WHEN HISTORY CANNOT WAIT: DEMOCRATIZATION THROUGH NATIONAL CONFERENCES IN FRANCOPHONE AFRICA. CASE STUDY: BENIN AND DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
Keywords:
national conferences, neo patrimonial regimes, state-building, civil society, Catholic ChurchAbstract
In order to understand the outcome of national conferences and to answer to main questions of this research (about the importance of national conferences for Africans, the place and impact of national conferences in political development of those states, for political world and political science), my approach focused on some causes. There were some factors which conditioned the outcome of the conferences and I analyzed comparatively some common factors for both cases and their influence in the process of democratization: the nature of previous regime, the role of political elite, the role of civil society, the role of Catholic Church, the process of state-building and the pressure of the main external powers (former colonial powers and the United States.)
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