin America," p. 176. 68. While Silvert usefully cautions about the dangers of extending the concept of caudillismo too far beyond its historical context, he does state that "it is doubtful that the turmoil in the Belgian Congo attendant on the withdrawal of the colonial government is an entirely different family of events from the classical caudillismo of Latin America" (p. 349). 69. Purcell and Purcell, "State and Society in Mexico." O n Brazil, see Fernando Uricochea, The Patrimonial Foundations of the Brazilian Bureaucratic State. 70. Morse, "The Heritage of Latin America," p. 168. 71. This section is based primarily on Malloy, "Authoritarianism and Corporatism in Latin America"; O'Donnell, "Corporatism and the Question of the State," and Collier, "Overview of the Bureaucratic-Authoritarian Model." 72. Zaire prior to 1966 is, of course, the primary example of the absence of authority; see Aristide R. Zolberg, "A View from the Congo," especially p. 137. Also see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 225, 252, 257-58, 270. 73. See Aristide R. Zolberg, "The Structure of Political Conflict." O n Africa's economic and fiscal crises, see World Bank, Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa; Reginald H. Green, " 'Things Fall Apart' "; and John Ravenhill, ed., Africa in Economic Crisis.

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74. For a review of such attempts and another validation of the frustratingly limited utility of such efforts, see Sang-Seek Park, "Political Systems in Black Africa." 75. This does not include the more despotic and sultanist regimes like those of Amin and Bokassa. 76. Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes," p. 280. 77. Kasfir, The Shrinking Political Arena, p. 278. Also see Naomi Chazan, "The New Politics of Participation in Tropical Africa," and Richard Sklar's presidential address to the 1982 Annual Meeting of the African Studies Association, Washington, D.C., "Democracy in Africa." Ruth Collier has tried to show that the roots of these democratic ideas are deeper in ex-British colonies than in ex-French ones; see "Parties, Coups, and Authoritarian Rule." 78. For an excellent example of this social and behavioral fluidity—the ambiguity of social category—in the context of Zaire, see Jan Vansina, "Mwasi's Trials." Crawford Young also stresses "an exceedingly complex amalgam of multilayered and interpenetrating identities, themselves in the process of evolution" ("Patterns of Social Conflict," p. 73).On situational analysis, see J. Clyde Mitchell, ed. Social Networks in Urban Situations. 79. See Kasfir's excellent chapter on the interrelationships among ethnicity, modernization, and class in The Shrinking Political Arena, pp. 47-85. Young notes: Recent [African] history suggests that the major patterns of social conflict cohere around two organizing principles: class and ethnicity. Both are shaped and defined in important ways by the state, which serves as the primary arena for social encounter and collective conflict. Thus an inquest into contemporary and prospective social conflict requires an examination of the spheres of state, class and ethnicity. All three are influx, all three are changing, and the task before us is to seek out the elements of transformation within each. ("Patterns of Social Conflict," p. 72) For a look at the complexities of these processes in the context of Zaire, see Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, and the following chapters in Guy Gran, ed., Zaire: The Political Economy of Underdevelopment: Thomas Turner, "Clouds of Smoke," pp. 69-84; Michael G. Schatzberg, "Blockage Points in Zaire," pp. 161-88; Elinor Sosne, "Colonial Peasantization and Contemporary Underdevelopment," pp. 189-210; Allen F. Roberts, " 'The Ransom of Ill-Starred Zaire'," pp. 213-36; and René Lemarchand, "The Politics of Penury in Rural Zaire," pp. 237-60. On the "brokers" group in Zaire, see Vwakyanakazi Mukohya, "African Traders in Butembo, Eastern Zaire," and Janet MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy." 80. Kasfir, The Shrinking Political Arena, p. 53. For a good discussion of ethnic particularism, see P. H. Gulliver, "Introduction," in P. H. Gulliver, ed., Tradition and Transition in East Africa. 81. Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 522, 521; also see "Patterns of Social Conflict," pp. 81-85. 82. Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, p. 521, emphasis added. For a detailed analysis of this process in Europe, see Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen. 83. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 66. 84. Zolberg, "Structure of Political Conflict," p. 77; also see T. Peter Omari, Kwame Nkrumah: The Anatomy of an African Dictatorship, Henry L. Bretton, The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah, and Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, chaps. 2 - 6 . 85. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 126; also see Kasfir, Shrinking Political Arena, p. 269, and Claude Ake, "Explanatory Notes on the Political Economy of Africa." 86. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 144; and Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, 1419. 87. Colin Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, p. 258; also see Francis Sutton, "Authority and Authoritarianism in the New Africa."

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88. This is not to say that differences in structures and doctrines are unimportant, but the intent here is to show a general trend in contemporary African politics. 89. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 108; see also Bayart, L'Elat au Cameroun, ch. 7, especially pp. 272-79. 90. Aristide R. Zolberg, "Military Rule and Political Development in Tropical Africa," p. 200. 91. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 126. 92. Kasfir, Shrinking Political Arena, p. 227. 93. Ibid., pp. 3, 14. 94. See Harold Lasswell, Psychopathology and Politics, pp. 196-97. 95. Kasfir, Shrinking Political Arena, p. 229. For a similar argument extended to the Latin American context as well, see Cynthia H. Enloe, "Ethnicity, Bureaucracy and State-Building in Africa and Latin America." 96. For the classic statement of the party-state ideology, see Zolberg, Creating Political Order, ch. 2. The literatue on African party-states is vast; among others, see Henry Bienen, "One-Party Systems in Africa," and Armies and Parties in Africa; Immanuel Wallerstein, "The Decline of the Party in Single-Party African States"; S. E. Finer, "One-Party Regimes in Africa"; and James O'Connell, "The Inevitability of Instability." 97. Henry Bienen, Kenya, p. 109 and passim. For a dramatically different view of Kenya, in particular the relationship between ethnicity and class, see Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, passim; on Kenya, also see Cherry Gertzel, The Politics of Independent Kenya. 98. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 126. 99. Although Tanzania is often seen as a major exception to the trend of departicipation, Kasfir argues that this applies to Tanzania as well; Shrinking Political Arena, pp. 251-63. For this corporatist departicipation thrust in Zaire, see his chapter 4, pp. 32-49. 100. Aristide R. Zolberg, "Military Intervention in the New States of Tropical Africa," p. 94. Samuel Decalo notes that it is "a return to the apolitical rule characteristic of colonial administration," Coups and Army Rule in Africa, p. 27. On corporatist tendencies of military regimes, see Kasfir, Shrinking Political Arena, pp. 234-37. 101. Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, pp. 14-15. The literature on African militaries is large; in addition to those already cited, see Claude E. Welch, Jr., ed., Soldier and State in Africa; Edward Feit, "Military Coups and Political Development"; Ruth First, Power in Africa; Robert M. Price, "A Theoretical Approach to Military Rule in New States"; Robin Luckham, The Nigerian Military; Anton Bebler, Military Rule in Africa; Ernest Lefever, Spear and Scepter; J. M. Lee, African Armies and Civil Order; Ali A. Mazrui, "Soldiers as Traditionalizers"; Aristide R. Zolberg, "The Military Decade in Africa"; Thomas S. Cox, Civil-Military Relations in Sierra Leone; and Issac, J. Mowoe, ed., The Performance of Soldiers as Governors. 102. Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, pp. 239-40, emphasis added; also see Zolberg, "Military Intervention," p. 73. 103. Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, p. 240, and Zolberg, "Military Rule," p. 198. 104. See Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, pp. 233-39, and Zolberg, "The Military Decade," p. 319. 105. In particular, see John J. Johnson, ed., The Role of the Military in Underdeveloped Countries, and his The Military and Society in Latin America. 106. O n the role of external military assistance to Zaire, Zolberg notes: "Indeed, the experiences of Zaire from 1960 to 1965 and of Nigeria from 1966 to 1970 demonstrate quite clearly that the study of political development in Africa, including an understanding of the process whereby territorial integrity is altered or maintained, requires an

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approach that overcomes the recent separation of comparative from international politics. This is hardly surprising in the light of European experience of state-building, for example, in which one is not likely to find a single case of state-builders relying exclusively on the military resources (technology and manpower) available within their realm. Mercenaries were not invented by Moise Tshombe." ("The Military Decade," p. 321.) As we shall see, this comment holds true for seventeenth-century French absolutism and Mobutu's Zaire, see chapter 4, pp. 159-63, 169-71, 2 0 4 - 9 . 107. Decalo, Coups and Army Rule in Africa, p. 247; also see p. 248, table 6 on p. 251, and pp. 3 4 - 3 5 . David Gould also argues that Mobutu's Zaire is not a military regime, in "Patrons and Clients." 108. On the notion of presidential monarch, see David E. Apter, The Politics ol Modernization, pp. 37, 307, 410-15. For studies of highly personal rule, see Bretton, The Rise and Fall of Kwame Nkrumah; Omari, Kwame Nkrumah; John R. Cartwright, Political Leadership in Sierra Leone; and Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroon. O n presidential ism in Africa, see B. O . Nwabueze, Presidentialism in Commonwealth Africa. 109. O n political religion, see Apter, The Politics of Modernization, pp. 292-312. 110. On patron-client politics, see René Lemarchand, "Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa," and Gould, "Patrons and Clients." 111. Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, pp. 274, 246. 112. Ibid., pp. 243, 244. Yet this repression was not as systematic and professionalized as in many Latin American countries; it was rather a "restrained but effective system of repression" (p. 274). 113. Leys has a different view of ethnicity than used here, because he denies it precolonial or "primordial" roots: "To explain the 'colonial' character of a post-independence regime in terms of a 'legacy' of tribalism is thus to reverse cause and effect. It would be truer to say that tribalism is a product of colonialism and that what colonialism produces, neo-colonialism reproduces" (p. 252). I will argue here that colonially induced socioeconomic changes help to mobilize, activate, and even alter the forms of ethnic particularism and do so in complex ways, but they did not create it out of thin air. Clearly, colonial regimes helped to create some new ethnic identities as a result of administrative labeling and day-to-day administrative practice, but this is quite different than saying that particularism in general in Africa (ethnic, linguistic, etc.) "is a product of colonialism." On the creation of new ethnic identities in Zaire, see Young, Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 163-210. 114. Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, p. 245, 274, 258. 115. Differences certainly do exist, however; in Zaire, the party has far fewer roots than in Kenya and fulfills much less of a political machine role, especially in regard to the upward transfer of demands. Leys does include a nice list of factors unique to Kenya that have affected the development of the state; see p. 253. O n the patrimonial administrative state in Cameroon, see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 229-30, 278. 116. See "Kenya: The Politics of Repression," a special issue of Race and Class, especially the first anonymous article entitled "Kenya: The End of an Illusion," pp. 2 2 1 44. 117. Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation in Africa, pp. 47, 55; also see pp. 48, 74-75. He uses Bonapartism with some unease, however: "The characterization of the Mobutu regime as 'Bonapartist' in the essays on Zaire has been challenged by Wamba-dia-Wamba and Makidi-ku-Ntima. Unable to resolve the theoretical question involved at this time, I leave the analysis as it is, while I continue to develop my own thinking on the matter and hope to learn from what other analysts will contribute to the debate" (p. vi). 118. Ibid., p. 121nn37, 38.

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119. Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, p. 271, emphasis added. For other examples of this "transmission line thesis," see Issa C . Shivji, Class Struggle in Tanzania; Michaella von Freyhold, "The Post-Colonial State and Its Tanzanian Version"; and John S. Saul, "The Unsteady State." 120. For such an argument in the case of Zaire, see Thomas M. Callaghy, "External Actors and the Political Aristocracy." The dependency literature has been very useful in highlighting the complex relations between African ruling groups and external actors, especially in correcting the previous overly heavy focus on internal factors. Care must be taken, however, not to go to far in the other direction. O n dependency in Africa, see the work of Steven Langdon: Langdon and Martin Godfrey, "Partners in Underdevelopment"; Langdon, "The State and Capitalism in Kenya"; "Multinational Corporations in the Political Economy"; "Multinational Corporations and the State in Africa"; "Industry and Capitalism in Kenya"; and "A Commentary on Africa and the World Economy." In the Latin American context, see O . Sunkél, "Transnational Capitalism and National Disintegration"; I. Weeks, "Backwardness, Foreign Capital and Accumulation"; Ernesto Laclau, "Feudalism and Capitalism in Latin America"; and Laclau, "The Specificity of the Political." For a critique of the dependency literature, see Tony Smith, "The Underdevelopment of Development Literature." 121. Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya, p. 211; for a discussion of Bonapartism, see pp. 207-12. 122. Even here the internal relative autonomy of the state appears to be more comparable in the African context, certainly for Zaire, to that other Marxist "exception"—absolutism—than to Bonapartism for reasons discussed earlier in the chapter. Leys overplayed the development of class-based worker and peasant consciousness and, above all, action in Kenya, in large part because he viewed "tribalism" as an artificial product of colonialism reproduced by neocolonialism. Certainly the "proletariat" is not challenging the "bourgeoisie" for power and control of the state, as was the case according to Marx in regard to Louis Napoleon's regime in nineteenth-century France. 123. Leys stuck to his position in a later article ("The 'Overdeveloped' Post-Colonial State"); "At all events, in post-colonial societies in Africa there can be little doubt that the dominant class is still the foreign bourgeoisie" (p. 44). He still refused to admit any theoretical or substantive relative autonomy from "foreign capital" and attacked Hamza Alavi ("The State in Post-Colonial Societies") for suggesting, albeit in a confused manner, that such a possibility might exist. Robin Cohen, on the other hand, suggested that it just might be possible in an editorial entitled "The State in Africa" in the same issue of the Review of African Political Economy (pp. 1-3); also see John S. Saul, "The State in PostColonial Societies; Tanzania." 124. This is certainly the case with Zaire in regard to the causes and consequences of its severe fiscal and debt crisis, the subject of a book now in progress; see chapter 4. For historical Europe, see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 3-33, 154-57, 16173, 280-93, and for absolutist France, pp. 51-67, 118-28, 174-205. O n the case of Mexico, see Nora Hamilton, The Limits of State Autonomy. In the African context, Lonsdale notes: "How dominant classes behave does actually matter. The autonomist model of states without nations accorded them too much freedom, the underdevelopment model of neo-colonies not enough; it was too functional to allow for any exercise of political responsibility. To situate Africa's present rulers in their specific histories is to explain the limits on what it is possible and rational for them as one class to do in relation to others, but it does not ultimately explain what they do nor, more importantly, how they set about doing it; if it did, then it would be impossible to account for the moral uncertainties of power through which its forms are continually in flux." (State and Social Processes," p. 204.) For Cameroon, see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 13-14, 52, 281.

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125. Colin Leys, "Capital Accumulation, Class Formation and Dependency," p. 250. 126. Nicola Swainson, The Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya; M. P. Cowen, "The British State, State Enterprise and an Indigenous Bourgeoisie in Kenya"; and M. P. Cowen and K. Kinyanjui, "Some Problems of Capital and Class in Kenya." Also see Gavin Kitching, Class and Economic Change in Kenya; Rafael Kaplinsky et al., "Debates," Review of African Political Economy; Bjorn Beckman, "Imperialism and Capitalist Transformation"; Geoff Lamb, Peasant Politics, Conflict and Development in Muranga; and Steven Langdon, "The State and Capitalism in Kenya" and "Industry and Capitalism in Kenya." 127. Swainson, Corporate Capitalism in Kenya, p. 16; also see 12-18, 182-86, 200, 285-90. 128. Ibid., p. 18. In fact, this phenomenon is one of the key characteristics of early modern European mercantilism. For a fascinating look at it in absolutist France, see Julian Dent, Crisis in Finance. 129. Leys, "Capital Accumulation," p. 251. 130. Colin Leys, "African Economic Development," p. 112. 131. See chapter 4. 132. See Richard Sklar, "The Nature of Class Domination in Africa." 133. Frederick Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," p. 46, drawn from Richard Joseph, "Theories of the African Bourgeoisie." Bayart stresses "le project de recherche hégémonique" undertaken by "la classe dominante en voie de gestation" (L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 227, 233). He characterizes the project of this ruling class as follows: "Une telle'recherche hégémonique' vise à la création et à la cristallisation d'un rapport de forces relativement stable entre les différents groupes dominants, anciens et nouveaux, et entre les segments régionaux ou ethniques de ceux-ci, dans le cadre national fixé par le colonisateur; à la aménagement des rapports entre cette classe dominante en voie de formation et la masse de la population; à l'agencement des rapports entre cette classe dominante et le pôle de pouvoir politique et économique occidental; à l'élaboration d'un éthique ou d'un sens commun qui donne sa cohérence à l'ensemble et qui cimente le nouveau système d'inégalité et de domination, tout en le camouflant" (p. 19). Domination is central, then, to both state and class formation in Cameroon: "C'est dire que les phénomènes de domination sont au centre de la vie sociale camerounaise et que la politique d'intégration nationale menée par le régime est par nature une politique de domination" (p. 236; also see pp. 229-30). For an excellent analysis of ruling class formation, see pp. 18-19, 185-85, 223-36. 134. Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," pp. 21-21. The best of the dependency literature continues to stress the obstacles. See Steven Langdon's response to Frederick Cooper, "A Commentary on Africa and the World Economy." 135. Leys, "African Economic Development," p. 113; Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," p. 70n168. 136. Adam Przeworski, "Proletariat into a Class," p. 372. He goes on to say: "Struggles that take place at any particular moment of history are structured by the form of organization of economic, political and ideological relations. Politics and ideology have an autonomous effect upon the processes of class formation because they condition the struggles in the course of which classes become organized, disorganized, and reorganized" (p. 373). 137. Leys, "African Economic Development," pp. 119, 120; emphasis added. 138. Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," pp. 50-51. 139. Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, p. 37. 140. Ibid., p. 42; emphasis on "both" is added. 141. Ibid., p. 71. 142. Ibid., p. 75; emphasis added.

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143. Ibid., p. 44; emphasis added. 144. Ibid., p. 45; see chapter 4. 145. Weber, Economy and Society, p. 1095; also the section above on the economic consequences of patrimonial forms of rule. 146. Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, p. 45; emphasis added. 147. Zolberg, "A View from the Congo," p. 144. 148. This is particularly true because the international system is made up of a multiplicity of political, economic, and sociocultural actors; see Zolberg, "Origins of the Modem World System." As he notes: "Although outside powers may reckon on the possibility of achieving their interests in Africa by affecting governmental change or by affecting the outcome of territorial struggles, they are as impotent as are other actors, including the military, to alter fundamental processes of African political life. It would require massive intervention, comparable in intensity and duration to the colonial period, to influence patterns of political development." ("The Military Decade," p. 329.) See also chapter 4. 149. Ruth First and CI4ophas Kamitatu have also argued so; see First, Power in Africa, and Kamitatu, La grande mystification du Congo-Kinshasa. Kamitatu seems to have been subsequently "neocolonized" personally, as he became a minister in the Mobutu government. Also see Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation. 150. Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, p. 49. 151. Zolberg, "Origins of the Modern World System," p. 266. 152. Thomas M. Callaghy, "The Difficulties of Implementing Socialist Strategies of Development." 153. See Rosberg and Callaghy, eds., Socialism in Sub-Saharan Africa, and Leys, "African Economic Development," pp. 115-19. 154. See Eli R. Heckscher, Mercantilism 1:21; 2:17; Charles W. Cole, Colbert and a Century of French Mercantilism, esp. 1:25. 155. Weber makes this distinction in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, pp. 13-27; see also Economy and Society, pp. 1097-99. 156. See Maurice Dobb, Studies in the Development of Capitalism, pp. 199, 215; and Robert L. Heilbroner, The Making of Economic Society, p. 67. 157. Eli Heckscher, "Mercantilism," p. 339. Since this book deals primarily with the state-society struggle in the internal periphery, these issues are treated here only briefly and without the subtlety and nuance they deserve; they will be the focus of a forthcoming book on Zaire's fiscal and debt cirsis. My basic position should be clear, however. For a review of the literature on African political economies, see Malcolm ). Grieve and Timothy M. Shaw, "The Political Economy of Africa." 158. As Edward ). Schumacher points out, the degree of atrophy varies from country to country and over time; he argues for Senegal that the atrophy has been less than earlier presumed. See his Politics, Bureaucracy and Rural Development. 159. In regard to Zaire, see Vwakyanakazi Mukohya, "African Traders in Butembo," and Bianga Waruzi, "Peasant, State and Rural Development in Postindependent Zaire." On the "exit option" and the power of an "uncaptured peasantry," see Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa. In this regard, Lonsdale notes: "Africa's modes of production have not been so transformed in incorporation into global capitalism that all its people have been captured. There is still a great deal that states simply cannot control" ("States and Social Processes," p. 205). 160. Walter Barrows, Grassroots Politics in an African State, p. 252, and chs. 2, 4, and 7. Martin Staniland refers to the role of local brokers and stresses the complex interplay of "politics" and "tradition," resulting in the basic "incoherence of centre-periphery relations"; see The Lions of Dagbon, pp. 169, 172-73, and especially ch. 10. Dennis Austin simply refers to "localism"; see Ghana Observed. Ghana has been the subject of the

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best set of studies of politics in the rural sector; see John Dunn and A. F. Robertson, Dependence and Opportunity; Maxwell Owusu, Uses and Abuses of Political Power; David Brokensha, Social Change at Larteh, Ghana; Paul André Ladouceur, Chiefs and Politicians; and David R. Smock and Audrey C. Smock, The Politics of Pluralism. 161. For a sane, balanced view of this obviously important phenomenon, see Henry Cooperstock, "Social Stratification in Tropical Africa," pp. 23-38. 162. Staniland, Lions otDagbon, pp. 169, 172-73; Dunn and Robertson, Dependence and Opportunity. The degree to which "traditional" authority structures play brokerage and linkage roles needs to be carefully investigated in each case. For a comparative look at this issue, see Barrows, Grassroots Politics, p. 252; also see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 188-91, 226. 163. Zolberg, "Military Intervention," p. 76. I will avoid the use of the term bureaucracy, referring instead to administrative structures that have mixed patrimonial and bureaucratic characteristics. 164. Bienen, Kenya, pp. 40, 39, also generally 30-44. 165. Ibid., p. 45, and 44-48 generally; the same excuse was used in Zaire and seventeenth-century France to emasculate local autonomy. 166. Ibid., p. 54, and 49-57 generally. 167. Ibid., p. 56. 168. Ibid., pp. 63-64. While Bienen properly focuses on structures and processes that are portrayed as epiphenomenal in much of the work on Kenya, he tends to downplay the degree to which the processes he describes are linked to ruling class formation and are congruent with or partially serve external economic and political interests. On the extractive and class formation aspects of administrative practice, see Geoff Lamb, Peasant Politics, Conflict and Development, and "The Neocolonial Integration of Kenyan Peasants." There has been a major debate over the "control" versus "development" orientation of the Kenyan territorial administration; see Goran Hyden, Robert Jackson, and John Okumu, eds.. Development Administration; John Nellis, "Is the Kenyan Bureaucracy Developmental?"; Leys, Underdevelopment in Kenya; David K. Leonard, Reaching the Peasant Farmer; and Goran Hyden, "Administration and Public Policy." 169. There is an interesting emerging literature on peasant resistance to penetration, control, and "development" by states of all ideological and policy persuasions; in particular, see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 256-77; Goran Hyden, Beyond Ujamaa; Dean E. McHenry, Jr., Tanzania's Ujamaa Villages, and "The Struggle for Rural Socialism in Tanzania"; Caroline Hutton and Robin Cohen, "African Peasants and Resistance to Change"; Frank Holmquist, "Defending Peasant Political Space," and "Class Structure, Peasant Participation and Rural Self-Help." More generally, see Issa G. Shivji, Class Struggle in Tanzania; Mahmood Mamdani, Politics and Class Formation in Uganda; Gavin Williams, "Taking the Part of Peasants: Rural Development in Nigeria and Tanzania"; Lionel Cliffe, "Rural Political Economy in Africa"; and Polly Hill, Studies in Rural Capitalism in West Africa. 170. This is not meant to lessen the importance of these phenomena, but rather to point to a difference in the perspective of the analysis. On local politics, in addition to the works cited previously, see C. S. Whitaker, Jr., The Politics of Tradition; Robert H. Bates, Rural Responses to Industrialization; George C. Bond, The Politics of Change in a Zambian Community; Nicholas Hopkins, Popular Government in an African Town; Clyde R. Ingle, From Village to State in Tanzania; Schumacher, Politics, Bureaucracy and Rural Development; Joel Samoff, Tanzania; James R. Finucane, Development and Bureaucracy in Tanzania; Goran Hyden, Political Development in Rural Tanzania; Abner Cohen, Custom and Politics in Urban Africa; Joan Vincent, African Elite; D. C. Cruise O'Brien, Saints and Politicians; D. C. Cruise O'Brien, The Mourides of Senegal; Lucy Behrman, Muslim Broth-

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erhoods and Politics in Senegal; Martin Kilson, Political Change in a West African State; Audrey C. Smock, Ibo Politics; Martin Kilson, "The Grassroots in Ghanaian Politics"; Kilson, "Grassroots Politics in Africa"; )oan Vincent, "Local Cooperatives and Parochial Politics"; Enid Schildkrout, "Stranger and Local Government in Kumasi"; Norman N. Miller, "The Political Survival of Traditional Leadership"; Opeyemi Ola, "West African Local Government"; M. ). Campbell et al.. The Structure of Local Government in West Africa; and Douglas Asford, National Development and Local Reform. On center-periphery relations, see a special issue of the Canadian lournal of African Studies, 4,1 (Winter 1970), which includes Jonathan Barker, "Local-Central Relations"; Richard Stern, "Factional Politics and Central Control in Mombassa"; Clement Cottingham, "Political Consolidation and Center-Local Relations in Senegal"; and Harriet B. Schiffer, "Local Administration and National Development"; )oel Samoff and Rachel Samoff, "The Local Politics of Underdevelopment"; Bruce J. Berman, "Clientism and Neocolonialism"; Richard Sandbrook, "Patrons, Clients, and Factions"; Walter Barrows, "Rural Urban Alliances"; Richard Stryker, "Development Strategy in the Ivory Coast"; Stryker, "Political and Administrative Linkage in the Ivory Coast"; Martin Staniland, "The Rhetoric of Centre-Periphery Relations"; M.). Swartz, ed., Local-Level Politics; Jonathan Barker, "The Paradox of Development"; Michael A. Cohen, "The Myth of the Expanding Centre"; and C. S. Whitaker, "A Dysrhythmic Process of Political Change." 171. On the operation of prefectoral territorial administration in Africa, see Goran Hyden, "Administration and Public Policy"; John Nellis, "Kenyan Bureaucracy"; Nelson Kas^ir, "Development Administration in Africa"; Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun, pp. 217-24; David L. Leonard, Reaching the Peasant Farmer; Hyden, Jackson and Okumi, loc. cit.; Thomas Mulusa, "Central Government and Local Authorities" in Hyden, Jackson and Okumu, Development Administration, pp. 233-51; Clyde Ingle, From Village to State in Tanzania; E. Philip Morgan, ed., The Administration of Change in Africa, especially part II; Julius Waiguchu, "The Politics of Nation-Building"; James R. Finucane, "Hierarchy and Participation in Development"; A. C. Coulson, "Peasants and Bureaucrats"; David Brokensha and John Nellis, "Administration in Kenya"; Cherry Gertzel, "Administrative Reform in Kenya and Zambia"; Goran Hyden, "Social Structure, Bureaucracy and Development Administration"; G. Andrew Maquire, Toward 'Uhuru' in Tanzania; Nelson Kasfir, "Theories of Administrative Behavior in Africa"; K. J. Davey, "Local Bureaucrats and Politicians"; W. J. W. Bowring, "East African Local Government"; Henry Bienen, Tanzania, pp. 307-33 on regional and area commissioners; Stanley Dryden, Local Administration in Tanzania; Guy Hunter, "Development Administration in East Africa"; Cherry Gertzel, "The Provincial Administration in Kenya." 172. Lonsdale has expressed a similar opinion: "There seems no good reason to me why one should not employ the approaches of both Marx and Weber, particularly at different levels of explanation" ("State and Social Processes," p. 140). 173. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 137. 174. Ibid., p. 143. 175. Zolberg notes that African states would not rest "on traditional legitimacy alone but would be clearly a particular clustering of traditional and bureaucratic traits. When the process of routinization occurs in the second half of the twentieth century, it can naturally be expected to include additional 'rational-legal' aspects such as written constitutions and formal electoral procedures. Furthermore, the charismatic aspects themselves need not entirely disappear" (Creating Political Order, p. 141). For a fine comparative look at the structures and processes of personal rule in Africa, see Robert H. Jackson and Carl G. Rosberg, Personal Rule in Black Africa. In an early modern environment, administrative officials do not fully internalize bureaucratic norms or find it difficult or impossible to act

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on them; in this regard, see the excellent book by Robert Price, Society and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Ghana. 176. Zolberg, Creating Political Order, p. 154; the emphasis is in the original to stress the difference from "the study of African politics." Kasfir has also noted the parallel with early modern Europe: "In strengthening central administration African leaders are attempting to make more certain the exercise of state authority, though they often go to excessive lengths. . . . In this respect their behavior differs little from that of Louis XIV of France and the other great state-builders in seventeenth and eighteenth-century Europe" (Shrinking Political Arena, p. 281).

2. STATE FORMATION AND THE STATE-SOCIETY STRUGGLE

1. F. H. Hinsley, Sovereignty, p. 26. As used here, "social groups" is meant to include classes. 2. Reinhard Bendix, ed., State and Society, p. 71. 3. S. N. Eisenstadt, The Political Systems of Empires, p. 18: "It was out of the interaction between these different forces—the rulers, the major social groups, and the political and administrative organizations—that the major characteristics of these parties tended to develop"; and Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies, p. 156: "The crucial struggle is between the monarch and his bureaucratic servants on the one hand and the autonomous centers of traditional power, local, aristocratic, and religious, on the other." It is interesting to note that neither mentions a struggle with external groups, which goes on simultaneously with the ones indicated in these quotes. 4. In the list of the major state formation processes, integration has been intentionally left out, because a state may be held together by domination alone without high levels of socioeconomic integration; it is clear, however, that such integration may indeed reinforce political unity. I have also left out a process that Immanuel Wallerstein includes— the homogenization of the subject population. Although this process has accompanied the formation of many states, there are equally important examples that indicate that this process does not have to appear, i.e., Switzerland and Belgium. In addition, there are recent indications of nation-states in which trends away from homogenization are becoming more important politically—Great Britain and France, for example, the two classic cases of the nation-state. For an excellent historical and sociological look at the British case, see Michael Hechter, Internal Colonialism. 5. See Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System, 6. See Charles Tilly, ed.. The Formation of National States in Western Europe, p. 633. 7. Bendix, State and Society, p. 9. 8. Ibid., p. 424. 9. Otto Hintze, "The State in Historical Perspective," pp. 160-65. Also see Tilly, ed., Formation of National States, pp. 620, 636-37; Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship, p. 406; Zolberg, "Origins of the Modern World System"; the work of Leopold von Ranke, particularly Georg G. Iggers and Konrad von Moltke, eds., The Theory and Practice of History; the neo-Rankean Ludwig Dehio, The Precarious Balance; and Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 14-33, 284-93. For a useful and representative collection of Hintze's work, see Felix Gilbert, ed., The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze. 10. Zolberg, "Origins," and Gourevitch, "The International System and Regime Formation." 11. The explicit development of these relationships in Western political theory began with the work of Machiavelli and Jean Bodin, especially the latter's concern with the

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concepts of sovereignty and raison d'état. They were closely linked to the rise of the modern state in Western Europe beginning in the late feudal period. For an interesting short piece on statecraft, see John Tashjean, "On the Theory of State-Craft." 12. Max Weber, Economy and Society, 2:34. 13. See Amitai Etzioni, A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations, ch. 1, and Amitai Etzioni and F. L. DuBow, eds., "Power and Alienation in Comparative Perspectives." 14. This section draws on the rapidly growing organization theory literature. Of particular help is James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action; see also Peter M. Blau and Richard A. Schoenherr, The Structure of Organizations; Peter M. Blau and W. Richard Scott, Formal Organizations; Michael Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon; J. Eugene Haas and Thomas E. Brabek, Complex Organizations; Richard H. Hall, Organizations; Daniel Katz and Robert L. Kahn, The Social Psychology of Organizations; James C. March, ed., Handbook of Organizations; James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organizations; Charles Perrow, Organizational Analysis; Philip Selznick, TVA and the Crass Roots; Selznick, Leadership in Administration; Selznick, The Organizational Weapon; Herbert Simon, Administrative Behavior. 15. Thompson, Organizations in Action, pp. 10-12. 16. Ibid., p. 27. I apologize for the inelegance of the term and its use here, but it is a recognized concept in the organization theory literature and carries a specific technical meaning. 17. Ibid., pp. 25-38. 18. See Selznick, TVA and the Grassroots. 19. Thompson, Organizations in Action, pp. 35-36. 20. Kenneth Jowitt, Revolutionary Breakthroughs and National Development; the discussion of the revolutionary strategy comes primarily from this excellent book. 21. Ibid., p. 7. 22. Ibid., p. 63. 23. Stanley Hoffmann, "The Areal Division of Powers," p. 113. 24. Thompson, Organizations in Action, p. 24. 25. Ibid., p. 70. 26. Ibid., p. 73. 27. Ibid., p. 125. In making use of their discretionary power, they of course also take into account their own personal, family, particularistic, and class interests, thereby raising the issue of staff control. 28. Ibid., p. 112. 29. Ibid., pp. 160-61, my emphasis; see also pp. 73, 76, 82. 30. Fred Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries, and James Heaphey, ed., Spatial Dimensions of Development Administration. 31. Thompson, Organizations in Action, p. 118. 32. Hall, Organizations, p. 169; see also Blau and Schoenherr, The Structure of Organizations. 33. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries, pp. 280-83, 340—46. Riggs calls déconcentration "derogation" and notes that it usually appears informally in formally very centralized structures. 34. See Jerry Hough, The Soviet Prefects. 35. James W. Fesler, "Centralization and Decentralization," 2:374; on prefects and préfectoral administration, see James W. Fesler, "The Political Role of Field Administration"; Robert C. Fried, The Italian Prefects; Herbert Jacob, German Administration Since Bismark; Brian Chapman, The Prefects and Provincial France; Brian Smith, Field Admin-

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istration; Fisher, Government and Society in Colonial Peru; Lynch, Spanish Colonial Administration; and Wortman, Government and Society in Central America. 36. O n this distinction see Smith, Field Administration, pp. 44-123; and Fried, The Italian Prefects, pp. 206-315. 37. Bruce ). Berman, "Préfectoral Administration and African Development," pp. 6 - 7 , my emphasis. 38. Crozier, The Bureaucratic Phenomenon, p. 156. 39. Berman, "Préfectoral Administration and African Development," p. 9. 40. Fesler, "The Political Role," pp. 129-34; also Smith, Field Administration. 41. Fesler, "Centralization," p. 376. 42. See the works cited in note 35; Hans Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy; and John A. Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite.

3. ABSOLUTISM AND THE STATE-SOCIETY STRUGGLE 1. Wallerstein, The Modem World System, p. 145. For a more complete version of this argument, see Thomas M . Callaghy, "State Formation and Absolutism in Comparative Perspective," chs. 2 - 5 . European absolutism was not a uniform historical phase, as the rise and fall of its various examples cannot be neatly synchronized. As with its internal development, its territorial distribution and development were uneven and varied. Its development in England was brought to a halt by 1688; Spanish absolutism was declining as the French version reached its peak; Danish and Swedish absolutism did not begin to develop until French absolutism was reaching its apex; Russian and Prussian absolutism developed later; and there were places where it did not develop fully or develop at all. 2. Pierre Goubert, The Ancien Régime, p. 70; also see Eli F. Heckscher, Mercantilism, 1:22. 3. Roland Mousnier, The Institutions of France, p. 640; on the corporatist elements of absolutism, see pp. 6 4 0 - 4 5 and chs. 19, 12-14. Also see Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World System II, p. 118 and chs. 3 and 6 generally; Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, p. 52. 4. O n the sociocultural and intellectual changes, see Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process and Power and Civility. These two volumes constitute the complete translation of Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation (Basel: Haus zum Falken, 1939). 5. Due to space restrictions the mercantilist aspects of absolutism will not be treated here; they will be dealt with in a forthcoming work on Zaire's economic and debt crises. O n mercantilism, see Heckscher, Mercantilism; jacob Viner, "Economic Thought: Mercantilist Thought"; Walter E. Minchinton, ed.. Mercantilism: System or Expediency?; Philip W. Buck, The Politics of Mercantilism; ). W . Horrocks, A Short History of Mercantilism; Max Weber, General Economic History; Joseph A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, especially part II, ch. 7; B. Hoselitz, ed.. Theories of Economic Growth; S. B. Clough, European Economic History; D. C. Coleman, ed.. Revisions in Mercantilism; Lionel Rothkrug, Opposition to Louis XIV; Wallerstein, Modern World System II, chs. 3 and 6.

6. Theodore K. Rabb nicely sums up these changes in The Struggle for Stability in Early Modem Europe; also Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State. 7. O n these international aspects, see Hintze, "The State in Historical Perspective"; Iggers and von Moltke, eds., The Theory and Practice of History; Zolberg, "Origins of the Modern World System"; Gourevitch, "The International System and Regime Formation"; Dehio, The Precarious Balance; William H. McNeill, The Shape of European History; Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State; W. R. Roosen, The Age of Louis XIV; and Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 51-54, 60-64.

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8. Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1393, 1050, 1094, 1041, 1098. 9. In addition to the intrinsic interest of the French case, it has an additional attribute that greatly enhances the benefits of a comparison—the intense and diverse nature of the historiography of the period. The Ancien Régime has been studied from virtually every conceivable vantage point—institutional, cultural, social, economic, liberal, conservative, Marxist, and non-Marxist. From Voltaire and Saint-Simon through Lemontey, Michelet, Lavisse, Pagès, Esmonin, Mousnier, and Goubert to the recent Annales School, almost all major areas of concern have been carefully studied and hotly debated. O n this historiography see William F. Church, Louis XIV in Historical Thought, and Rabb, The Struggle for Stability. 10. An excellent, short, and readable account of this period which nicely interweaves these factors is Pierre Goubert, Louis XIV and Twenty Million Frenchmen. 11. See Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1037, 1042, 1055-58, 1084; Wallerstein, Modern World System, p. 31 ; Robert Mandrou, La France au XVir et XVIIIe Siècles, p. 220; Bendix, Max Weber, p. 367; William F. Church, Richelieu and Reason of State; and Federico Chabod, " Y a-t-il un état de la Renaissance?" pp. 68-69. O n the development of bureaucracy in early modern Europe, see G. E. Aylmer, "Bureaucracy," especially pp. 167-72. 12. Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 1106-07, my emphasis. 13. Jean Bodin, The Six Books of a Commonweale; also see Julian H. Franklin, lean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory. 14. Mousnier, The Institutions of France, p. 646. 15. O n legitimacy doctrines and notions of power, see the excellent book by Nannerl O. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France; Roland Mousnier, Etat et société en France, pp. 2 - 1 3 ; Mousnier, "The Exponents and Critics of Absolutism"; Stephan Skalweit, "Political Thought"; and Rabb, Struggle for Stability. 16. David Maland, Europe in the Seventeenth Century, p. 20; also see F. Dumont, "French Kingship and Absolute Monarchy," pp. 56-57. 17. Goubert, Louis XIV, pp. 61, 64. 18. Mousnier, The Institutions of France, p. 646. 19. See Pierre Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, pp. 12-39; Mousnier, The Institutions of France, pp. 653-77; and George Pagès, La Monarchie de l'Ancien Régime en France, p. 139 and passim. 20. Mousnier, The Institutions of France, pp. 665-70, and Etat et société, p. 17; Jean Meuvret, "The Condition of France," especially pp. 319-20; G. R. R. Treasure, Seventeenth-Century France, pp. 283-84, 268; and on Louis XIV himself, above all John B. Wolf, Louis XIV, especially chs. 1 1 - 1 5 and 2 3 - 2 5 ; Philippe Erlanger, Louis XIV; Pierre Gaxotte, The Age of Louis XIV; and Vincent Cronin, Louis XIV. Also see Aylmer, "Bureaucracy," pp. 173-75. 21. Rabb, Struggle for Stability, pp. 100, 158. 22. Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 4 8 5 - 9 3 and passim; Aylmer, "Bureaucracy," p. 168. 23. Joseph Strayer, Medieval Statecraft; Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, pp. 61-62. 24. Goubert, Louis XIV, p. 38; above all, see Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, parts II, IV, and V; Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 43, 50-51. 25. Ferdinand Brunot, Histoire de la langue française des origines à 1900, vol. 3 (Paris: A. Colin, 1926), pp. 1 - 2 , quoted in Goubert, The Ancien Régime, p. 277; also see Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen, pp. 70, 78, 89. 26. See Goubert, The Ancien Régime, pp. 264-66, 277-83; also see three fine works by Robert Mandrou, Introduction à la France moderne, De la culture populaire en France, and Magistrats et sorciers en France.

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27. Goubert, The Ancien Régime, parts III and VI; on the economy, in addition to the citations on mercantilism above, see Kristof Glamann, "European Trade 1500-1700"; Wallerstein, Modern World System; Goubert, Louis XIV, ch. 2; Treasure, Seventeenth-Century France, ch. 2; two books by Robert Mandrou, Louis XIV en son temps, chs. 1 and 5, and La France au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, part III, ch. 1. Also see Wallerstein, Modern World System II, "Introduction" and Chs. 1 and 2; and Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 54-56. 28. Goubert, The Ancien Régime, p. 61. In Lineages of the absolutist State, Perry Anderson comments on this mixture of Roman and customary law. He notes that Roman law staged a revival in Europe during the rise of the absolutist states. Drawing heavily, almost directly, from Weber, Anderson indicates that the revival and spread of Roman law was linked to two main forces: the rise politically of absolutism, and the rise of capitalist economic relations in the towns and the countryside, especially the regularization of the rules of financial transaction and commodity production and exchange. Predominance is given to the first factor: "Absolutism . . . was the central architect of the recognition of Roman law in Europe . . . in the drive of royal governments for increased central powers" (pp. 27-29). The Belgians introduced Roman law to Zaire and put it in competition with traditional customary law. Both of the political and economic forces delineated above are involved in its spread in Zaire, but as in the case of early modern Europe, it is the rise of a centralizing patrimonial state that is the predominant factor, at least at this point, in its spread. 29. On the pays d'états, see Goubert, The Ancien Régime, p. 273, and Tocqueville, The Old Régime, pp. 212-22. Also see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 52, 174, 178-79; and Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, p. 289. 30. Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy, pp. 14-15; see all of this splendid first chapter. 31. Meuvret, "The Condition of France," p. 319. 32. Tocqueville, The Old Régime, p. 58. In essence, the absolutist monarchs separated the role and status elements of the sociopolitical position of "noble"—that is, performance was separated from prestige or status. The traditional fusion of these two elements during the feudal period was severed by the emerging absolutist state. The role aspects, that is, the action or performance components, were transferred to new, dependent groups of royal officials, the intendants. The officials slowly absorbed all the role aspects of the nobles' traditional political position, rendering them powerless but privileged and of continuing high social prestige. This key element of the coverover process is also taking place in Zaire today between traditional authorities and the prefects. These notions come from role and group theory; for an excellent theoretical and empirical analysis of the concepts in the African context, see Price, Society and Bureaucracy. 33. Tocqueville, The Old Régime, p. 57 and 58, my emphasis; on Tocqueville's views about centralization, see Jack Lively, The Social and Political Thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, Ch. 5. 34. G. Durand, "What is Absolutism?" pp. 19-20, my emphasis; on strategy, also see Roland Mousnier, La Plume, la faucille et le marteau, and "The Development of Monarchical Institutions"; William F. Church, "Louis XIV and Reason of State"; Raymond F. Kierstead, ed., State and Society in Seventeenth-Century France, pp. xi-xix; and Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 52-53. 35. Mousnier, Etat et société, pp. 16-18; also see P. E. Lemontey, Essai sur l'éstablissement monarchique de Louis XIV; and Wallerstein, Modem World System, pp. 11825. 36. Chabod, "Y-a-t-il un état." 37. John Lough, "France Under Louis XIV," p. 244; also see Wallerstein, Modem

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World System, passim; Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, passim, and, in addition to works already cited, Nora Temple, "The Control and Exploitation of French Towns"; A. Lloyd Moote, "Law and Justice Under Louis XIV"; and H. G. Judge, "Louis XIV and the Church." 38. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 49. Also see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 56-60. 39. Herbert H. Rowen, "Louis XIV and Absolutism," pp. 309-10; see also Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 55. 40. John A. Armstrong, "Old-Régime Administrative Elites," p. 24. 41. All three quotes are from Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, pp. 14, 12, 14, my translations. 42. Ernest Barker, The Development of Public Services in Western Europe, p. 54; also see Georges Pagès, La Monarchie de l'Ancien Régime, p. 150; Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 60-64. 43. Julian Dent, Crisis in Finance, pp. 9-22, 232-35, and passim. On corruption in early modem Europe, Aylmer has noted that "by twentieth-century standards what would be considered as corruption on the part of officials was likewise virtually universal, though again there were important variations between different states and at different times in the same countries" ("Bureaucracy," p. 170). 44. On the development and performance of the intendants, see Roland Mousnier, "Etat et commissaire," in La Plume, la faucille et le marteau, pp. 179-99, and Etat et société en France, pp. 108-18; Georges Pagès, Les Institutions monarchiques, pp. 116-20, and Les Origines du XVIIIe siècle, pp. 18-23; C. H. Church, Revolution and Red Tape; Robert R. Harding, Anatomy of a Power Elite; James W. Fesler, "French Field Administration"; Armstrong, The European Administrative Elite; Wolfram Fisher and Peter Lundgreen, "Recruitment and Training of Administrative and Technical Personnel"; Vivian Cruder, The Royal Provincial Intendants; Charles Godard, "The Historical Role of the Intendants"; G. Livet, "Royal Administration in a Frontier Province"; Gabriel Ardant, "Financial Policy and Economic Infrastructure"; Tocqueville, The Old Régime, passim; and especially Roland Mousnier, Les organes de l'Etat et la société, pp. 484-544, 609-45. On the intendants subdelegates see Edmond Esmonin, "Les origines et les débuts des subdélégués des intendants"; and J. Ricommard, "Les subdélégués des intendants." 45. Reinhard Bendix, "Social Stratification," p. 200. 46. Church, "Louis XIV and Reason of State," p. 373. 47. Quoted in Hintze, "The Commissary and His Significance," in Gilbert, Historical Essays, p. 283. 48. Mousnier, Etat et société, p. 119. 49. John A. Armstrong, "Old-Regime Governors," p. 16. 50. Quoted in Barker, The Development of Public Services, p. 10. 51. James E. King, Science and Rationalism in the Government of Louix XIV, p. 137. 52. In a circular in 1670, Colbert told his intendants, "Consider this work as the most important of those which are entrusted to your hands" (quoted in Treasure, Seventeenth-Century France, p. 290). 53. Temple, "French Towns," and Tocqueville, The Old Régime, p. 45. 54. C. V. Wedgwood, Richelieu and the French Monarchy, pp. 101-102. 55. Pagès, Les Institutions monarchiques, pp. 122-23, my translation. 56. Treasure, Seventeenth-Century France, p. 291. 57. Barker, The Development of Public Services, p. 11. 58. Pagès, La Monarchie de l'Ancien Régime, p. 179, my translation. 59. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, p. 102.

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60. See Robert Mandrou's fascinating book Fureurs paysannes; also see Roland Mousnier, "Les Mouvements populaires"; Leon Bernard, "French Society and Popular Uprisings"; and Boris Porchnev, Les Soulèvements populaires. 61. As late as 1661 mercenaries comprised about half of the French forces (Goubert, Louis XIV, p. 108); on mercenaries, see Victor Kiernan, "Foreign Mercenaries and Absolute Monarchy." 62. The wars were the War of Devolution (1667-68), Dutch War (1672-78), War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697), and War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). As Mousnier notes, the political changes brought about by absolutism "semblent avoir été provoguées avant tout par les nécessités de la guerre, civile ou étrangère. . . . Ainsi la guerre, soit directement, soit par ses conséquences, s'est révélée ici aussi, une fois encore, un puissant facteur de changement, peut-être le facteur prépondérant" (Les Institutions, vol. 2, pp. 7, 8, my emphasis). Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 51-54, 6 0 64. Also see Dehio, Precarious Balance, ch. 2, especially pp. 72-90; Gaston Zeller, "French Diplomacy and Foreign Policy"; Georges Pagès, "L'Histoire diplomatique de règne de Louis XIV"; John B. Wolf, "Louis XIV"; Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, ch. 6. Of the recent "global" works, Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, is much preferable to Wallerstein, Modern World System, because he seriously takes these factors into account while Wallerstein downplays them; in this regard see Zolberg, "Origins of the Modern World System," and Gourevitch, "International System." Anderson's book has a major flaw, however, in that he portrays French absolutism as "a redeployed and recharged apparatus of feudal domination" (p. 110). This is clearly counter to the argument here. Both Wallerstein and Skocpol take Anderson to task for this view, but for rather different reasons. See Wallerstein, Modern World System II, pp. 32-33; and Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 5657. 63. On the reorganization of the army, see André Corvisier, L'Armée française, and Armies and Societies in Europe; Geroges Livet, L'Intendance d'Alsace; Mousnier, Etat et société, pp. 89-104; and G. N. Clark, War and Society in the Seventeenth Century. 64. Goubert, Louis XIV, p. 300. 65. Durand, "What is Absolutism?" p. 39. 66. These limitations are a relative question, because despite them, the absolutist monarchy lasted until 1789. The limits must be evaluated in the context of the fully developed modern state; the absolutist state was still an early modern state. In this regard, E. H. Kossmann has stated: "Yet we must realise that those states were 'modern' only in the indeed essential but still limited sense of being what we call 'states' at all. The aims and methods of their governments were far from modern. Nor were they medieval. In fact they were particular, singular, strange. The state of the Ancien Régime is a phenomenon sui generis" ("The Singularity of Absolutism," p. 4). Also see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, p. 53; and Poggi, The Development of the Modern State. 67. For similar assessments see Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, p. 108; Kierstead, State and Society, p. xiii; J. Meuvret, "The Condition of France," 316-17; Treasure, Seventeenth-Century France, p. 296; and J. Lough, "France Under Louix XIV," p. 245. For an excellent assessment of the ultimate contradictions of French absolutism, its revolutionary crisis, and postrevolutionary transformation, and in a comparative perspective, see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions, pp. 64-67, 118-28, and 174-205.

4. ZAIRIAN ABSOLUTISM AND THE STATE-SOCIETY STRUGGLE 1. Dumont, "French Kingship and Absolute Monarchy," p. 66. 2. Mandrou, Louis XIV en son temps, p. 205. 3. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 19

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4. Tocqueville, The Old Régime, p. 57, my emphasis. 5. "The cultures of the Congo IZaire] resemble each other strongly when one compares them to other African cultures, and even more if they are compared to other cultures in the world." Jan Vansina, Introduction à l'Ethnologie du Congo, p. 10, quoted in Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, p. 163. 6. O n the changes wrought by the colonial conquest state and the early independence period, see Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 163-215; and note 38, chapter 1 above. 7. Ibid., p. 164. 8. Coubert, Louis XIV, p. 38. O n the peasantry in Zaire, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development"; Vanderlinden, ed., Du Congo au Zaire, pp. 76-90; and Gran, ed., Zaire, chs. 9 - 1 2 . 9. Coubert, The Ancien Régime, p. 277. 10. O n the use of the supernatural, see the excellent study by Buakasa Tulu kia Mpansu, L'lmpense de Discours. 11. Coubert, The Ancien Régime, p. 70. 12. Ibid., p. 61; statistics for this section come from U.S. Department of State, "Background Notes: Zaire," and Irving Kaplan, ed., Zaire: A Country Study; and Vanderlinden, ed., Du Congo au Zaire. 13. O n the Congo Free State, see Ruth Slade, King Leopold's Congo; and lean Stengers, "The Congo Free State." 14. Aidan Southall, "State Formation in Africa," p. 159. 15. See the discussions of the patrimonial colonial state in Latin America and of the colonial legacy in Africa in chapter 1. 16. Berman, "Préfectoral Administration," p. 20, my emphasis. 17. Crawford Young, "Zaire: Prospects for the Future," p. 1. 18. See note 38, chapter 1. 19. See Bogumil Jewsiewicki, "Zaire Enters the World System." 20. Georges Balandier, Political Anthropology, p. 168. 21. See Wyatt MacGaffey, "National Integration in Zaire," and "Corporation Theory and Political Change." 22. Balandier, Political Anthropology, p. 168. 23. Southall, "State Formation in Africa," p. 164. 24. The literature on this period is vast; in particular see Young, Politics in the Congo; Willame, Patrimonialism and Political Change; Benoit Verhaegen, Rébellions au Congo; René Lemarchand, Political Awakening in the Congo; Herbert Weiss, Political Protest in the Congo; Catherine Hoskyns, The Congo Since Independence; Colin Legum, Congo Disaster; Thomas Kanza, Conflict in the Congo; and Madeleine G. Kalb, The Congo Cables. For a good analytic treatment of the causes and consequences of this crisis of authority, see Mpinga-Kasenda, L'Administration publique au Zaire, pp. 17-44. 25. In the next three sections I will use the name Congo, rather than Zaire; Mobutu changed the name of the country on October 27, 1971. 26. See Young, Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 196-98; see the whole chapter for a good discussion of the fluidity of ethnic particularism. 27. Zolberg, " A View from the Congo," pp. 145-46. 28. This discussion of the American role draws heavily on Stephen R. Weissman, American Foreign Policy in the Congo; also see his "The C.I.A. and U.S. Policy in Zaire and Angola," and René Lemarchand, "The C.I.A., in Africa." Also see Kalb, Congo Cables. 29. Weissman, American Foreign Policy, p. 95. 30. Ibid., pp. 109-10; on American efforts of support, see chapter 3. 31. Ibid., pp. 212-13; Ernest W . Lefever, Spear and Scepter, pp. 104-106.

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32. Weissman, American Foreign Policy, pp. 226-36. 33. O n the rebellions, see Vertiaegen, Rébellions au Congo; Young, "Domestic Violence in Africa"; "Rebellion and the Congo"; and Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 203-10. 34. Weissman, American Foreign Policy, pp. 236-46; Lefever, Spear and Scepter, pp. 112-14. 35. Ghislain C. Kabwit, "Zaire," p. 384; Ian Colvin, The Rise and Fall of Moise Tshombe, p. 29. 36. John Stockwell, In Search of Enemies, p. 136. 37. Quoted in Lefever, Spear and Scepter, p. 114. 38. Ibid., pp. 119-21. 39. Zolberg, "The Military Decade," p. 327. 40. Cordon C . McDonald et. al., Area Handbook for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, p. 435. 41. Lefever, Spear and Sceptre, pp. 121-25. 42. Ibid., pp. 128-31. 43. Mpinga-Kasenda, L'Administration publique au Zaire, p. 17. 44. "Rapport d'Activités de la Sous-Région du M.P.RVCataractes de 1967 à 1972," Mbanza-Ngungu, March 28, 1973. 45. Engulu Baanga Mpongo Bakokele Lokanga, "La Territoriale et la Radicalisation du M.P.R., exposé aux auditeurs de la Session Mobutu Sese Seko de l'Institut Makanda Kabobi, Kinshasa-N'Sele, le 4.09.1974"; this speech was not widely circulated and was meant for state personnel only; one of the main reasons for using this speech is that the whole strategy is developed so clearly in one place. I felt this was more useful and convincing than drawing fragmentary evidence from a large number of sources. It has increased weight because Engulu was at the time state commissioner for political affairs and also a member of the Political Bureau. The Department of Political Affairs is now called the Department of Territorial Administration, but throughout the book Political Affairs will be used because it was the term in use at the time the field research was done. 46. Sources for this section are Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, pp. 211 15; Williame, Patrimonialism and Political Change, pp. 128-58; Mpinga-Kasenda, L'Administration publique au Zaire, passim; Serge A. Vieux, L'Administration zairoise; Paul Demunter, "Le Régime de Mobutu"; Léon Jumelle, "La Réforme administrative au Zaire," "Les Grandes Etapes de La Réforme Administrative au Zaire," "Le Régime Présidentiel au Zaire"; Zaire-Afrique, 1965-1978; Africa Contemporary Record, 1968-1980; and personal observation and interviews in Zaire, June 1974 to August 1975. O n the state-church conflict see K. L. Adelman, "The Church-State Conflict in Zaire." 47. The name of the secret police has changed to Centre National de Recherches et d' Investigations (CNRI), but C N D will be used throughout because it was in use during the field research. 48. It was reestablished in 1978, but only as a coordinating position clearly subordinate to President Mobutu. 49. Salon go (Kinshasa), November 21, 1972. 50. Zaire-Afrique (January 1975), 91:25. 51. Zaire-Afrique (January 1976), 101:61. 52. Thompson, Organizations in Action, p. 39. 53. O n authenticity, see Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, pp. 5 1 64. 54. Zaire-Afrique (October 1975), 98:58. 55. lean Rymenam, "Comment le régime Mobutu a sapé ses propres fondements," p. 9. 56. Mousnier, Les Institutions de la France, 1:517.

450

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57. Crawford Young, "Zaire: The Unending Crisis," p. 172; controls inspired by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) do not appear to have altered this situation. 58. See "Mobutu's Empire of Graft," Africa Now, March 1982, pp. 12-23; and Nguza, Mobutu, p. 128. 59. For a fascinating inside look at Zairian court politics, including sexual intrigue and the role of the supernatural, see Nguza, Mobutu, especially "Ménage et politique," pp. 2 9 - 3 3 . 60. Jean-Pierre Langellier, "Le Zaire miraculé." 61. As we shall see, the Judicial Council was downgraded to a department in 1980; the Central Committee was created in 1980. 62. A remark by Louis XIV, quoted in Goubert, Louis XIV, p. 61. 63. In Kinshasa during the 1970s, the evening news program started with a leadin of a picture full of clouds; the clouds slowly parted and a picture of Mobutu's head slowly emerged from the clouds to fill the screen; most of the news during the program was about what Mobutu had done, said, and decided; as V. S. Naipaul notes, "In Zaire Mobutu is the news; his speeches his receptions, the marches de soutien, the new appointments, court news" (New York Review of Books, June 26, 1975; also see his novel about Zaire, A Bend in the River). In movie houses there is always a ten-minute newsreel before the movie, and it is always all about Mobutu's activities of the previous week. There is even a glorified version of Mobutu's life in comic book form: Histoire du Zaire: Il était une fois . . . Mobutu. 64. Zaire-Afrique (January 1975), 91:25. 65. O n political religions, see Apter, Politics of Modernization, pp. 292-312. 66. Africa Now, March 1982, p. 13. O n the pope's visit, see Le Pape chez nous. 67. Balandier, Political Anthropology, p. 175. Also see Vansina, "Mwasi's Trials," pp. 6 2 - 6 3 , 67; and Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, p. 121nn37, 38. 68. Balandier, Political Anthropology, pp. 176-77; Balandier continues: "Since 1960 the Congo IZaire] has failed to unite in one person these three figures of the chief; according to traditional notions, this situation would largely explain its present state of weakness." He simply wrote this too soon, as these three figures of the chief are now united in one person—Mobutu Sese Seko as presidential monarch. 69. Langellier, "Le Zaire miraculé"; AZAP, October 13, 1982. 70. Langellier, "Le Zaire miraculé." In fact, Mobutu was saved by Moroccan troops in 1977 and the French Foreign Legion in 1978. 71. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 41; my translation. 72. Mushi Mugumorhagerwa, "Incidences ethniques sur la fonction administrative au Kivu," p. 113. Also see Janet MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy," p. 101; and Nguza, Mobutu, p. 52, and his congressional testimony, "Current Political and Economic Situation in Zaire." The perception of a ruling class is partially mitigated by patron-client ties and the hope for eventual entry into it. The precolonial Kingdom of the Kongo, much of which covered territory that is now part of Zaire, had a similar political aristocracy. As in contemporary Zaire, membership in it came through holding a state position: "All these titleholders formed the aristocracy and one who could not claim to be mani- [a political title prefix! something or another was not an aristocrat. It is therefore clear that aristocrats would support the existing regime." They could also be replaced at will by the king—an unusual trait for African precolonial states. Jan Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna, p. 42; also see G. Galandier, Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo. 73. For example, Mobutu Niwa, President Mobutu's oldest son, received 1.5 million Belgian francs for being a "roving ambassador." Africa Now, March 1982, p. 14. Also see Gould, "Patrons and Clients" and Bureaucratic Corruption; and Lemarchand, "Politics of Penury." 74. Young, "Zaire: Prospects for the Future," p. 3.

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75. Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, pp. n13 and 167. On the French political aristocracy, see Goubert, The Ancien Régime, pp. 41-64. Perry Anderson, in Lineages of the Absolutist State, incorrectly fuses the political and feudal aristocracies in his analysis of French absolutism. 76. Jean Rymenam, "Comment le régime Mobutu a sapé ses propres fondements," my translation. In this regard, Weber noted that "in the interests of his domination, the patrimonial ruler must oppose the status autonomy of the feudal aristocracy and the economic independence of the bourgeoisie" (Economy and Society, p. 1107). In the Zairian context, the following analysts use these terms: David Gould, Benoit Verhaegen, and Nzongola-Natalaja—"national bourgeoisie"; Michael Schatzberg—"politico-commercial bourgeoisie"; and Crawford Young—both "national mandarinate" (which misleadingly implies extensive education and training) and "politico-commercial class." Although his overall analysis is excellent, Frantz Fanon is a good example of this terminological problem. He uses the term "national bourgeoisie," but then notes the following: "In underdeveloped countries, we have seen that no true bourgeoisie exists" (Wretched of the Earth, p. 175). So why call it a bourgeoisie at all? The continued use of the term simply leads to conceptual confusion. On Nzongola-Ntalaja's use of "Bonapartist dictatorship," see his Class Struggles and National Liberation in Africa, pp. 44-50. On the "blockage" nature of Belgian colonial policy, see Mukenge Tshilemalema, "Businessmen of Zaire." 77. Rymenam, "Le régime Mobutu," my translation. Also see Benoit Verhaegen, "Impérialisme technologique et bourgeoisie nationale au Zaire," pp. 359, 376-77. Like Verhaegen, Nzongola asserts that "the class in charge of the Zairian state today is a bourgeoisie" and then notes immediately that it is "one that is still incapable of establishing an independent economic base for itself but whose political power enables it to enhance its role in the country's economy" (Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, p. 47). 78. Quoted in Langellier, "Le Zaire miraculé," my translation. 79. J. MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy," pp. 7, 8, emphases added; also see pp. 161, 180-90, 198, 302-12. 80. On the fate of Zairianized businesses acquired by the political aristocracy, see ibid., pp. 137-38, 176-80; on the "irregular economy," see pp. 213-34, and on the Nande traders, see pp. 274-92. For a fine analysis of the Nande traders, their importance, and the notion of "opportunity structure" in an "informal sector," see Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders in Butembo." 81. J. MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy," pp. 289-99. MacGaffey's argument is partially contradictory and overdrawn in some respects. She says that the "political-administrative class" and the "commercial middle class" are two sectors of the same "dominant class" (pp. 140, 306), that the former "clique" controls the state (p. 142), and that "the two sectors are not antagonistic" (p. 309). The commercial middle class is so small and isolated that it does not make much sense to count it as part of the dominant class, especially since she has stressed the "relative independence" of the commercial middle class from the political-administrative class, its small size, and its incipient development, and she has pointed to the closure mechanisms and harassment actions of the political-administrative class. In this sense, Schatzberg comes to a position similar to mine when he notes that a "true" bourgeoisie of this variety remains "small and relatively unimportant both politically and economically" in Zaire (Michael G. Schatzberg, "The Emerging Trialectic," p. 14). 82. On the useful distinction between the status and role elements of administrative positions, see Price, Society and Bureaucracy in Contemporary Ghana. 83. On this general pauperization, see Vansina, "Mwasi's Trails," and Young, "Zaire: The Unending Crisis." 84. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, pp. 12, 14; my translation.

452

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85. Rymenam, "Le régime Mobutu"; my translation. Some members of the political aristocracy engage directly in smuggling and the other practices of the "irregular economy," others indirectly as intermediaries, commonly known as vendeurs du papier. See J. MacGaffey, pp. 213-14; also see Nzongola, op cit. pp. 44-50; and Nsaman O. Lutu, "Le management face à la crise de l'Administration publique zairoise," Zaire-Afrique (May 1983), 175:271 —80. 86. |. H. Peemans, "The Social and Economic Development of Zaire," p. 162; D. J. Gould, "Disorganization Theory and Underdevelopment Administration"; see also his Bureaucratic Corruption; informant, Kinshasa, Zaire, May 26, 1975 (at the time the official exchange rate was one Zaire to two U.S. dollars; the black market rate was one to one); Jean-Pierre Langellier, "Le Zaire miraculé" (the subtitle of the article is "L'Article 15," which means "on se débrouille," to take care of oneself). 87. Vansina, "Mwasi's Trials," p. 57. On the "economy of grabbing," see Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," p. 33. The high former regime official is Nguza; see "Current Political and Economic Situation," p. 38 and generally, and Mobutu, p. 133 and generally. Also see Erwin Blumenthal, "Zaire." 88. Quoted in Young, "Zaire: The Unending Crisis," p. 172. 89. Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, p. 121; also see pp. 121-52. 90. Ibid., pp. 136-37. 91. Based on personal observation in the Bas-Zaire, Shaba, Kivu, and Kinshasa regions of Zaire in 1974-75. On the various Zairianization processes and their consequences, see Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, pp. 121-52; Edward Kannyo, "Political Power and Class Formation in Zaire"; two UNAZA mémoires: Kumwimba Kabongo, "Approche sur les aspects administratifs des mesures économiques du 30 novembre 1973," and Tshianke Mukongo, "Les Problèmes administratifs des mesures économiques du 30 novembre 1973"; Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 137—45; and Nguza, Mobutu, pp. 129-31. 92. ). MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy," pp. 292, 293; on closure, see pp. 48, 292-97. Also see Young, "Patterns of Social Conflict," p. 88; David M. Ewert, "Freire's Concept of Critical Consciousness"; and Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, pp. 28-32. On the hegemonic class project of the political aristocracy, see Bayart, L'Etat au Cameroun. 93. Michael G. Schatzberg, "Class and Ethnic Politics in Zaire," p. 2; also see his "The Emerging Trialectic," and Politics and Class in Zaire. 94. Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders," p. 350; also see pp. 310-15. On the belief in social mobility, see Ewert, "Freire's Concept of Critical Consciousness"; Young, "Patterns of Social Conflict"; Vansina, "Mwasi's Trials"; Schatzberg, "The Emerging Trialectic," p. 23; and J. MacGaffey, "Class Relations in a Dependent Economy," pp. 268-301. On peasants, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," especially ch. 7. On workers, see Mwabila Malela, Travail et travailleurs au Zaire. 95. The research upon which this section is based was funded by the National Science Foundation, grant number SES 80-13453, "Third World Debt and the International System: The Case of Zaire." The bulk of the data comes from confidential interviews with Western governmental officials, Zairian officials, officials of international organizations, bankers, and businessmen, which were conducted in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, London, Brussels, Paris, and Kinshasa in 1980-83. 96. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 137; Pagès, La Monarchie de l'Ancien Régime, p. 150. 97. Goubert, Louis XIV, p. 310. 98. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 150. 99. Weber, Economy and Society, p. 1099.

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100. Kenneth L. Adelman, "Zaire's Year of Crisis," p. 37. 101. Ibid. 102. P. A. Wellons, Borrowing by Developing Countries, pp. 119-20. 103. Interview, Kinshasa, February 21, 1975. 104. Adelman, "Zaire's Year of Crisis," p. 37; and Young, "Zaire: The Unending Crisis," p. 177. 105. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 144. 106. Jonathan D. Aronson, "The Politics of Bank Lending," p. 6. 107. Young, "Zaire: The Unending Crisis," p. 117. 108. For a detailed participant-observer look at the 1979 Paris Club (public debt) rescheduling and the 1980 London Club (private bank) rescheduling, see Jeffrey E. Garten, "Rescheduling Third World Debt." 109. Kabuya Kalala, "La relance économique du Zaire," p. 620. Also see Kabuya Kalala and Kikassa Mwanalessa, Stabilisation économique et financière au Zaire. 110. Weber, Economy and Society, p. 1091. On Bula Matari, see Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, pp. 49, 116-17n52; Young, "Patterns of Social Conflict," p. 95n11. 111. Nguza, "Current Political and Economic Situation," pp. 13, 15; for his participant-observer view of the external reform efforts, see Mobutu, pp. 143-46, 165. 112. Blumenthal, "Zaire," p. 19. R. Peter DeWitt and James Petras present a "radical" analysis of the "dynamics of international debt peonage" in which expansion of global debt injures true development prospects while possibly increasing the instability of the global economic system ("Political Economy of International Debt"). The developed capitalist states and their international banks manipulate regimes and attempts to "restructure political power and economic systems." The authors use the Zaire case with its customhouse takeover aspects as a key example of this process. But, in fact, the Zaire case shows both the significance of international influence and the fact that it nonetheless has distinct limits. Manipulating regimes is more difficult that the authors assume: debt is after all a two-way street. Zaire no longer performs its neocolonial functions properly, and external actors are finding it difficult to make it do so. In addition, they cannot just walk away from the problem either, for geopolitical and strategic reasons as well as economic ones. According to DeWitt and Petras, "these Western interventions in Zaire illustrate the banks and developed nations' ability to restructure LDC debtors" (p. 196). In fact, they illustrate quite the reverse. How the nature of Third World regimes and the international system can frustrate external control and restructuring efforts remains one of the largest lacunas of the growing debt literature. Also see Guy Gran, "Zaire 1978," and his two chapters in Gran, ed., Zaire: "An Introduction to Zaire's Permanent Development Crisis," pp. 1-25, and "Development Versus the World System: International Aid Activities in Zaire," pp. 296-318. 113. Dent, Crisis in Finance, p. 122. 114. Wellons, Borrowing by Developing Countries, p. 120. 115. These terms were used in confidential interviews conducted in Kinshasa, JulyAugust 1982. 116. Weber, Economy and Society, p. 1095. 117. The general sources for this section are Young, "Zaire"; Kabwit, "Zaire"; F. S. B. Kazadi, "Zaire 1981"; Irving Kaplan, ed., Zaire; Edward Kannyo, "Postcolonial Politics in Zaire"; David J. Gould, "The Administration of Underdevelopment"; and various newspapers, especially the New York Times and the Washington Post. 118. Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Constructing Social Theories, p. 162. 119. On Shaba I and II, see Jean-Claude Willame, "La seconde guerre du Shaba"; Peter Mangold, "Shaba I and II"; Galen Hull, "Zaire in the World System"; Callaghy, "Absolutism and Apartheid"; and Nguza, Mobutu, pp. 21-28. On the FLNC, see

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"Mouvements d'opposition au Zaire." O n the opposition generally, see Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, ch. 5; and Kabwit, "The Growth of Internal and External Opposition." 120. The reconciliation with Angola will not be treated in detail here; see my "Apartheid and Absolutism." Nguza confirms that the reforms were the result of external pressure; see Mobutu, pp. 142-49, and "Current Political and Economic Situation," pp. 11-21. 121. Nguza asserts that the military training efforts have had little impact and that much of the military aid is misused; see Mobutu, pp. 176-85. O n Zairian-lsraeli relations, see J. Coleman Kitchen, Jr., "Zaire and Israel." 122. Nguza confirms that his release was the result of external pressure; for his description of this period, see Mobutu, pp. 34-124. 123. Nguza, "Current Political and Economic Situation," p. 19. Zaire was the first African country to respond favorably to President Carter's call for a boycott of the 1980 Olympics. 124. Amnesty International, " H u m a n Right Violations in Zaire"; and Lemarchand, "The Politics of Penury." 125. Africa Research Bulletin (Political), February 1 - 2 9 , 1980, p. 5579. 126. Nguza confirms this assessment; the Central Committee "is nothing more than a rubber stamp for the autocratic regime" ("Current Political and Economic Situation," pp. 19-20; also see p. 13, and Mobutu, pp. 126, 130-33). 127. Mobutu was reported to have followed the results of the American presidential election carefully. When it was clear that Ronald Reagan had won, he opened a bottle of champagne and called the U.S. ambassador, ordering his presence for breakfast to explain what the new U.S. policy toward his regime would be. 128. Bayart has referred to these events as "La fronde parlementaire au Zaire" in an article of the same name. 129. Africa Research Bulletin (Political), April 1 - 3 0 , 1981, p. 6016. 130. Quoted in the Washington Post, June 24, 1981; See Nguza, Mobutu, pp. 13475, 194-201. 131. AZAP, March 17, 18, 1982. 132. AZAP, March 19, 1982. 133. See Amnesty International, "Rapport sur les cas de 19 personnes." 134. O n the elections, see Zaire-Afrique, 166-168 (June-October 1982); also, observations and interviews in Kinshasa, July-August 1982. 135. Zaire-Afrique, 172 (February 1983), pp. 122-23. 136. AZAP, December 9, 1982. 137. AZAP, December 8, 1982. In fact, Mobutu is in error, as an international "human rights" movement was able to take the Congo Free State away from King Leopold II—a former patrimonial ruler of Zaire—because of massive human rights abuses; it was annexed by Belgium. 138. AZAP, December 12, 1982. 139. Cited in leune Afrique, June 1, 1983. Other sources used here include AZAP, February 22, 1983; Guardian, April 22, 1983; Washington Post, March 7, 1983; leune Afrique, January 12, 1983; Africa Now, July 1983; Africa News, July 4, 1983. 140. Same sources as in note 46. 141. "Note Circulaire: 'Unité de commandement,' Ministère de l'Intérieur, République Démocratique du Congo, Kinshasa, 12 août 1971." 142. See Mpinga Kasenda and David J. Gould, Les Réformes Administratives au Zaire. 143. O L 73/015; see also " 'Note aux Citoyens Commissaires de Région (tous) rel-

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ative à la Réforme sur l'organization territoriale et administrative,' Commissaire d'Etat aux Affaires politiques, 22 janvier 1973." 144. Vunduawe te Pemako, "La décentralisation territoriale, Première partie," p. 262.

327.

145. Ibid., p. 277. 146. Vunduawe te Pemako, "La décentralisation territoriale, deuxième partie," p.

147. Vunduawe, "La décentralisation territoriale, première partie," p. 270. On the continuing power of traditional and quasi-traditional political ways and the failure of Law 73/015, see W. MacGaffey, "The Policy of National Integration in Zaire," pp. 98-103; and Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 97-106, 183-84. 148. Vunduawe, "La décentralisation territoriale, deuxième partie," p. 334. 149. Ibid., pp. 340, 341. 150. Ibid., p. 338. 151. "L'enjeu et le prix de la décentralisation," Zaire-Afrique, 166 (June-July-August 1982), p. 324. This section is also based on the text of OL 82/006, "Ordonnance-loi No. 82-006 du 25 février 1982 portant organisation territoriale, politique et administrative de la République" (Kinshasa: 1982), 57 pp., and on interviews in Kinshasa, July-August 1982. Also see the special issue of Salongo, April 12, 1982. Vunduawe has subsequently fallen from grace; he is also the person who once proposed to Mobutu a plan to strengthen the JMPR using Hitler's youth as an example. 152. Thomas Davis, )r., "Developmental Goals and Archievements," p. v. Note that it was written just prior to the onset of the economic and fiscal crises. 153. On historical Europe, see Tilly, ed.. The Formation of National States. 154. Young, "Zaire: Prospects for the Future," pp. 3-5; also, "Patterns of Social Conflict," p. 86. Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," also notes "state decay," but it is not clear what the period of comparative reference is—"erosion" from the early Mobutu period, the heyday of 1972-74, the 1960-65 crises, or the colonial period; see pp. 82-84, 118, 277-78. 155. Both Bianga and Vwakyanakazi portray the North Kivu area as a peripheral region in which the penetrative and extractive capacity of the centralizing state have been distinctly limited, where traditional authority structures remain quite viable, the irregular economy and smuggling have long been a way of life, and into which the world capitalist system has only partially penetrated. In short, it is "a remote, geographically and socially peripheral environment" (Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders," p. 356) where "the institutions of the state at the local level are weak" (Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Developments," p. 77). Kivu has always been an area where opposition to the central state, both passive and active, has been strong. Also see Kasay Katsuva Lenga-Lenga, "Le Kivu, une région eclatée." It is thus a true pays d'état. 156. Bianga and Vwakyanakazi are both very clear about the functional contraction of this patrimonial administrative state; it does fewer things than the colonial state and does them much less well. Speaking about rural development in Zaire, Bianga notes that the "major feature at least from the standpoint of the peasants is the extraordinary gap between what it claims it is doing and what it actually achieves" (p. 294; also see 1015).

He notes that the way state policies are: "formulated and implemented indicates the real nature of the state from which they emanate; class interests of bureaucrats is one aspect, but not necessarily the most important; rather we see the incoherence of a state where sweeping policies are conceived at the top, and then transmitted as vague instructions to field administrators, who then find it necessary to show that they are doing something, even when they soon recognize the impossibility of the policy objectives or the lack

456

4. Zairian Absolutism

of adequate resources needed to implement these policies and the benefits they promise to peasants" (p. 292). I have already indicated that a key neomercantilist characteristic is that formal planning is grandiose, but marginal at best in its actual impact. Bianga stresses: "the problem of an overcentralized political system, which determines that most rural development initiatives launched at the central level never left the center; indeed very little rural development activity in a real sense is shaped or controlled by the state's formal planning machinery. . . . The major problem of the agricultural sector in the post-independence era has been the inability of the state either to maintain the pattern of rural development left by the colonial system or to adapt it to the new conditions of the nation-state." (pp. 119, 10). For detailed documentation of his assessment, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 95-120, 127-61, 191-203. 157. Bianga asserts that "from our experience with these peasants, it clearly seems that the often assumed idea that peasants are integrated within the larger economy is a myth within itself" (p. 63): "That the New Regime has failed to perform the essential functions of capitalist expansion in Zaire, functions previously performed by colonialists; that the state has been greatly incapable of evolving a productive base for full scale capitalism, is a largely documented phenomenon. . . . Consequently, the peasant form of production has largely remained "uncaptured" in a sense and continued to exist along capitalism." (p. 78). For good, detailed looks at the "exit" options of the "informal" or "irregular economy," "straddling" (see Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," p. 48), and subsistence agriculture, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 211-47; Vwakyanakazi (who stresses the historical roots of these patterns), "African Traders," pp. 122-251, 349-61; and J. MacGaffey, "Class Relations," pp. 213-35, 274-92. 158. Young, "Patterns of Social Conflict," p. 94. 159. "Suppression des abus de pouvoir à l'intérieur,' E. Bulundwe, Ministre de l'Intérieur, Kinshasa, 23 mars 1971," and "Aide-mémoire à l'intention des Citoyens Commissaires de Sous-Région et de la Zone,' N'Debo a Kanda Di Ne Nkeza, le Commissaire de Région, Kivu, Bukavu, le 9 décembre 1972."

5. ABSOLUTIST TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION: MOBUTU'S PREFECTS

1. Until 1973 these levels were called provinces, districts, territories, and collectivities, respectively; there were three types of collectivities: chiefdoms, sectors, and centers. 2. The personnel of the more competent and active services will be treated as the equivalent of the French fonctionnaires. 3. Zaire, 333, December 23, 1974, p. 48; also see Vieux, L'Administration zairoise, pp. 62-66. 4. Speech given in Coma, Nord-Kivu Subregion, October 23, 1972. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. 5. This power is a source of considerable tension, especially with such sensitive groups as the army and the gendarmery. The secret police (CND until 1980, now CNRI) is not directly responsible to the prefects, but it is supposed to cooperate fully with them. 6. Administrative letter, "Respect du principe de l'unité de commandement," Coma, May 14, 1974. 7. See Circulaire No. 251/00/1444/74, Kinshasa, August 21, 1974. 8. The composite lists were compiled from twenty-six duty lists ("répartitions des

5. Absolutist Territorial Administration

457

attributions") covering the period 1 9 6 8 - 1 9 7 5 from the subrogions and zones of Bas-Zaire, Nord-Kivu, and Haut-Shaba. 9. "Répartitions des attributions," Mbanza-Ngungu, July 17, 1968. 10. Animation consists of groups of singers and dancers w h o perform praise and propaganda songs and dances that are heavily oriented toward Mobutu; Salongo is the term for collective work sessions—a slightly modified form of the colonial practice of corvée labor; both of these activities are discussed in detail in the next chapter. 11. Cataractes Subregion (Bas-Zaire) has had three assistant subregional commissioners since the early 1970s. 12. Detached posts are unofficial administrative subunits of zones headed by zone agents (usually local individuals), which control one or more collectivities; in the large collectivities of Nord-Kivu Subregion, detached posts may be responsible for only a part of a collectivity. 13. Some zones have only two assistant zone commissioners; some have as many as four. The fourth is usually assigned some special jurisdiction (plantation, small urban center, etc.) or some special problem or activity. 14. "Etat d'emploi de temps de l'Administrateur de Territoire M A M B O Joseph, poste d'attache, territoire de Kimvula, le 1 juin 1971," and "Rapport d'activité du mois de mai 1971 de l'Administrateur de territoire M A M B O Joseph, Kimvula, le 1 juin 1971." 15. "Instruction Permanente," Ministère de l'Intérieur, Kinshasa, September 27, 1970. 16. By an administrative letter from the Minister of Interior of September 30, 1968, it was twice a year, but under Law 73/015 it is once a year. 17. The figure was set at ten to fifteen days by the regional commissioner for BasZaire in 1967, but the normal figure is twenty days. 18. Administrative correspondence, September 30, 1968, March 4, 1971, December 9, 1972. 19. The number and diversity of things the prefects are asked to report about is striking. The following partial list is taken from an inspection questionnaire sent by the Department of Political Affairs to all territorial cadre in July 1973: payment of party dues, regularity of coordination meetings of administrative and interservice personnel, regular submission of monthly reports and attached comments of superiors, functioning of the JMPR, quality of collaboration between commissioners and their assistants, regularity of pay for lower level personnel, functioning of the principle of unity of command, control of firearms, smuggling of arms or ammunition from neighboring countries, regularity and quality of prison inspections, security problems and actions taken to cope with them, surveillance of churches and religious sects and control of illegal ones, problems with refugee camps, population census including refugees and other foreigners, functioning of civil registry offices, control of population movements, issuance and control of identity cards, progress on the policy of regrouping villages, functioning of courts, especially traditional courts, difficulties in execution of court judgments, collaboration between commissioners and judges at the subregion level, relations between the army and police and the population, condition of popular sentiment (l'esprit de la population), functioning of Salongo, condition of the roads, bridges, and ferries, how the population responds to its road-maintenance responsibilities, condition of state vehicles and buildings, public health and cleanliness of villages and towns, control of markets and prices, nature and condition of the local econo m y with production statistics, difficulties and level of tax collection, implementation of Mobutu's policy making agriculture the number one priority, how the population responds to demands for increased production, existence of the forced cultivation of certain crops and which crops, efforts taken to slow the exodus from rural areas, functioning of agricultural services, control and functioning of local schools, problems with land disputes, and functioning of the post office and state communication services.

458

5. Absolutist Territorial Administration

20. Administrative letter, Minister of Interior, September 30, J 968. 21. "Fourniture pièces périodiques," Matadi, March 4, 1971. The prefects are simply overburdened in this as well as in many other respects. A short list of reports demanded of zone commissioners will suffice to make this point: administrative and family reports on state personnel; lists of hotel guests; inspection reports of bars, hotels, and restaurants; reports on collectivity finances; lists of court judgments; prison inspection reports; inventories of vehicle fuels; list of local prices; quarterly tax statistics; inventories of state property; lists of people with radio transmitters; budgetary proposals; lists of abandoned property; lists of permits issued; reports of collectivity meetings; etc. See F. Lambinet, "Les Mécanismes de contrôle en Région." 22. Mushi, "Incidences ethniques," part II. 23. Ibid. 24. Ibid. 25. Assorted administrative documents. Prefect personnel here means from subregional commissioner down through assistant zone commissioner. 26. "Mutations," Circulaire lettre 251/00/0128/74, Kinshasa, January 16, 1974. 27. Prefect personnel for Bukavu are not included in these figures because the major cities had not yet been divided into zones as subregions. 28. This impression comes from watching the movement of prefects through administrative correspondence from both Bas-Zaire and Kivu regions. 29. Mushi, "Incidences ethniques," pp. 92-119. 30. "Mutations," Circulaire lettre 251/00/0128/74, Kinshasa, (anuary 1974. 31. Annual Report, Haut-Zaire Region, 1971. 32. "Mise en place Commissaires de Zone et Commissaires de Zone Assistant," Matadi, March 28, 1974. 33. "Mutations," Circulaire lettre 251/00/0128/74, Kinshasa, lanuary 16, 1974. 34. See Foma Ntabashwa, "Problèmes de type statutaire se posant en région," pp. 5 - 1 2 , and "Stabilité de la territoriale," one page statement. Cataractes Subregion, BasZaire, 1973. 35. Mushi, "Incidences ethniques," pp. 109, 92. 36. Ibid. 37. Foma, "Problèmes," p. 11. 38. Mushi, "Incidences ethniques," p. 110. 39. From a ministerial speech in August 1968 cited in Vieux, L'Administration zaïroise, p. 85; also see Lambinet, "Mécanismes de contrôle," p. 20. In February 1983, the Executive Council decided to recreate a corps of territorial inspectors. 40. "Respect des biens des citoyens," Interior Ministry, Kinshasa, March 11,1970. 41. "Suppression des abus de pouvoir à l'intérieur," Interior Ministry, March 23, 1971. Also see Malulu Mitwensil and Kambidi Nsai-Kinguem, "Le public et l'Administration." 42. Cited in Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, p. 41. 43. lean Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, p. 306, cited in Gilbert, ed., Historical Essays, p. 283. 44. This section, as with the book generally, will not focus on the legal, statutory powers and responsibilities of the commissioners; rather it will concentrate on their substantive concerns as they deal with both the state apparatus and the task environment. It will also not deal with minor changes in duties and powers over time. For both the legal aspects and the changes over time, see the following student mémoires from UNAZA: Thea Ngasebe, "Les Responsibilités Politique"; Makinda Mianda, "L'Evolution du Statut Politico-Administratif" (this study shows the very close similarities between the colonial governors and current regional commissioners); Kalala-Mpundwe, "Organisation et Fonc-

5. Absolutist Territorial Administration

459

tionnement des Provinces"; Mayingidi-Luseko, "Organisation Administrative"; Namwini Mwini-a-Nza, "La Coordination Administrative"; Basele B'Oseko Ekuluokonyi, "Structure et Fonctionnement du Cabinet de Commissaire"; Kalemba Wadiminu, "Direction Provinciale des Affaires Intérieures"; and Osthomampita-Aloki-Okito, "Le Commissaire de Région." Also see Mpinga and Gould, Les Réformes Administratives au Zaire. 45. The first conference was held in 1966, but the second was not held until 1971, at which point they became regular occurrences. 46. "Conférence des Gouverneurs tenue à N'Sele du 2 au 10 février 1971," p. 5. 47. Ibid., passim. 48. "Conférences des Gouverneurs, Doc. No. 2, Séance de Mardi 2 février 1971," p. 10. 49. "Réunion des Gouverneurs tenue à Kisangani du 16 au 20 août 1971," pp. 23—24, emphasis added. 50. Ibid., p. 43. 51. Ibid., p. 30. 52. Ibid., p. 54. 53. From a twenty-three page mimeographed extract from Elima (Kinshasa), January 17 and 19, 1974, "Conférences des Commissaires de Région par le Commissaire d'Etat aux Affaires Politiques," pp. 5—6. 54. Ordinance-Law 73/256 of September 1973. 55. Elima (Kinshasa), January 17 and 19, 1974, p. 4. 56. "Compte-rendu de la séance de travail qui a réuni les Commissaires de Région . . . en date du 23 mars 1974 à Kinshasa," pp. 1-2. 57. Ibid., p. 4; in fact, many high state officials kept more than one business, and their relatives frequently became acquéreurs. Also note that the Department of Political Affairs was the former Interior Ministry. 58. Ibid., p. 7. 59. Ibid., pp. 6 - 7 . 60. The breakdown is as follows: Kivu—twenty meetings covering 1972 and 1973 and annual reports for 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973; Bas-Zaire—five meetings, two in 1968, two in 1973, one in 1975, and the annual reports for 1969-1973; and annual reports for three other regions—Haut-Zaire (1971), Kasai Occidental (1971), and Kasai Oriental (1969). 61. Both quotes from Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1969, pp. 3, 307. For two excellent analyses of Kivu as an isolated peripheral region where central state power is weak, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development"; and Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders." 62. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1970. 63. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1972. 64. Report of a meeting of the Kivu Regional Committee, May 2, 1972. 65. "Mémorandum à l'intention du Ministre d l'Intérieur et des Affaires coutumières," Matadi, August 24, 1968. 66. Peace Corps volunteers and experts from the United Nations have worked with AKU, and financial assistance has come from Denmark, Japan, Germany, Canada, and the United States. Kivu's refugee problem was greatly aggravated in the late 1970s and early 1980s by the turmoil in Uganda. 67. Information on AKU comes from three trips to Kivu Region, an interview on December 10, 1974, with its American director-general, a list of projects provided by him, and the minutes of a meeting between AKU and Kivu Region officials held on December 15, 1972. 68. Annual Report, Kasai Occidental Region, 1971. 69. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1969, p. 326.

460

5. Absolutist Territorial Administration

70. "Compte-rendu de la réunion tenue le 20 juin 1972," Kivu Region. 71. "Synthèse des entretiens . . . avec les différentes couches de la population du Nord-Kivu," Kivu Region, Feb. 23, 1975. 72. Ibid. 73. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1969, p. 326. 74. Ibid., 1972. 75. Ibid., 1973. 76. Annual Report, Kasai Occidental Region, 1971, p. 56. 77. "Mémorandum à l'intention du Ministre de l'Intérieur et des Affaires coutumières," Matadi, August 24, 1968, p. 2. 78. "Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le 3 octobre 1972," Kivu Region. 79. See Michael G . Schatzberg, "The Insecure State in Zaire." 80. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, December 10, 1974. 81. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, March 12, 1974; March 29, 1973. 82. "Arrêté No. 001/II/06.II/AI/553 du 30 novembre 1970," "Arrêté Régional No. 14 du 20 avril 1973," and "Arrêté No. 090/CAB REGICOM/Q4/BZ73 du 8 février 1973."

6. THE DAILY TASKS OF ZAIRIAN ABSOLUTISM: TWO SUBREGIONS

1. I have a vast amount of material from the Cataractes Subregion, and most of the data come from this subregion. I have considerably less for Nord-Kivu Subregion, but it is sufficient for comparative purposes. The six zones of the Cataractes Subregion are Kasangulu, Kimvula, Luozi, Madimba, Mbanza-Ngungu, and Songololo; the six zones of NordKivu Subregion are Beni, Goma, Lubero, Masisi, Rutshuru, and Walikale. The class aspects of the processes described in this chapter should be obvious. Political control and extraction facilitate the class power and consolidation of the political aristocracy. 2. A quote from Mobutu on the first page of a major MPR document, "Rapport d'Activités 1967-1972," Kinshasa, 1972. 3. Administrative instructions, Kinshasa, July 12, 1967. 4. Minutes, Subregion Committee meetings, Goma, December 28, 1972; April 13, 1973. 5. 1973 was the last year for which I have documented incidents, but I may not have seen correspondence relating to more recent events. 6. Administrative correspondence, August 5, 1968, August 20, 1969, April 9, 1971, and administrative correspondence and judicial reports, December 1971-January 1972. In April 1972 two men were arrested for wearing T-shirts with Che Guevara's picture on them and traveling through various villages spreading "noxious propaganda." The regional commissioner warned all prefects to be on the watch for similar activity (administrative correspondence, Matadi, April 12, 1972). 7. Administrative correspondence, reports and confidential C N D reports, November 1967-April 1968, March and May 1970, and January 1973. 8. Confidential police report, Mbanza-Ngungu, May 19, 1972. 9. Police reports, February 1972; C N D report, Songololo, October 1, 1971; subregion monthly report, September 1973. 10. Administrative cable, February 18, 1974; special administrative report on the socioeconomic situation of Nord-Kivu Subregion, Goma, July 9, 1973; administrative report, May 3, 1974; subregion monthly report, July 1974; and administrative correspondence, June 1969. For an excellent look at the operation, or lack of it, of the National Coffee Office (OZACAF) in Kivu, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 127-61.

6. Daily Tasks of Absolutism: Subregions

461

11. Annual Report, Luozi Zone, 1974; subregion monthly report, June 1974; inspection report, January 1975; meeting of zone commissioners, Mbanza-Ngungu, July 16, 1968; Nord-Kivu Subregion Committee meeting, December 28, 1972. 12. Administrative correspondence, August 28, 1973. 13. For an example from Beni Zone, see Nord-Kivu Subregion Committee meeting, December 28, 1972; Subregion Committee meetings, October 12, 1973, February 12, 1974; administrative correspondence and reports entitled "Epreuves Superstitieuses Prophète MUNZEMBA," March-September 1968; Luozi zone committee meeting, November 5, 1974. See the excellent work by Buakasa Tulu kia Mpansu, L'lmpense du Discours; also see Balandier, Daily Life, ch. 10. 14. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, August 11, 1970. 15. Subregion monthly report, February 1973; administrative meeting, July 16, 1968. 16. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, December 18, 1974. 17. Administrative correspondence. May 9, 1970; subregion administrative meetings, August 25, 1972, December 1, 1972, December 28, 1972, April 13, 1973. O n smuggling, the "irregular economy," and social structure in Kivu, see J. MacGaffey, "Class Relations," pp. 213-34; and Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders," pp. 296-344. 18. Subregion administrative meeting, October 12, 1973. 19. Letter from the minister of interior to all regional commissioners, Kinshasa, August 28, 1972; information on the new identification cards comes from administrative correspondence, August 1972-September 1974. All resident foreigners, including refugees, must also carry an ID card called a "carte de séjour." 20. See the excellent mémoire by Ngoma Tsasa, "Le Regroupement des Villages au Bas-Zaire." O n the failure of the regroupment policy in Kivu, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 107-12. 21. All the examples were from administrative correspondence, meetings, and police requisitions from both subregions, 1969-1974, and from an interview with a Cataractes assistant subregional commissioner, Mbanza-Ngungu, January 16, 1975. Until July 1972 there existed both a national police and a gendarmery. They were fused by Ordinance-Law 72/031 of July 31, 1972, as a new national gendarmery. This ended disputes between the two groups and increased central control. 22. "Décision No. 3072/01/im.4.i du 31 janvier 1973 portant renforcement des mesures de sécurité dans les Cataractes"; secret gendarmery orders, Mbanza-Ngungu 197374. 23. Administrative report on the ratissage by the assistant subregional commissioner, Mbanza-Ngungu, May 28, 1973. 24. This account is based on the subregional commissioner's brief report on the ratissage, Mbanza-Ngungu, May 6, 1973; a letter from the gendarmery commander to the subregional commissioner, Kimpese, May 8, 1973; and the private letter from the "observer," Kimpese, May 12, 1973. Note the use of patriarchal imagery by the observer and that he does not attack Mobutu but rather his corrupt officials. This is similar to the practice in seventeenth-century France of not blaming abuses on the king. 25. "Observer" letter, Kimpese, May 12, 1973. 26. Administrative correspondence, September 19, 1973, December 21, 1973. 27. Administrative correspondence, requisitions, meetings, and annual reports, 197174. 28. Ordinance-Law 69/159 of August 9, 1969; Ordinance-Laws 69/037 and 69/038, both August 9, 1969. 29. "Comportement et rôle de l'agent du C N D , " administrative letter by head of DDI to all agents, Kinshasa, December 15, 1971. In April 1980, the C N D was slightly restructured and renamed the Centre National de Recherches et d'Investigations (CNRI).

462

6. Daily Tasks of Absolutism: Subregions

As noted earlier, the name C N D will be used here. For its brutal methods, particularly the torture of political prisoners, the C N D has been the object of much of Amnesty International's reporting on Zaire; see: "Human Rights Violations in Zaire"; "The lll-Treatment and Torture of Political Prisoners at Detention Centers in Kinshasa," London, September 24, 1980; and "Rapport sur les cas de 19 personnes." Also see Michael G. SchaUberg, "The Long Arm of the Law," pp. 15-27. 30. Daily and monthly reports of the JMPR, Cataractes Subregion, 1973-74; administrative correspondence from the Department of Political Affairs, Kinshasa, June 10, 1974; administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, September 13, 1974. See MbayaKatanda, "L'ordre public au Zaire," pp. 77-84. O n the JMPR in Kivu, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 187-90. 31. Nsi yi Betu-Kulu, "L'Armée Zairoise," pp. 31, 37. By military I mean both the gendarmery and the army. The following examples of abuses come from dozens of dossiers I saw on military abuse. 32. Administrative correspondence, january 28, 1970. 33. Administrative correspondence, Gombe-Sud, March 26, 1972. 34. Administrative correspondence, Kimvula, December 13, 1971. 35. Administrative report, Nbanza-Ngungu, June 24, 1968; the comment about slaughters refers to the fact that such happenings did not take place in Bas-Zaire during the years of chaos, but did where the soldiers came from. 36. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, October 9, 1973. 37. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, December 9, 1971. 38. Administrative report, Malele, August 22, 1970. 39. Administrative correspondence, August 22, 1970. 40. Administrative report, Kimvula, February 1972; subregion administrative meeting, December 28, 1972. 41. Administrative reports, September 3, 1969, October 31, 1969; administrative correspondence, March 25, 1970, June 4, 1971. There are 100 makuta to a Zaire. 42. Administrative correspondence, October 7, 1971, October 29, 1971. 43. Administrative cable, June 19, 1972. 44. Administrative correspondence, Zamaba, April 9, 1973. 45. Administrative correspondence, reports, and cables, May 24-30, 1973. 46. Cataractes Subregion monthly report, July 1973. 47. Administrative correspondence, July 3-August 3, 1973; administrative correspondence, September 14, 1973. 48. Speech by State Commissioner Kithima, "La Philosophie de Salongo," Kinshasa, May 3, 1973; slightly modified versions were given repeatedly in the regions. 49. Speech by State Commissioner for Political Affairs Eugulu, "La Terrirotiale et la Radicalisation du MPR," Kinshasa, September 5, 1974; Sebisogo Muhima, "Le rôle du 'Salongo,' " p. 273. 50. Cataractes Subregion monthly report, May 1973; Annual Report, Songololo Zone, 1974; "Arrêté No. 01/RTE/75 du 3 Juin 1975," Bukavu, Kivu Region, my emphasis. 51. An are is one hundred square meters. 52. "Arrêté No. 090/CAB(REGICOM)/40/BZ/72 portant imposition de cultures," December 28, 1972; administrative correspondence, January 1973-December 1974. 53. Cable, Kinshasa, May 1973; speech, Kinshasa, January 1974; administrative correspondence, December 10, 1974; administrative correspondence, reports, and administrative meetings for both subregions, 1974; Zaire, 336, January 13, 1975, p. 15; "Arrêté No. 01/RTE/75 du 3 Juin 1975," Bukavu, Kivu Region. During my visit to Kinshasa in JulyAugust 1982, Salongo was being used to prepare the city for the Franco-African summit that was held in October.

6. Daily Tasks of Absolutism: Subrogions

463

54. In 1974, 69.5 percent of the priests and 32 percent of the bishops were nonZairian; the country's only cardinal is a Zairian; see Adelman, "The Church-State Conflict in Zaire," and "The Influence of Religion on National Integration in Zaire." On the crucial role played by the Catholic church and other churches as key nonstate organizations with resources, infrastructure, influence, and relative probity, see Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders," pp. 306-308, 311-12. 55. Washington Post, July 4, 1976. 56. A church official was appointed to head UNAZA, but without church consultation. UNAZA was split into three (state-run) universities in 1981. 57. Quoted in Adelman, "Church-State Conflict in Zaire," p. 109. 58. Statement by State Commissioner for Political Affairs Engulu, April 24, 1973. 59. " 'Déclaration de l'Episcopat du Zaire,' les évenues du Zaire," Kinshasa, January 15, 1975, p. 5. 60. " 'Déclaration de l'Épiscopat face à la situation présente,' les évêques du Zaire," Kinshasa, January 16, 1975, p. 6. The church is also an articulate critic of the regime; for example, see these two eloquent pleas for more humane policies and behavior from the state: Monsigneur Kabanga, le suis un homme, and A. Kaseba, "Notre foi en l'homme image de Dieu." 61. Letter, Bishop of Coma, April 23, 1975. 62. Field notes, Bukavu, March 23, 1975; administrative correspondence and reports, January-May 1975. 63. Ordinance-Law 73/013 of February 14, 1973; information on ECZ was obtained from a long interview with an EZ official on May 19, 1975, and an interview with Ken Adelman, February 3, 1975, both in Kinshasa. 64. Its actual membership may be as low as 300,000. On Kimbanguism see Etienne Bazola, "Le Kimbanguisme"; Justin Banda-Mwaka, "Le Kimbanguisme"; Paul Demunter, Masses rurales et luttes politiques au Zaire, pp. 253-60; Adelman, "Influence of Religion"; Susan Asch, "Contradictions internes d'une institution religieuse," and "Étude socio-démographique." 65. Letter, Matadi, April 7, 1972. 66. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, January 10, 1974. Personal observation and dossiers of administrative correspondence with the church confirm this entente. I found only one complaint of harassment by Kimbanguists; it was in February 1972 and concerned one collectivity in Kimvula. 67. Some of the more important ones in Bas-Zaire during the late colonial period were Mpadisme ou l'Église des Noirs, Mvungisme, Mouvement Toni, Mouvement Dieudonne, Ntwalanisme, Le Matsonanisme, Nzambi Mapapu ou Tokoisme, Kinkukusa, and Nazambi-Bougie; see Bazola, Demunter, Banda-Mwaka, and Adelman; also, see MweneBatende, "La Dynamique socio-culturelle." For a good recent look at these religious sects in Luozi Zone, see Mulongo-wa-Munukuwibi, "Les Sectes Religieuses." On the syncretic nature of religious belief and practice, see Wyatt MacGaffey, "African Ideology and Belief," pp. 242-45, 258-60; Willy de Craemer, Jan Vansina, and Renée Fox, "Religious Movements in Central Africa"; and Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders," pp. 243-46. On the Kitawalists, an offshoot of the Jehovah's Witnesses, see Schatzberg, 'The Insecure State," pp. 34-39. 68. Annual Report, Kasai Oriental Region, 1969, pp. 20/46-20/49. 69. Administrative letter, Matadi, February 27, 1969; the regional commissioner lists the following sects in the letter: Mission Prophétique de Jésus-Christ Ngounzisme du Congo, Mission Prophétique Congolaise, Eglise Prophétique Conglaise, Mission des Prophètes de Jésus-Christ par son Esprit Saint, Eglise Chrétienne Union Saint Espirt, and Dibundu dia Mpeuve ya Nlongo.

464

6. Daily Tasks of Absolutism: Subregions

70. Subregion administrative meeting, Mbanza-Ngungu Zone, September 23, 1970; this document gives several examples, including a sect called "Kimosi," operating in Timansi Collectivity. 71. Administrative dossier on this sect; I saw dossiers on several other similar cases. 72. Administrative meeting, September 23, 1970. 73. "Arrêté ministérial no. 078/71 du 3 mai 1971." 74. "Arrêté ministériel no. 120/171 du 14 octobre 1971." 75. Koli Elombe Motukoa, Lukusa wa Luboya, and Lokomba Baruti, Recueil des lois, p. 105. 76. A later implementation decision ("Arrêté no. 002 du 7 janvier 1972") demanded that a list of all members with addresses also be submitted. 77. Ordinance-Law 73/013 of February 14, 1973, modifying Law 71/012. In March 1972 the regime extended recognition to the Orthodox church, Judaism, and Islam (Ordinance-Laws 72/192-194 of March 28, 1972). The regime also issued Ordinance-Law 72/195, which tentatively recognized some Zairian sects, but most of these were later banned. 78. Letter, Matadi, November 9, 1973. 79. Letter, Camp Nzieta (Luozi zone), April 10, 1972. 80. Administrative correspondence, November 1973. 81. Church correspondence, March 15 and 22, 1973. 82. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, September 26, 1973. 83. Letter from the head of the church, Kinshasa, November 19, 1973. 84. Administrative correspondence, December 18, 1974; this was also the situation in Madimba Zone. 85. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, February 4, 1974. As noted in chapter 4, the continued proliferation of religious sects again became a major political issue at the Third Party Congress in December 1982. 86. Ordinance-Law 71/207 of July 28, 1971. 87. Administrative dossiers, 1967-1972. 88. Administrative correspondence by the regional C N D chief to C N D headquarters in Kinshasa, Matadi, March 26, 1971 ; in the letter the C N D chief stated that the local population was not able to follow "the national reconstruction program proclaimed by the President of the Republic because there are too many associations and religious sects in Bas-Zaire Region." Also based on administrative correspondence, January-October 1971. 89. O n the political role of students, see Tshivriadi-Katamba-Kamalondo wa Kalombo, "La Participation des Étudiants Zairois"; and Michael Schatzberg, "Fidélité au Guide." 90. Administrative meeting, May 14, 1974. 91. Meeting with local businessmen, Kimvula, May 16, 1971. 92. Inspection reports, June 8, 1973. 93. "Calendrier des contacts du Commissaire de Zone avec les couches de la population," Kasangulu, December 1974. 94. Information on the Angolans in Bas-Zaire comes from dozens of administrative dossiers, 1967-1975; also see Mankenda Ntamba, "Problèmes d'intégration"; information on the Rwandans in Nord-Kivu comes mostly from zone and subregion reports and meetings, 1969-1975. 95. Thompson, Organizations in Action, p. 29. 96. Bendix, Max Weber, p. 292. 97. Goubert, L'Ancien Régime, p. 39. 98. Mobutu Sese Seko, Paroles du Président, p. 47; note, however, that the "general interest" is to be defined by Mobutu, not by the people.

6. Daily Tasks of Absolutism: Subregions

465

99. See Albert-Oscar Bolela, "Droits et devoirs du journaliste," especially on the national press union. 100. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, August 15, 1974. 101. Administrative correspondence to all regional commissioners, Kinshasa, November 28, 1973. 102. Poster distributed in Bas-Zaire in March 1967. 103. "Rapport d'Activités de la Sous-Region du MPR/Cataractes de 1967 à 1972," Mbanza-Ngungu, March 28, 1972. 104. Administrative correspondence, Kimvula, July 1970. 105. "Rapport d'Activités," and "Aide-Mémoire à l'intention des citoyens commissaires de Sous-Région et de la Zone," Bukavu, December 9, 1972. 106. Subregion monthly reports, Mbanza-Ngungu, February-September 1973. 107. Administrative correspondence, Inkisi, September 28, 1973. 108. Administrative correspondence, Kimvula, June 2, 1974; administrative reports, August-November 1974; and personal observation. 109. "Avis on Public," Mbanza-Ngungu, October 2, 1973. 110. Administrative announcement, Mbanza-Ngungu, March 10, 1975. 111. Department of Culture and the Arts, L'Animation culturelle dans la révolution: recueil de chants patriotiques du MPR (Kinshasa: Editions Lokole, 1974), p. i; this collection of two hundred songs (twenty-two from each region and twenty-four from Kinshasa) was the result of the first national animation festival in Kinshasa in November 1973. 112. Administrative correspondence, 1973-74. 113. Department of Culture and the Arts, L'Animation culturelle, pp. 27, 19; also see Boendo M'Bello Iseiyongeja, "La Musique dans la politique." 114. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, July 5, 1974. 115. Administrative reports, February 14 and 17, 1975. 116. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, January 26, 1972, and personal observation, Shaba, Kivu, Bas-Zaire, and Kinshasa, 1974-75. 117. Administrative report, Mbanza-Ngungu, February 17, 1975. 118. Bola-Ntotele Bopendia, "La Participation des citoyens Zairois"; all the data presented here come from this work, especially pp. 53-54, 62-64, 74-94. It is a remarkable work given the sensitivity of the subject, and it is well-organized and presented. Note that the data were collected before animation became a major activity. 119. Annual Report, Cataractes Subregion, 1973; my field notes for 1975 confirm the accuracy of this list. 120. See Mbuyi-Kana Kankolongu, "Le Service des Affaires Sociales au Shaba"; Omeonga-Lohondo Kimbaianga, "L'Impact de la Réforme"; and A. Ntumba-Katabwa, "La Direction Provinciale de l'Education Nationale." 121. O n the agronomes in Kivu, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 194-201. 122. These percentages are confirmed by data from Kivu and other regions. These figures are derived from Fonction Publique data for January 1971 and August 1972, and the percentages of career or command personnel are derived from lyala ya Elemba, "Etude sur le fonctionnement de l'administration"; mémoire; see also Vieux, L'Administration zairoise, pp. 42-47. Caution: these figures are rough indeed, but then so are the ones for seventeenth-century France. 123. Administrative circular, Kasangulu, June 17, 1974.

466

7. Control of Local Collectivities

7. ZAIRIAN ABSOLUTISM AND THE COVEROVER PROCESS: CONTROL OF LOCAL COLLECTIVITIES

1. Dumont, "French Kingship and Absolute Monarchy," p. 66. 2. Rosenberg, Bureaucracy, Aristocracy and Autocracy, pp. 14-15. 3. Kossmann, "The Singularity of Absolutism," p. 12. 4. Tocqueville, The Old Régime, p. 58. 5. For an excellent look at the préfectoral administration of the cities, see Nzongola-Ntalaja's "Urban Administration in Zaire." 6. "Réunion des Gouverneurs tenu à Kisangani du 16 au 20 août 1971," pp. 4 1 42. Ethnicity is a form of local particularism and will be treated as such here; for a judicious and balanced treatment of ethnicity in the Zairian context, see two excellent works by Crawford Young, Politics in the Congo and The Politics of Cultural Pluralism, ch. 6. 7. Zaire, 333, December 23, 1974, p. 46. 8. See Jacques Yoka, "Le Parallélisme des dispositions du Décret du 10 mai 1957 sur les circonscriptions et celles de l'Ordonnance-Loi 69/012 du 12 mars 1969 portant organisation des collectivités locales ainsi leur mesures d'exécution" (Kinshasa: Office National de la Recherche et du Développement, 1971). See also chapter 4 of this book. 9. Ordinance-Law 69/012, articles 1 and 3; Didier de Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation," p. 445, see also pp. 193-207 and 434-50 on the collectivities and traditional power. 10. De Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation," p. 196. 11. Ibid., p. 197. 12. On the Lunda, see Edouard Bustin, Lunda Under Belgian Rule. 13. On the fascinating history of the Kingdom of the Kongo, see Balandier, Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo; Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna, and Demunter, Masses rurales et luttes politiques au Zaire. 14. Wyatt MacGaffey, Custom and Government in the Lower Congo, pp. 271, 273. 15. Demunter, Masses rurales et luttes politiques au Zaire, part I, ch. 3; W. MacGaffey, chs. 4, 19, 11; Annual Report, Bas-Zaire Region, 1970. O n A B A K O see Demunter, part I, ch. 5, and all of part II; and Laurent Monnier, Ethnie et intégration régionale au Congo. 16. See Vansina, Introduction à l'Ethnologie du Congo, pp. 201-11. 17. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1969, p. 326. 18. De Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation," p. 445. 19. Ibid., p. 446. For a look at the pays d'état characteristics of Kivu, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development"; Vwakyanakazi, "African Traders"; Kasay, "Le Kivu, une région éclatée"; and Sosne, "Colonial Peasantization." That opposition to the Mobutu regime is still strong in Kivu is attested to by the fact that between May 1980 and the end of 1982, over 100 people were reportedly arrested and held, usually incommunicado, by the secret police. Many of them were arrested for distributing leaflets hostile to the regime; see Africa Now, April 1983, which summarizes a report issued by Amnesty International in March 1983. 20. Bulletin périodique du service territorial Oanuary-February 1970), 9(1 );4; the report is dated March 12, 1969. 21. "Réunion des Gouverneurs," pp. 23-24, emphasis added. 22. Administrative meeting, Kansangulu, August 21, 1970. 23. Administrative meeting, Goma, October 25, 1971. 24. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, April 23, 1970. 25. Administrative correspondence, November 26, 1972. 26. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, April 23, 1970; on this strategy generally, see two U N A Z A mémoires: Ifeko Y'lsengambi Etafakaki, "Le Passagè du pouvoir de tutelle," and Mbenza-Mpaka, "L'Opportunité de l'autonomie administrative."

7. Control of Local Collectivities

467

27. This discussion is based on the minutes of the collectivity council meeting during which the election took place. Boko, May 15, 1971. Before becoming sector chief, Kilonga had served in the colonial army from 1942 to 1952, reaching the rank of sergeant; he had five years of primary education. 28. Administrative correspondence, April 1971-September 1974. 29. Administrative cable, August 27, 1968; administrative correspondence, December 16, 1969. 30. Administrative correspondence and reports, 1951-1972. A brief note about the age of collectivity and locality chiefs: In 1971 the average age of the collectivity chiefs in Madimba Zone was fifty-one years; for the thirty-nine locality chiefs it was fifty-nine years. For Luozi Zone the average for the ten collectivity chiefs was forty-one, for the thirty-seven locality chiefs, fifty-five. (Administrative documents, Madimba, July 1971; Luozi, August 1971.) One of the thrusts of the Zairian coverover process is the effort to get younger, and thus it is assumed, more dynamic, less "traditional" chiefs. 31. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, September 9, 1968. 32. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, April 29, 1970. 33. Administrative report, Niembo, December 2, 1970. 34. Annual Report, Bas-Zaire Region, 1971. 35. Administrative correspondence, Matadi, October 26, 1973. 36. Administrative dossiers and reports, 1971-73. 37. Confidential administrative correspondence, Songololo, November 8, 1969. 38. "Rapport semestriel," Luozi Zone, 1973. 39. Administrative correspondence, Kimvula, July 11, 1974. 40. Culled from over two hundred collectivity meeting reports in Cataractes Subregion between 1966 and 1975. 41. This discussion is based on the administrative report on the collectivity meeting, Timansi, April 24, 1972, and the zone and subregional commissioners' commentaries on the report, n.d. and December 15, 1972, respectively. 42. Administrative meeting, Luozi, December 5, 1974. 43. Administrative inspection report, Kimvula, April 25, 1970. 44. Administrative dossier on this dispute. 45. Zaire, 364, July 28, 1975, p. 15. 46. AZAP, daily release, January 17, 1974. 47. Administrative correspondence, Kinshasa, February 25, 1974. 48. Administrative circular, Kinshasa, February 23, 1968; speech, Kinshasa, June 7, 1974. By 1980 the peace courts had been set up only in Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, and Kisangani; see W. MacGaffey, "The Policy of National Integration," p. 98. 49. For chiefdom courts even their structure is determined by custom. On traditional courts, see Codefroid Kabongo, "La Justice coutumi£re"; and W. MacGaffey, Custom and Government, pp. 284-87. 50. Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, pp. 78-79, presents similar findings for Lisala Zone, Equateur Region. 51. Annual Reports, Luozi Zone, 1973, and Bas-Zaire Region, 1970. 52. Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, p. 79; this holds true for many parts of Kivu as well. 53. Annual Report, Kasangulu Zone, 1971. The analysis of the inspections is based on more than one hundred inspection reports from the Cataractes Subregion, 19671975. 54. This assessment is not universally accepted; see W. MacGaffey, Custom and Government, p. 285. 55. "Rapport de controle des tribunaux coutumiers," Kimvula, May 28, 1971.

468

7. Control of Local Collectivities

56. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, July 1, 1971; Annual Reports, Bas-Zaire Region, 1969, and Luozi Zone, 1973. 57. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, May 31, 1973; court inspection, Yanda, December 12, 1972; administrative report, Mbanza-Ngungu, August 4, 1969. 58. Judicial inspection reports, Kingoma, April 8, 1969, and Mbanza-Ngungu, August 20, 1969. 59. Administrative meeting, Luozi, October 4, 1974. 60. "Rapport de contrôle de C.A.C.L.," Kinshasa, August 15, 1972. 61. Inspection report, August 14-30, 1972; administrative meeting, Mbanza-Ngungu, August 1972. 62. Collectivity financial report, Luozi, December 16, 1972; Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, p. 174, has similar findings for the CPM. 63. Administrative meeting, Mbanza-Ngungu, August 28-29, 1968; Department of Political Affairs regulation, Kinshasa, September 13, 1973. 64. Informant, Mbanza-Ngungu, field notes, April 24, 1975; Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, p. 195, confirms this practice for Equateur Region. O n the estimated levels of extraction see Michel Merlier, Le Congo, p. 82; Jean Phillipe Peemans, "Capital Accumulation in the Congo under Colonialism: The Role of the State," in Peter Duignan and L. H. Gann, eds., The Economics of Colonialism, vol. 4 of Colonialism in Africa 18901960, 5 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); and Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, p. 61. 65. Collectivity council meeting, Lula-Lumene, December 29, 1970. 66. Administrative correspondence, Mbanza-Ngungu, February 4, 1971, November 18, 1970, and Matadi, September 27, 1972, May 11, 1973. 67. "Compte des recettes et dépenses de l'année 1972 Collectivité Locale des Balari," Luozi, December 16, 1972. 68. Based on an analysis of "Compte des recettes et dépenses" for over twenty collectivities in the Cataractes Subregion, 1970-73. 69. Administrative correspondence, March 16, 1974, June 21, 1974, November 28, 1974; administrative meeting, Mbanza-Ngungu, June 16-18, 1972. 70. See Gould, "Disorganization Theory" and Bureaucratic Corruption; Nzongola, Class Struggles and National Liberation, ch. 5; N'Gilo Jean-Paul, "La Corruption des Agents de L'Etat; Mpanya-Buta Bukoma, "Quelques Problèmes de l'Administration Publique Zairoise"; and personal experience and observation. Also see Cooper, "Africa and the World Economy," p. 33. 71. Schatzberg calls these phenomena "budgetary capitalism." While the term is interesting, I think it is partly misleading. Capitalism implies that something is produced, and this is certainly not the case with these activities. I prefer the term "politics of appropriation" because it emphasizes extraction rather than exchange; see Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, pp. 6 4 - 6 5 , 71-72. 72. "Rapport de contrôle de C.A.C.L.," Minister of Interior, Kinshasa, Aug. 15, 1972; also an administrative circular from the Department of Political Affairs, Kinshasa, December 27, 1973, which indicated that the practice was still very widespread. A related technique is for state officials to demand cadeaux (gifts) from local populations when making inspection trip«. 73. Mushi, "Incidences ethniques," p. 120. 74. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1969, p. 327. 75. Administrative meetings, Goma, August 25, 1972, and Bukavu, March 20-23, 1972. Weber has noted that: "The continuous struggle of the central power with the var-

7. Control of Local Collectivities

469

ious centrifugal local powers creates a specific problem for patrimonialism when the patrimonial ruler, with his personal power resources—his landed property, other sources of revenue and personally loyal officials and soldiers—, confronts not a mere mass of subjects differentiated according to sibs and vocations, but when he stands as one landlord above other landlords, who as local honoratiores wield an autonomous authority of their own. . . . The patrimonial ruler cannot always dare to destroy these autonomous patrimonial powers. . . . However, if the ruler intends to eliminate the autonomous honoratiores, he must have an administrative organization of his own which can replace them with approximately the same authority over the local population" (Economy and Society, p. 1055). On the territorial administration in Kivu, see Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," p. 171-91. 76. Administrative meeting, Goma, October 25, 1971; annual reports, Kivu Region, 1969, 1972, and "Réunion des Gouverneurs," p. 43. 77. For information on the functioning of other chiefdoms in Kivu, see the following UNAZA mémoires: Barumawaki Muyeye Katika Kihugo, "Contribution à l'Etude des Chefferies du Zaire"; Kasereka Luvaglio Kiteglia, "L'Impact de la Colonisation"; Waruwene Romain, "Le Chef Traditionnel"; Mungango Mulolwa Kangandyo, "Evolution Administrative"; Salumu lyano Kaningini, "Essai sur le Mythe du Pouvoir Coutumier"; Majivuno Muhindo Kasondoli, "La Stabilité Politique"; Kais Daniel, "La Tutelle de Pouvoir Central"; Bagisha Lwahamire Ntahanga, "Le Problème de l'Intégration des Institutions Administratives" and "Le Problème de l'Intégration des Institutions traditionelles." Also see Sosne, "Colonial Peasantization," on Walungu. 78. Kashara Niganda, "L'Impact de l'Administration moderne," pp. 17, 28; see part I on the traditional structure and history of Kabare; "Arbre généalogique des Rami du Bashi," Kabare, October 24, 1972. 79. "Rapport confidential," dossier: "Kabare Rugemaninzi (Mwami)," Kabare, October 25, 1972; "Avis et considerations," Kabare, March 29, 1971, administrative meeting, Bukavu, May 2, 1972; Bianga Bin-Waruzi, "Rapport sur les recherches effectuées sur le terrain," Lubumbashi, February 5, 1974. 80. Administrative memo, Bukavu, April 1972. 81. Lettre No. E. 179/bis/sec/CLK/72," March 26, 1972. 82. Kashara, "L'Impact de l'Administration moderne," p. 97. 83. Ibid., and "Lettre No. E. 179." 84. Administrative correspondence, Bukavu, December 5, 1974, and January 1975. 85. Kashara, "L'Impact de l'Administration moderne," p. 108; evidently there was serious resistance to the effort to transfer Mwami Kabare to another collectivity. 86. M. Hertefelt and J. Scherer, Les Anciens Royaumes de la Zone Interlacustre méridionale, (Brussels: M.R.A.C., Tervuren, 1972), quoted in Birhahwa Bwegha-Ermazon, "L'Autorité traditionnelle," p. 42, on the traditional structure of the Bahunde state, see especially ch. 1, pp. 11-49; also see Sebiguri-Chiza, "Le Pouvoir politique"; administrative document, Masisi, October 5, 1975. 87. "Procès-Verbal de Remise-Reprise," Masisi, May 17, 1975; Annual Report, Masisi Zone, January 14, 1975. 88. Birhahwa, "L'Autorité traditionnelle," pp. 87-89, 95-96, 110; dédoublement also existed in Shaba Region. 89. Investiture speech, August 1969, quoted in Birhahwa, p. 97. 90. Administrative correspondence, Goma, June 17, 1972, and Masisi, July 1, 1972. 91. Ibid.; Birhahwa, "L'Autorité traditionnelle," p. 96, and administrative correspondence, August 16, 1972. 92. Birhahwa, "L'Autorité traditionnelle," pp. 98-104; Annual Report, Masisi Zone,

470

7. Control of Local Collectivities

1971; Annual Report, Service Provincial des Affaires Intérieurs, 1970; Annual Reports, Kivu Region, 1972, 1973; and Nord-Kivu Subregion meetings, correspondence, and reports, 1969-1972. 93. "Procès-verbal de contact de faute disciplinaire," Coma, September 20, 1972. 94. Zone administrative meeting, Masisi, November 6, 1974; see also Annual Report, Masisi Zone, 1974, and the subregional commissioner's comments on it, Coma, |anuary 18, 1975; zone administrative meetings, December 3, 1973, January 31, 1974, January 31, 1975; and administrative correspondence. May 31, 1974. 95. "Séance de travail tenue par le Citoyen N'Debo a'Kanda di ne Kmeza, Commissaire de Région du Kivu," Bukavu, May 5, 1973. 96. Administrative correspondence, Bukavu, November 5, 1974; Coma, August 13, 1974; Masisi, November 20, 1974. 97. For general background on these disputes, see Birhahwa, "L'Autorité traditionnelle," pp. 68-84; more recent information was drawn from subregion administrative meetings of August 25, 1972, February 1, 1972, and December 28, 1972. 98. "Procès-verbal de la réunion de conseil extraordinaire de la Collectivité des Bahunde tenue à Goma le 10 janvier 1973." 99. Quoted in Birhahwa, "L'Autorité traditionnelle," p. 75. 100. "Procès-verbal de la réunion," emphasis added. 101. Administrative correspondence, Masisi, October 18, 1974, and Coma, October 23, 1974; "Preposition scission Collectivité BAHUNDE," Goma, November 26, 1974; administrative correspondence, Masisi, February 21, 1974. 102. In 1974 the population of Bwisha was 192,305; Bwito's was 171,432 (Annual Report, Rutshuru Zone, 1974). 103. From 1967 to 1970 Bwito was one of the nine localities of Bwisha Chiefdom. The Bwito case is too complex to treat adequately here, but a couple of things ought to be mentioned. First, Mwami Ndeze fought desperately, and often imaginatively, to keep what he considered to be "mon pays." Secondly, after Bwito became a separate chefferie in November 1970, Mwami Ndeze continued to be the zone commissioner for Rutshuru. This meant that he had direct administrative control over Bwito. He used this power continually to meddle in traditional disputes in Bwito, usually to protect nobles he had appointed while it was still just a locality in Bwisha. The prefects spent a considerable amount of time attempting to restrain Ndeze. Their inability to do so most of the time played a considerable part in the decision to do away with dédeoublement. 104. "Histoire de la Chefferie Bwisha," Rutshuru, January 13, 1969; this is obviously an "official" history; "Curriculum-vitae," Rutshuru, November 29, 1968. 105. Administrative correspondence, Goma, December 12, 1967, Rutshuru, March 9, 1968. 106. Administrative circular, Rutshuru, December 11, 1967; administrative memorandum, Goma, December 11, 1969; administrative correspondence, November 5, 1968, May 17, 1968, August 12, 1968, October 7, 1968. 107. An undated administrative evaluation of Mwami Ndeze; administrative memorandum, Rutshuru, December 11, 1969; Annual Report, Rutshuru Zone, 1972. 108. Chiefdom administrative meeting on the budget, Rutshuru, December 28-29, 1971; subregion administrative meeting, Goma, December 28, 1972. 109. "Attitude du Mwami NDEZE," administrative letter to the minister of interior, Goma, July 17, 1968. 110. Administrative correspondence, Bukavu, September 19, 1968. 111. Letter from C N D subregion chief to the subregional commissioner, Goma, November 30, 1970. 112. L'Étoile (Kinshasa), October 4 and 5, 1969.

7. Control of Local Collectivities

471

113. "Accusation à l'encontre du Mwami NDEZE Daniel," administrative correspondence, Rutshuru, April 26, 1970. 114. Administrative meeting. Coma, October 25, 1971. By this time there were two collectivities in Rutshuru Zone, and although Mwami Ndeze continued to be zone commissioner, he was collectivity chief only for the Bwisha; Bwito now had its own mwami. 115. Public letter, Rutshuru, September 3, 1973. 116. Confidential administrative correspondence, Goma, May 18, 1973. 117. Administrative correspondence to all regional commissioners, Kinshasa, January 9, 1973. 118. Administrative cable no. 0162 of June 17, 1974. Also see Mpinga and Gould, Les Réformes Administratives au Zaire. 119. "Instruction no. CAB/25/00/0280/74," Kinshasa, August 8, 1974. In fact, the "modem" criteria received only marginal consideration; on this process, see Turner, "Chiefs, Bureaucrats, and the M.P.R. of Zaire." 120. "Rapport sur la situation des diverses entités administratives pendant la période antérieure à la mise en place de la réforme," Mbanza-Ngungu, May 10, 1973; Administrative cable no. 3072/95/F.22.Í/BZ/73, April 30, 1973. 121. Confidential administrative message no. 11/06.11/7769/063/CAB/REGIC/BZ/74, September 2, 1974, Matadi; a detailed chart of the transfers for the region prepared for me by a subregion official, Mbanza-Ngungu, April 13, 1975. 122. "Note de mutation," Luozi September 9, 1974; administrative correspondence, Matadi, February 14, 1975; this section on Dikiadi is based on administrative documents from September 2, 1974 to February 14, 1975. 123. Administrative correspondence, Kimbimbisi, December 20, 1974; Mabumbi later withdrew this request. 124. Monthly report, Cataractes Subregion, Mbanza-Ngungu, March 1975, dated April 10, 1975; administrative correspondence, Ngeba, March 15, 1974; Inkisi, March 27, 1974; Mele, March 21, 1975. 125. Administrative correspondence, September 21, 1974, December 30, 1974, March 25, 1975, April 25, 1975. 126. Administrative cables of January 27, 1975, February 4, 1975, February 13, 1975, March 14, 1975. Chefs de poste, local state agents in the zones, were also transferred; in April 1975 all the zone commissioners in the region were rotated to other zones; some went to Kinshasa. Although Law 73/015 also called for direct appointment of locality chiefs, this level of traditional authority was not touched by the implementation efforts, even in full-fledged pays d'élection like Bas-Zaire. 127. Sources used for this section were Turner, "Chiefs, Bureaucrats and the M.P.R," pp. 10-13, "Congo-Kinshasa," and "A Century of Political Conflict"; Onotamba Pungu Shungu, "La Collectivité Ngandu-Wuma"; and Zaire, 333, December 23, 1974, p. 46. 128. Annual Report, Kivu Region, 1973; administrative meeting, Goma, April 13, 1973. 129. "Instruction no. CAB/25/00/0280," August 8, 1974; "Permutation des Chefs de Collectivité Région du Kivu," Bukavu, August 13, 1974; interview conducted by Thomas Turner with the chief of the 3d Bureau (Collectivities and Localities) of the Kivu Regional Division of Political Affairs, Bukavu, March 1, 1975. 130. De Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation," p. 200; Turner interview. 131. Administrative correspondence, Kikuku, October 16, 1974; field notes, and extensive administrative correspondence and reports from November 1974 through April 1975. 132. "Commission collective no. 3072/069/F,211/65 du 4 avril 1975," Kindu, Maniema.

472

7. Control of Local Collectivities

133. This does not count the twelve collectivities in the three cities organized as subrogions: Kolwezi, Likasi, and Lubumbashi, see Annual Report, Shaba Region, 1974. 134. Annual Report, Shaba Region, 1973. 135. This was further emphasized in 1977 and 1978 by the invasions of Shaba Region, which were in many cases welcomed by the local population. 136. Transfer rosters, Lubumbashi, September 4, 1974 (kindly supplied by Thomas Turner). 137. The Mwaat Yaav's collectivity is the only one in Kapanga Zone. 138. Annual Report, Shaba Region, 1973. 139. In addition to the sources already cited, this section was based on Turner, "Chiefs, Bureaucrats and the M.P.R.," and Tshoya Kalonji's excellent "Les Collectivités de la Zone Dilolo." 140. De Lannoy, "Etude d'orientation," p. 460. 141. Speech by State Commissioner Eugulu at the seventh Conference of Regional Commissioners, reprinted in Elima (Kinshasa), January 17 and 19, 1974. 142. Tshoya, "Les Collectivités de la Zone Dilolo," p. 82, emphasis added. 143. Ibid., p. 86. 144. Vunduawe, "Rappel historique," p. 270. On the failure of Law 73/015 also see, Bianga, "Peasant, State and Rural Development," pp. 183-84; and W. MacGaffey, "Policy of National Integration," pp. 98-103.

8. CONCLUSION

1. Juan ). Linz, "Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes," p. 355. 2. V. S. Naipaul, "A New King for the Congo." 3. Tocqueville, Old Régime, p. 50. 4. "It is the merit of such long-run distinctions that they enable us to conceptualize significant dimensions of the social structure, either within the same civilization over time or between different civilizations" (Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship, pp. 37-38); also see Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions. 5. Church, The Impact of Absolutism in France, p. 2. 6. Quoted in Goubert, Louis XIV, p. 220. 7. Kabanga, le suis un homme, quoted in Schatzberg, Politics and Class in Zaire, pp. 160-61; also see the 1981 bishop's statement: Kaseba, "Notre foi en l'homme image de Dieu." 8. Les Soupirs de la France esclave, qui aspire après la liberté, 1690, quoted in Church, The Impact of Absolutism in France, p. 104; this tract was written by a leading French Calvinist pastor while in exile in Amsterdam and then smuggled into France. 9. Tocqueville, Old Régime, p. 67. 10. Ibid., p. 68. 11. O n Tocqueville's views, see Richard Herr, Tocqueville and the Old Régime; Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship, 57-62; and Gruder, The Royal Provincial Intendants. In the Old Régime, Tocqueville alternately emphasizes the high degree of centralization and the limitations of it. This is an inherent problem in analyzing absolutist dominations, which also exists in regard to Zaire. 12. An attendant consequence of absolutist centralization noted by Tocqueville is that the capital city tends to draw "to itself all that |is| most vital in the nation," the "gradual draining of the provinces of their natural leaders, their best businessmen and intellectuals as a 'sort of bloodless revolution' " (Old Régime, pp. 72, 73). The vortex tendencies of capitals is a common phenomenon, but it is particularly serious in highly centralized

8. Conclusion

473

states, even early modern ones. In many respects Paris was France; in a similar way, Kinshasa is Zaire to a very large degree. 13. Barker, Development of Public Services, p. 11. 14. Tocqueville, Old Régime, p. 72. 15. Zaire might then approximate post-Amin Uganda, only on a larger and more complex scale. Lonsdale has noted that "Uganda in the wake of Amin resembles nothing so much as an institutionless arena . . . there is no anointed king to restrain the barons. The oppressions suffered by the people are the more dreadful and various in consequence" ("States and Social Processes," p. 205). 16. Kasfir, The Shrinking Political Arena, pp. 278-86. 17. Vansina, Kingdoms of the Savanna, pp. 42-43. In discussing succession processes in precolonial Africa, Max Gluckman noted: Rarely in Africa do we find rules which indicate clearly and definitely a single heir. In some kingdoms there was an open free-for-all struggle by the princes for the kingship— like the dash for Winchester; in others there was a selection by commoner councillors from princes of the royal family; and in yet others the rules of succession contradicted one another. Or the kingship rotated through different houses of the royal dynasty. Or, if the rules themselves were clear, they operated uncertainly in practice. The result was that almost every succession could raise rival claimants, and after the king's death, when national strength was at its weakest, unifying wars for the kingship between claimants and their supporters might follow." (Custom and Conflict in Africa, quoted in Jackson and Rösberg, Personal Rule, p. 70n87). On succession crises in contemporary Africa, see Jackson and Rösberg, pp. 67-73. 18. Pagès, quoted in Church, The Impact of Absolutism in France, p. 158. 19. Church, "Louis XIV and Reason of State," p. 400.

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Mpanya-Buta Bukoma. "Quelques Problèmes de l'Administration Publique Zairoise: l'Exemple de la Corruption des Agents de l'Etat," 1973. Mulongo-wa-Munukuwibi. "Les Sectes Religieuses au Manianga stimulant ou frein au Développement Economique," 1973. Mungango Mulolwa Kangandyo. "Evolution Administrative de la Collectivité des Bakisi (Zone de Shabunda)," 1975. Mushi Mugumorhagerwa. "Incidences ethniques sur la fonction administrative au Kivu (1960-1973)," 1974. N'Gilo, Jean-Paul. "La Corruption des Agents de l'Etat en la République Démocratique du Congo," 1970. Ngoma Tsasa. "Le Regroupement des Villages au Bas-Zaire—Difficultés de Réalisation et Avantages Socio-Economiques," 1972. Ntumba-Katabwa, A. "La Direction Provinciale de l'Education Nationale et Ses Problèmes au Shaba," 1972. Omeonga-Lohondo Kimbalanga. "L'Impact de la Réforme sur le Fonctionnement d'un Service Administrif: Etude de cas de la Division de la Compatibilité et Marchés du Shaba, 1970-1973," 1975. Onotamba Pungu Shungu. "La Collectivité Ngandu-Wuma face à la réforme administrative du 5 janvier 1973," 1975. Otshomampita-Aloki-Okito. "Le Commissaire de Région et les Services extérieurs au Shaba (1965-1973): Le cas du service des Finances," 1974. Thea Ngasebe. "Les Responsabilités Politiques et Administratives de Commissaire de Région," 1974. Tshianke Mukongo. "Les Problemès administratifs des mesures économiques du novembre 1973: Cas de la Sous-Région de Kolwezi," 1975. Tshivnadi-Katamba-Kamalondo wa Kalombo. "La Participation des Etudiants Zairois à la Politique," 1974. Tshoya Kalonji. "Les Collectivités de la Zone Dilolo sous L'Ordonnance-Loi 73/015 du janvier 1973," 1975. Sebiguri-Chiza. "Le Pouvoir Politique Coutumier Hunde-Aspect Traditionnel et Adaptation aux Structures Politiques Modernes," 1972. Salumu lyano Kaningini. "Essai sur le Mythe du Pouvoir Coutumier et les Conflits Politiques au sein de la Collectivité Locale des Bakisi (Shabunda)," 1974. Waruwene, Romain. "Le Chef Traditionnel Chez les Banande du Kivu," 1970.

Index A B A K O (Alliance des Bakongo), 152, 27879, 290, 342, 347 Absolutism, xv, xvii, 19-22, 78, 111-37, 40926, 443n122, 445nn28, 32; and colonial rule in Africa, 147-49; differences between Zairian and French cases of, 41018; normative consequences of, 418-24; in seventeenth-century France, 114-37, 409-26, 430n43, 444n9, 445n28, 447nn62, 66; and state formation, 11214; in Zaire, 141-232, 409-26, 445n28; see also Patrimonialism; State; State formation Action Kusaidia (AKU), 267-68, 459nn6667 Adoula, Cyrille, 155-56 Afghanistan, 213 Africa: area studies approach to, xiii-xiv; nature of state in, 32-68 Alavi, Hamza, 436n123 Alliance des Bakongo (ABAKO), 152, 27879, 290, 342, 347 Amin, Idi, 43, 433n75 Amnesty International, 219-20, 462n29 Anderson, Perry, 134, 430n43, 445n28, 447n62, 451 n75 Angola, 4, 58, 170, 183, 194, 196, 206-8, 213, 266, 268-69, 275, 284, 288, 293, 296, 317-18, 417-18, 454n120, 464n94 Animation, xvi, 236-39, 262, 275, 320, 32527, 360, 457n10, 465nn111, 118 Argentina, 23, 429n31 Armstrong, |ohn A., 126, 130

Association de Personnel Indigène de la Colonie (APIC), 152 Association des Classes Moyennes Africaines (ACMAF), 152 Austin, Dennis, 438n160 Authenticity, 304-5, 325 Authoritarianism, 4, 7-19, 104-7, 110, 431n52; in Africa, 32-46, 61-68; in Latin America, 23-31, 428n13; in Zaire, 7-19, 23-46, 61-68; see also State Aylmer, G. E., 446n43 Bafwasende Zone, 269 Bahunde, 382-83, 385-88 Bakongo, 268, 278, 340-42 Balandier, Georges, 149-50, 182-83, 450n68 Bandundu Region, 217, 248-49, 310, 340, 421 Bank of Zaire, 199-200, 216, 428n6 Barker, Ernest, 127, 133, 423 Bas-Fleuve Subregion, 314, 348, 397, 399 Bas-Zaire Region, xv-xvi, 145, 160, 165-66, 191, 239-40, 244, 248-49, 253, 255, 264, 266, 268, 273-333, 339, 340-42, 346-75, 385, 397-401, 405, 457n17, 462n35, 463n67, 464n88, 471n126 Bayart, |ean-François, 437n133, 454n128 Belgium, 18, 20, 179, 182, 187, 199, 2059, 212, 216-17, 253-54, 286, 290-91, 299, 308-9, 327, 337, 340-42, 441 n4; colonial period in Zaire, 146-69, 414-15, 429n23,445n28, 454n137 Bendix, Reinhard, 12, 14, 85, 87

508

Index

Catholic church, 27, 111, 115, 123, 126, 176, 205, 232, 253, 267, 272, 303-8, 310, 327, 419, 463nn54, 60 Caudillismo, 5, 11, 28-31, 44, 67, 428n1 3, 432nn66, 68; in Zaire, 143, 159, 160, 162-63, 204 Central African Republic, 207 Central Committee, 180, 215-19, 450n61 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 154, 15859 Centralization, 101-4, 110, 421-23, 472nn11, 12; in Africa, 33-68; in seventeenth-century France, 111 -37; in Zaire, 143-44, 166, 169-84, 221-27; see also State formation; Patrimonial administrative state Centre National de Documentation (CND), 162, 169-70, 176, 236-38, 251-52, 261, 266, 273, 278-79, 281, 284-85, 287, 29192, 316, 330, 392, 449n47, 456n5, 461n29, 464n88 Chad, 203, 218, 417 Chalmers, Douglas, 431n52 Chile, 23, 28, 429n31 China, People's Republic of, 203, 205, 2089, 286, 298, 300 Chokwe, 268-69 Churches, 145, 176; Catholic church, 120, 303-7, 310; fg/ise du Christ au Zaire (Protestants), 176, 303, 307-8, 310-12, 314; Kimbanguist church, 307-8, 310; religious sects, 308-15, 463nn67, 69, 464nn70, 75, 85 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), 154, 15859 Class, 6, 20-22; in Africa, 32-36, 46-58, 6566, 433n79, 436nn122-24, 437nn133-34, 439n168, 442n27; in Latin America, 16, Cabinda, 417 23-26, 30-31; in seventeenth-century Cameroon, 425, 437n133 France, 119-20, 126-27; in Zaire, 53, 25Canada, 459n66 26, 150, 184-94, 450n72, 451nn76-77, Capitalism: in Africa, 46-61, 65-66, 81, 452n85 431nn54-55, 436n123, 438n159; in early modern Europe, 20-22, 111; in Latin C N D , see Centre National de Documentation America, 23-26, 30-31; in seventeenthcentury France, 115, 120-121; patrimon- Cohen, Robin, 436n123 ialism and, 75-78, 194-204; in Zaire, 25, Colbert, |ean-Baptiste, 116, 202, 362, 426, 31, 120-21, 145-46, 149, 186-88, 199, 446n52 415, 194-204, 453n112, 456n157, Collectivities: control of, 260-61, 272-73, 468n71 281, 335-407; control of chiefs in, 35461; councils in, 349-54; number and type Cataractes Subregion, xv, 244, 254, 274-75, of, 336-39; selection of chiefs in, 346-49; 277-333, 339, 346-75, 397, 399, 457n11, see also Coverover process 460n1

Benguela Railroad, 196 Beni Zone, 265-66, 278 Berman, Bruce, 108, 147-48 Bianga Waruzi, 229-30, 455nn154-56 Bienen, Henry, 439n168 Binza group, 154, 156, 159, 164 Blumenthal, Erwin, 199-200 Bodin, lean, 117, 129, 257, 441 ni 1 Bokassa, )ean-Bedel, 43, 433n75 Bola-Ntotele Bopendia, 328-29 Bolivar, Simon, 432n61 Borna Zone, 399 Bonapartism, 20-22, 47-49, 66-67, 172, 186, 436n122; in Zaire, 163-65, 430n46, 435n117, 436n122 Bossuet, lacques-Bénigne, 118 Botswana, 34 Bourgeoisie: in Africa, 49-58; patrimonialism and, 77-78; in Zaire, 185-93, 416, 451nn76-77, 81; see also Class Brazil, 23, 28, 429n31 Brazzaville, 152, 164 Breakthrough strategy, 81, 95-96, 122; see also State formation Brigade spéciale présidentiale (BSP), 209 Bukavu, xvi, 158, 161, 254, 265, 271-72, 274, 384, 386, 402-3, 458n27 Bureaucracy, 12-13, 22, 35, 59, 61, 63, 67, 72-75, 78; bureaucratic authoritarianism in Latin America, 23-26, 31; in colonial Zaire, 149; in early modern Europe, 112-14; in seventeenth-century France, 114-16, 124-33, 136-37; see a/so Patri monialism Burundi, 207, 265, 267

Index Collier, Ruth, 433n77 Colonial rule, see Zaire Congo, 151-67, 448n25; see also Zaire Congo-Brazzaville, 284, 355 Convention Nationale Congolaise (CONACO), 159 Cooper, Frederick, 53 Corporatism, 14-19, 47, 69; in Africa, 3946; in Latin America, 23-26, 431n52; in seventeenth-century France, 112; in Zaire, 175-77, 268-69, 303-18, 416-17; see a/so MPR; Single-party state; Organic statism Corruption: in early modem Europe, 446n43; in Zaire, 185-92, 252-53, 27374, 287-90, 293-98, 304, 354-55, 358, 360, 365-76, 378, 384-86, 391, 393, 397 Corvée labor, 367-68; see also Salongo Council for the Liberation of the Congo (CLC), 214, 220 Courts: in seventeenth-century France, 13132, in Zaire, 272, 358, 361-68, 385, 39093, 467nn48-49 Coverover process, 63, 73, 96-99, 122-24, 445n32, 468-69n75; in seventeenth-century France, 112, 122-24, 128-33, 445n32; in Zaire, 221-27, 230-32, 26061, 272, 335-407, 409, 445n32, 467n30, 471n126; see also Préfectoral administration; State formation Cowen, M. P., 49 Crozier, Michael, 206, 318 Davis, Thomas Jr., 228-29 Debt: in seventeenth-century France, 12728; in Zaire, xvii, 194-204 Decalo, Samuel, 44-45, 434n100 Déconcentration, 103-4 de Gaulle, Charles, 152 de la Guérivière, lean, 141 de Lannoy, Didier, 338, 342 Democracy, 34, 40 Denard, Bob, 160 Denmark, 443n1, 459n66 Departicipation, xv, 5, 16, 34, 36, 41-44, 47, 69,410-14,424-25,434n99; in Zaire, 163-77, 213-20, 319; see also MPR; Single-party state Dependency, 47-61; in Zaire, 151-63, 186220; literature, 88-89, 436n120, 437n134; see also Neocolonial state Dergue, 58 Devolution, 103

509

DeWitt, Peter, 453n112 Dilolo Zone, 405 Domain consensus, 92; in Zaire, 177-78, 270-72, 318-30, 410-14, see also Legitimacy Domination: in Zaire, 163-232, 277-333; see also Absolutism; Authoritarianism; State; State formation Dunn, John, 62 Early modern state, 10-14, 35, 78, 428n13; in Africa, 32-46, 61-65; in Latin America, 27-31; in seventeenth-century France, 114-37, 447n66; in Zaire, 14, 144-45, 229-31; see also Patrimonial administrative state; State formation East Germany (German Democratic Republic), 206 Easton, David, xii ECZ, see Eglise du Christ au Zaire Edict of Nantes (1685), 123 Eglise du Christ au Zaire (ECZ), 303, 307-8, 310-12, 314 Egypt, 205, 207 Engels, Frederick, 20-21, 430n43 Engulu Baanga Mpongo, 167-69, 191, 449n45 Equateur Region, 154, 179, 191, 209, 24850, 365, 468n64 Esmonin, Edmond, 444n9 Ethiopia, 58, 417 Ethnicity, 36-37, 144, 151-52, 433n79, 435n113, 436n122; see also Particularism Executive Council, 172-73, 180, 184, 190, 210-12, 219, 223, 259, 275, 403, 458n39 Fainsod, Merle, 107 Fanon, Frantz, 141, 411, 451n76 Fénelon, François de la Mothe, 419-20 Fesler, James W., 108 Fizi Zone, 265, 267 France: absolutism in, xvi-xvii, 5, 20, 27, 68, 105, 112, 114-37, 144-46, 432n59, 443n1, 444n9, 447nn61-62, 66, 451n75; Bonapartism in, 20-22, 436n122; compared to Zaire, 141, 144-45, 169, 179, 184-86, 189, 191, 194-95, 197, 202-3, 230-31, 234, 243, 260, 281, 307, 319, 330-36, 346, 356, 361-62, 366, 368, 371, 378, 409-26, 439n165, 44ln176, 461 n24, 465n122, 472-73n12; enlight-

510

Index

France (Continued) ment ideas of, 28-29; relations with Zaire, 153, 160, 162, 205-9, 217-18; see a/so Absolutism; Intendants; State formation Frente Nacional de Libertaçâo de Angola (National Front for the Liberation of Angola; FNLA), 318 Front Congolais pour la restauration de la Démocratie (FCD), 220 Front de Libération Nationale du Congo (FLNC), 206, 213 Gabon, 56, 207-8 Cambia, 429n19 Gendarmery, 2 9 3 - 9 8 Générale des Carrières et des Mines du Zaire (GECAMINES), 203 Germany, Federal Republic of, 459n66 Ghana, 18, 34, 152, 410, 437n52, 43839n160 Gizenga, Antoine, 154-55, 214 Gluckman, Max, 473n17 Goma, 190, 254, 265, 271, 293, 387, 394 Goubert, Pierre, 119, 135, 146, 444n9 Gould, David, 451n76 Gourevitch, Peter, 430n43, 431n52 Great Britain, 160, 162, 208, 441n4, 443n1 Greek Orthodox church, 176, 464n77 Guicciardini, Francesco, 89 Guinea-Bissau, 213 Haut-Lomani Subregion, 404-5 Haut-Shaba Subregion, 404-5 Haut-Zaire Region, 214, 248, 256, 264-66, 268-69, 277, 295, 340 Heaphey, (ames, 102 Heckscher, Eli, 61 Henry IV (France), 322 Hintze, Otto, 87 Hoffman, Stanley, 98 Homme d'état, 3, 4, 227 Hough, lerry, 107 Ileo, loseph, 154 Intendants; in Latin America, 19-20, 27-28; in seventeenth-century France, 105, 110, 121-22, 124, 126, 128-33, 149, 241, 24344, 257, 331, 361, 369, 413, 445n32, 446n52; see also Absolutism; Préfectoral administration

International Monetary Fund (IMF), 33, 5657, 196-203, 216-17, 428n6, 450n57 Islam, 95, 176, 464n77 Israel, 155, 162, 205, 208-9, 220 Italy, 155, 162, 205, 208 Ivory Coast, 56, 207-8 lapan, 459n66 Jowitt, Kenneth, 95 ludaism, 176, 464n77 |eune«e du MPR ()MPR), 172, 174-76, 237 39, 264, 266, 269, 275, 278, 281, 28485, 287, 292-93, 301, 304, 316, 324, 349, 355, 357-60, 413, 457n19 Judicial Council, 174, 180, 212, 450n61 Kabambara Zone, 265 Kabanga, Archbishop, 4 1 9 - 2 0 Kabare Rugemanizi, Mwami, 379-82, 389, 402, 469n85 Kabare Zone, 272, 378-83, 387 Kabinda Subregion, 400-1 Kalehe Zone, 272, 378 Kalinda Miteetso, Mwami, 379-89, 402 Kamalondo Zone, 328 Kamitatu Massamba (Cleophas), 212, 438n149 Kasai Occidental Region, 248-49, 264, 266, 268-69, 273, 310, 369 Kasai Oreintal Region, 209, 214, 217, 24041, 264-65, 273, 309, 400-1, 405 Kasangulu Zone, 297-98, 302, 316-17, 33233, 345, 365, 367, 398 Kasavubu, )oseph, 152, 154-56, 158-60 Kasfir, Nelson, 34, 36, 41, 424, 434n99, 44ln176 Kashara Niganda, 381 Kasongo Zone, 403 Katanga, see Shaba Region Keita, Modibo, 66 Kengo wa Dondo, 212, 219 Kenya, 46-52, 63-64, 188, 207, 416, 425, 435n1 15, 436n122,439n168 Kenya African National Union (KANU), 4647 Kenyatta, lomo, 46-47, 416 Kierstead, Raymond, 356 Kilonga, Paul, 347-48 Kimba, Evariste, 159-60 Kimbangu, Simon, 308, 313

Index Kimbanguisl church, 303, 307-8, 310, 31314, 463n64, 66 Kimvula Zone, 280, 282, 295-96, 315, 317, 323, 349, 352, 355-56, 360, 366, 371, 397, 463n66 Kingwana, 145 Kinshasa, xv, xvii, 152-54, 159, 164, 171, 176, 182-83, 203, 210-11, 218, 226, 23537, 239, 242-43, 248-52, 254, 257-58, 263, 266, 269-70, 273, 278, 281, 283, 285-87, 290-91, 297-98, 302, 304, 3068, 312-13, 315-16, 320, 324, 326, 338, 342, 346-49, 384-86, 388, 396-97, 4013, 472n12 Kisangani (Stanleyville), 154, 157-58, 16061, 187-88, 248, 259, 324 Kivu Region, xvi, 156, 187, 191, 214, 217, 229-30, 241-42, 244-45, 247-48, 254-56, 264-73, 277-333, 339-40, 342, 346, 354, 371, 375-95, 401-4, 455n155, 458n28, 459nn66-67, 465n122, 466n19 Kongo, Kingdom of, 340, 352, 425, 450n72 Korea, Democratic People's Republic of, 208 Kossmann, E. H., 447n66 Kwilu, 151, 156, 158, 160, 213, 217, 310 Language: in seventeenth-century France, 120; in Zaire, 145 Laski, Harold, xi Lasswell, Harold, 41 Latin America: contemporary bureaucratic authoritarian states in, 23-26, 409-10, 417, 431n52, 435n112; nineteenth-century authoritarian rule in, xii-xv, 27-31, 432nn59, 61, 414-15, 428n13, 432n61; see also Authoritarianism Lavisse, Ernest, 444n9 Law: in seventeenth-century France, 117-19, 121, 445n28; in Zaire, 20, 148, 178-84, 319, 361-68, 445n28; see also Absolutism Law 73/015, 221-25, 232, 339, 346, 359, 381-82, 387, 395-407, 457n16, 471n126 Lazard, Frères, 200 Lehman Brothers Kuhn Loeb, 200 Legislative Council, 172-74, 180, 185, 21019, 240, 384, 413 Legitimacy, 205-6; in seventeenth-century France, 116-17; in Zaire, 177-78; see also Domain consensus Lemontey, P. E., 1 34, 444n9

511

Leopold II (Belgium and Congo Free State), 146, 167, 190, 415, 432n60, 454n137 Le Tellier, Michel, 135 Leys, Colin, 46-49, 51-55, 435n113, 436nn122-23 Lingala, 145 Linz, Juan, 9-12, 428n13; see also Authoritarianism Locke, )ohn, 89 London Club, 200 Lonsdale, John, 20-21, 430n39, 436n124, 438n159, 440n172, 473n15 Louis XIV, 68, 114, 116-18, 122, 124-26, 130, 135-36, 165, 179, 181, 195, 197, 202, 330, 332, 412-13, 417, 419, 42526, 432n59, 441n176; see also Absolutism Lualaba Subregion, 404-5 Luba, 404-5 Lubefu Zone, 401 Lubero Zone, 265 Lubumbashi, 304, 308, 324, 327-28, 472n133 Lubutu Zone, 265 Lukula Zone, 397 Lunda, 206, 211, 219, 340, 404-5 Luozi Zone, 281, 312-13, 350, 355-56, 365, 367, 369, 373, 397-99, 467n30 MacGaffey, Janet, 142, 187-88, 192-93, 340, 451n81 Machiavelli, Niccolö, 81, 85, 89, 116, 156, 205, 212, 412, 415, 441n11 Madimba Zone, 279, 296, 323, 349, 352, 397, 399, 464n84, 467n30 Makanda Kabobi Institute, 166, 173-74, 252, 262 Malende, 269 Malula, Cardinal, 304-6 Maniema Subregion, 265, 402-3 Mao Tse-tung, 141, 411 Markovitz, Irving, 427n10 Marx, Karl, xiv, 89, 440n172 Masisi Zone, 267, 272, 278, 296, 378-79, 382-88 Matadi Wamba, 212 Mazarin, Jules, Cardinal, 116 Mbanza-Ngungu Zone, xv-xvi, 279-80, 28283, 286-87, 290, 313, 317, 324, 347-48, 357-61, 367-68 Mbunda, 157

512

Index

Mengistu Haile Meriam, 58 Mercantilism, 18, 22, 58-61, 77, 113, 115, 145, 177, 258, 317, 437n128, 45556r>156; see also Absolutism Mercenaries, 134-35, 157-58, 160-61, 43435n106, 447n61 Meuvret, )ean, 122 Mexico, 8, 23, 30, 416, 428n4, 431n56 Michelet, Jules, 134, 444n9 Military: regimes in Africa, 41, 43-45, 43435n106; in seventeenth-century France, 133-35, 417-18, 447nn61, 62; in Zaire, 155-64, 169-71, 206-9, 264-67, 286-90, 293-98, 417-18, 435n107, 454n121; see also

Caudillismo

Mobutu Niwa, 216, 425, 450n73 Mobutu Sese Seko: as Caudillo, 29, 159-63; ideology of, 6, 177-78, 271, 277, 322, 410; military efforts of, 153-59; political religion, 180-83, 272, 304-5, 318-20, 324-27, 329, 410-14, 450n63, 457n10; presidential monarch, xv, 3-4, 7, 9-10, 48, 55, 58, 141-43, 149, 171-85, 191-92, 195, 199, 251, 257, 283, 289, 362, 392, 394, 415-16, 425, 428n2, 449n48, 450n68, 454n137, 461n24, 464n98; relations with external actors, 153-63, 194220; seizure of power, 151, 154, 159-63; state formation efforts, 28, 40, 45, 94-96, 163-77, 188-92, 197-220, 230-35, 261, 263, 294, 299-300, 304-8, 337, 349, 372, 374, 378, 380, 412-15, 424-25, 428n6, 448/125, 454n127 Mobutuism, 7, 28, 173-74, 177-78, 184, 219, 271, 305, 319, 322, 324-25, 414 Morocco, 153, 205-8 Morse, Richard, 19, 432nn61, 66 Mousnier, Roland, 112, 117, 130, 444n9, 447n62 Mouvement National Congolais (MNC), 153 Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR), 7-8, 10, 67, 163-64, 168, 170-74, 177-79, 181, 215, 218-19, 240, 271, 3045, 310, 312-13, 316-17, 320, 322-23, 325, 327, 412-13, 424, 435n115; see also Departicipation; Single-party state Movimento Popular de Libertaçào de Angola (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola; MPLA), 206, 318 Mozambique, 318 Mpanda Ndjila, 216

Mpinga-Kasenda, 210 MPR, see Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution Muanda Zone, 314 Mulamba, Leonard, 159 Mulele, Pierre, 156-57, 164, 213, 269 Mungul-Diaka, 214 Munongo Mwenda M'Siri (ex-Codefroid), 219 Mushi Mugumorhagerwa, 244, 246, 250-51 Mwami, 245, 342-44, 354, 377-95, 402-3 Mwenga Zone, 403 Naipaul, V. S., 141, 450n63 Nande, 187-88 Napoleon, Louis, 21, 105, 436n122 National Center for Documentation (CND), see Centre National de Documentation National Security Council (Zaire), 170 Nationhood: in seventeenth-century France, 119; in Zaire, 142-44; see also Early modern state Ndeze Rubago II (Daniel), Mwami, 379,

389-95, 402, 470n103, 471n114 Neocolonial state, 46-58, 436nn 123-24, 453n112; in Zaire, 55-58, 194-204; see also State Neomercantilism, see Mercantilism Nettl, J. P., xiii, 427n6 Nguza Karl-i-Bond, 3, 199, 210-11, 213, 215, 217, 220, 454nn120-22, 126 Nigeria, 410, 417, 431n52 Nkrumah, Kwame, 152, 432n61 Nord-Kivu Subregion, 235, 237, 254, 267, 270-71, 277-333, 339, 342, 345, 379, 382-95, 402-3, 455n155, 457n12, 460n1 Nzongola-Ntalaja, 46, 48, 55-56, 58, 186, 430n46, 435n117, 451nn76-77 O'Donnell, Guillermo, 21, 23-24, 431n52 Officiers: in seventeenth-century France, 123, 125, 129, 132-33, 244; in Zaire, 234, 331-32 Opposition: to Mobutu regime, 206-7, 21020, 265-66, 269-70, 272, 277-84, 289-90, 323-24, 330-33, 420, 428n6, 460n6, 466n19; by Catholic church, 303-7, 420; to coverover process, 335-407; by religious sects, 309-15; see also Particularism

Index Organic statism, 14-22, 69; in Africa, 33, 3946; see a/so Corporatism Organization theory, 90-110 Pagés, Georges, 134, 425, 444n9 Paris Club, 198, 200, 204 Particularism, 35; in Africa, 35-37, 435n113; and class in Africa, 53-55; in seventeenth-century France, 119-22; in Zaire, 157, 278-81, 294-95, 319, 331-33, 335407; see also Bas-Zaire; Churches; Courts; Coverover process; Ethnicity; Kivu; Law; Pays d'élection; Pays d'état Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutionalized Revolutionary Party; PRI), 416 Parti Révolutionnaire du Peuple (PRP), 214, 220 Patrimonialism, xvii, 13-14, 69-78, 46869n75; in Africa, 32-68; and class in Africa, 46-58; and class in Zaire, 184-94, 202-3; in early modern Europe, 112-14; in Latin America, 17, 19, 26-30; in seventeenth-century France, 114-19, 124-33, 136-37, 461 n24; in Zaire, 5-6, 14, 17, 25, 142-44, 146, 178-84, 194-204, 214, 220, 229-32, 335-407, 409-18, 461 n24; see a/so Absolutism; Class; Mwami; Patrimonial administrative state Patrimonial administrative state: in Africa, 32-68, 440-41n175, 468-9n75; in Zaire, 165-232, 409-10, 455-56n156; see also Coverover process Patron-client relations: in Africa, 46, 51, 62; in Latin America, 29-30; in seventeenthcentury France, 126-27; in Zaire, 184-93, 202-3, 377, 401; see also Class Pays d'élection, 121-22, 130, 346, 422; BasZaire as, 339-42, 346-75, 397-401, 4057, 422, 471n126 Pays d'état, 121-22, 130, 346; Kivu as, 26465, 342-44, 375-95, 401-6, 455n155 Pende, 157 Peru, 23, 429n31 Petras, lames, 453n112 Pluralism, 7-10, 33-38; see also Particularism Political aristocracy: in seventeenth-century France, 115, 126-27; in Zaire, 56-58, 65-66, 150, 184-94, 254, 256-57, 416, 425, 450n72, 460n1; see also Absolutism; Class

513

Political Bureau, 164, 170, 172-74, 177, 180, 184, 190, 210-15, 259, 403 Political religion, 180-81, 318-19; see also Animation; Presidential monarch Portugal, 153, 206, 268, 276, 318 Poulantzas, Nicos, 20, 22, 186, 430n43 Préfectoral administration, xvi, xviii, 39, 6165, 99-110, 432n59, 445n32, in the colonial period, 147-49; control of collectivities in Zaire, 335-407; control of prefects, 243-53, 258-64; methods of control, 262, 275-76, 284-90; in seventeenthcentury France, 128-33; staff control, 26667, 273-75, 330-33, 375-95; tasks and powers of prefects, 235-43, 259-76, 299330, 457nn19, 21, 458n44, 458n21; types of prefects, 233-35, 253-57, 262, 458n25; see a/so Absolutism; State formation Presidential monarch, 143, 178-84, 461n24; see also Absolutism; Animation; Mobutu Sese Seko; Patrimonialism; Political religion Press, 176-77, 319 Prussia, 443nl Przeworski, Adam, 54, 437n136 Purcell, |ohn, 8 Purcell, Susan, 8 Raison d'état, 116-17, 319, 412, 442n11 Ratissage, 286-90 Refugees, 267-69, 282, 317-18 Rhodesia, 158 Richelieu, Armand du Plessis, Cardinal, 95, 116, 122, 432n59 Riggs, Fred, 102, 104, 442n33 Robertson, A. F., 62 Rosenberg, Hans, 122 Rousseau, )ean-Jacques, 89 Russia, 443n1; see a/so Soviet Union Rutshuru Zone, 271-72, 379, 383, 388-95, 403, 470n103, 471n114 Rwanda, 161, 265, 267, 278, 283-84, 31718 Saint-Simon, Comte de, 89, 444n9 Sakombi Inongo, 173 Salongo, xvi, 178, 237, 239, 261-62, 275, 299-303, 323-24, 326, 357, 360, 386, 394, 457nl0,462n53 Sambwa Pida Mgangui, 215

514

Index

Sankuru Subregion, 400-1 Saudia Arabia, 205 Schatzberg, Michael, 193, 365, 451nn76, 81 Schmitter, Philippe, 21 Schramme, lean, 161 Schumacher, Edward )., 438n158 Secret police, see Centre National de Documentation (CND) Seke-Banza Zone, 275, 348, 397 Selznick, Philip, 94 Senegal, 34, 207-8, 425, 438n158 Shaba Region (Katanga), xvi, 4, 151, 153, 156-58, 160-61, 170, 183, 189, 191, 194, 196, 206-10, 212, 214, 217, 219, 224, 248-49, 268-69, 293, 302, 340, 404-6, 413, 424, 472nn133, 135 Shabunda Zone, 265 Silvert, K. H „ 432nn66, 68 Singa, Colonel, 169 Single-party state, 33-34, 38, 40-43, 412-14; Zaire as, 9-10, 171-75, 210-220; see a/so Mouvement Populaire de la Révolution (MPR) Skocpol, Theda, 447n62 Smuggling, 265-66, 270-71, 273, 284, 286, 452n85 Society: nature of African society, 35-38, 6265; relationship with state in Africa, 3265; see a/so Absolutism; Authoritarianism; Coverover process; Departicipation; Early modern state; Particularism; Patrimonial administrative state; Opposition; Task environment Songololo Zone, 289, 296-97, 300, 316-17, 327-28, 355-56, 398-99 Sorcery: in seventeenth-century France, 120; in Zaire, 145, 269-70, 281-82, 316, 36364, 366, 428n2 South Africa, 158 Southall, Aidan, 147, 150 South Kasai, 151, 153, 155 Sovereignty, xi, xiv, xviii, 22, 32-34, 82-83, 112, 116-17, 336, 412, 427n6, 44142n1l; see also Absolutism; State; State formation Soviet Union (USSR), 105, 107, 153-54, 205-6, 213 Spain, 20, 27-29, 95, 160, 414, 432n59, 443nl Staniland, Martin, 62, 438n160

State: concept of and approaches to, xi-xv, 14-19, 81-110, 427nn6, 7, 428-29n17; modern state, 12-14, 73-75, 428-29n17; nature of the African state, 32-68; relative autonomy of, 32-33, 46-58, 436nn122-24, 438n148; see a/so Absolutism; Authoritarianism; Early modern state; Patrimonial administrative state; Neocolonial state; State formation State formation: and absolutism, 111-37, 430n43; breakthrough strategy of, 95-96; concept of, xiii-xiv, 32-33, 65-67, 81-110, 430nn39, 43, 441nn176, 3-4; coverover strategy of, 63, 73, 96-99, 122-24; in Europe, xiii-xv, 87-88, 111-37, 429n19, 430n43, 431 n52; international aspects of, 32-33, 46-58, 86-89, 153-62, 194-220, 410-12, 429n19, 430n43, 431n52, 434n106, 438n148, 453nl12; strategy of in seventeenth-century France, 122-24; strategy of in Zaire, 165-69; see a/so Authoritarianism; Coverover process; Latin America; State Stepan, Alfred, 18, 20, 429n30 Stinchcombe, Arthur, 205-6 Strayer, Joseph, 119 Sudan, 266, 268 Sud-Kivu Subregion, 265, 267, 339, 342, 379-82, 402-3 Swahili, 145 Swainson, Nicola, 49-52 Sweden, 443n1 Switzerland, 179, 441n4 Tanganika Subregion, 404-5 Tanganyika, Lake, 268 Tanzania, 434n99 Task environment, 90-104, 442n16; in seventeenth-century France, 119-22; in Zaire, 144-46, 448n5; see a/so Class; Early modern state; Particularism; Patrimonial administrative state Taxes, 132, 238-41, 264, 272, 274-75, 28690, 322-23, 357, 360, 369-74, 384-85, 391, 395, 397, 419 Tetela, 400-1 Thompson, lames D., 91, 93-94, 99, 102 Tilly, Charles, 13, 427n2, 429n19 Tocqueville, Alexis de, xvi, 123, 143, 336, 413, 421-23, 427n2, 472n11-12 Treasure, C . R. R„ 133

Index Tshela Zone, 275, 397, 399 Tshisekedi wa Muluma, 216 Tshombe, Jean, 212 Tshombe, Moise, 155-60, 434-35n106 Tshopo Subregion, 269 Tunsia, 207 Tutsi, 389 Ubundu Zone, 265 Uganda, 34, 207, 266, 284, 389, 417, 431n52, 459n66, 473n15 Uniâo Nacional para a Independència Total de Angola (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola; UNITA), 268 Union Nationale des Travailleurs Zairois (UNTZa), 225-26, 238-39, 264, 316-17, 324, 330 Union pour la Démocratie et le Progrès Social (UDPS), 218, 220 United Nations, 151, 153-56, 161, 197, 207, 293, 323-24, 459n66 United States, 153-62, 203-8, 211, 216-20, 454n127,459n66 Université Nationale du Zaire (UNAZA), 213, 215, 304, 328, 463n56 Uruguay, 23 Uvira Zone, 265, 267, 273, 381 Vansina, Jan, 190, 428n2 Vauban, Sebastian Le Prestre, 135 Verhaegen, Benoit, 451nn76-77 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet), 444n9 Vunduawe te Pemako, 224-27, 407, 455n151 Vwakyanakazi Mukohya, 229-30, 455nn155-56 Walikale Zone, 265, 272, 278, 286 Wallerstein, Immanuel, 58, 430n43, 441 n4, 447n62 Walungu Zone, 272, 378 Warburg and Sons, S. G „ 200 Wassa Zone, 278

515

Weber, Eugen, 119 Weber, Max, xv, xix, 12-13, 18, 47, 56, 6678, 90, 114, 116, 195, 199, 204, 318, 440n172, 445n28, 451n76, 468n75; see a/so Patrimonialism; State Weissman, Stephen, 154 Williame, Jean-Claude, 75 World Bank, 33, 57, 196-201, 203 Yeke, 404-5 Young, Crawford, xiv, 37, 144, 185, 22930, 433nn78-79, 451n76 Zaire: absolutism, 141-43, 163-231, 409-25, 432n59, 472nn11-12; Bonapartism, 16365, 435n117, 436n122; colonial period, 17-18, 20, 28, 143-51, 167-69, 411-16, 429n25, 432nn60, 68, 434n100, 438n68, 454n137; caudillismo, 159-63; coverover process, 335-407, 445n32; domination, 277-333; economy, 145-46, 185204, 258, 261-63, 270, 273, 316-17, 431nn54-55; external actors, 151-63, 194-220, 431n55, 434n106, 453n112, 454nn121, 123; finances, 194-204, 36875, 391, 436n124, 453n112; future, 416, 424-26, 473n15; ideology, 6, 9-10, 18, 177-78, 410-14; nature of the authoritarian state, xi, xiv-xviii, 3-10, 14, 17-18, 4546, 65-67, 141-44, 229-31, 407-10, 428n4, 431 n56, 435n115, 455n156; patrimonial rulership, 178-84; period from 1957 to 1965, 151-63; political aristocracy, 184-94; state formation, 96, 101-10, 163-78, 221-32, 429n19, 445n28; task environment, 144-46, 433n78, 448n5, 451n77, 81; territorial administration, 233-407, 439n165 Zairianization, 56, 177, 187, 191-92, 19697, 261-63, 270-71, 286, 326, 357, 399 Zolberg, Aristide, 40, 58, 66-67, 161, 427n10, 430n43, 434-35n106, 438n148, 440n175