Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-tf8b9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T12:02:25.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Colonialism and the Two Publics in Africa: A Theoretical Statement

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Peter P. Ekeh
Peter P. Ekeh
Affiliation:
University of Ibadan, Nigeria
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper argues that the experiences of colonialism in Africa have led to the emergence of a unique historical configuration in modern postcolonial Africa: the existence of two publics instead of one public, as in the West. Many of Africa's political problems are due to the dialectical relationships between the two publics. I shall characterize these two publics and attempt to explain some of Africa's political features within the matrix of these publics. In order to give some empirical content to the distinction drawn here, I shall illustrate the issues raised with examples from Nigeria.

Type
Colonialism
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , January 1975 , pp. 91 - 112
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1975

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abernethy, David B. (1969) The Political Dilemma of Popular Education. An African Case. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade (1967) ‘Samuel Ajayi Crowther of Oyo’ in Curtin, Philip D., ed., Africa Remembered. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J. F. Ade and Smith, R. S. (1964) Yoruba Warfare in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Arendt, Hannah (1951) The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.Google Scholar
Arikpo, Okoi (1967) The Development of Modern Nigeria. Baltimore: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Awolowo, Obafemi (1966) Thoughts on Nigerian Constitution. Ibadan: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Banfleld, Edward C. (1958) The Moral Basis of A Backward Society. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Bendix, Reinhard (1964) Nation-Building and Citizenship. New York: Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. (1964) The Image of Africa: British Ideas and Action, 1780–1850. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Curtin, Philip D. (1968) (ed.) Africa Remembered: Narratives by West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Dike, Kenneth O. (1956) Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Ekeh, Peter P. (1972) ‘Citizenship and Political Conflict: A Sociological Interpretation of the Nigerian Crisis’ in Okpaku, Joseph, ed., Nigeria: Dilemma of Nationhood, An African Analysis of the Biafran Conflict. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Fanon, Frantz (1967) Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford (1963) ‘The Integrative Revolution’ in Geertz, Clifford, ed., Old Societies and New States. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Hobson, J. A. (1902) Imperialism: A Study. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Hodgkin, T. (1956) ‘The African Middle Class’. Corona, 8:85–8.Google Scholar
Hodgkin, T. (1957) ‘Letter to Dr. Biobaku’. Odu, No. 4.Google Scholar
Jahoda, Gustav (1961) White Man: A Study of the Attitudes of Africans to Europeans in Ghana Before Independence. London: Oxford University Press,Google Scholar
Mannoni, O. (1964) Prospero and Caliban. New York: Frederick A. Praeger.Google Scholar
Marshall, T. H. (1949) ‘Citizenship and Social Class’. Reprinted in Marshall, T. H., Class, Citizenship, and Social Development. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1964.Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington (1966) Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Neill, Stephen (1966) Colonialism and Christian Missionaries. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.Google Scholar
Padmore, George (1949) Africa: Britain's Third Empire. Westport, Conn.: Negro Universities Press, 1969.Google Scholar
Shils, Edward (1957) ‘Primordial, Personal, Sacred and Civil Ties’. The British Journal of Sociology 8:130–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stark, Werner (1958) The Sociology of Knowledge: An Essay in Aid of a Deeper Understanding of the History of Ideas. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Van den Berghe, Pierre (1971) ‘Pluralism in a Nigerian University: A Case Study’. Race, 12:429–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Van den, Berghe (1973) Power and Privilege in an African University. Cambridge, Mass.: Sehenkman.Google Scholar
Weinstein, Fred and Piatt, Gerald M. (1969) The Wish To Be Free: Society, Psyche, and Value Change. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press.Google Scholar
Wolin, Sheldon (1960) Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Political Thought. Boston: Little, Brown & Co.Google Scholar
Wraith, Ronald and Simpkins, Edgar (1963) Corruption in Developing Countries. London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.Google Scholar