¹ Benin and Congo, February 1990; Gabon, March 1990; Zaïre, February 1991; Togo, July/August 1991; Niger, July 1992; and Chad, January 1993.

² See Diamond, Larry, ‘Ex Africa… A New Spirit Has Loosened the Grip of African Dictatorial Rule’, in Times Literary Supplement (London), 2 07 1993, p. 3.Google Scholar

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⁴ Ibid. p. 298. Heilbrunn continues on p. 299: ‘Democracy requires that the party out of power today perceives that it may obtain power tomorrow. This concept was foreign to the Togolese opposition, which demanded power immediately… Mutual hostilities and dissension characterised political relations within the Togolese opposition, thereby gravely impairing its ability to create democratic institutions.’Google Scholar

⁵ See Bratton, Michael and van de Walle, Nicolas, ‘Popular Protest and Political Reform in Africa’, Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, East Lansing, 4 December 1990Google Scholar, and Chabal, Patrick (ed.), Political Domination in Africa: reflections on the limits of power (Cambridge, 1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar See also Bayart, Jean-François, ‘La Revanche des sociétés africaines’, in Bayart, , Mbembe, Achille, and Toulabor, Comi M. (eds.), Le Politique par le bas en Afrique noire: contributions à une problematique de la démocratie (Paris, 1992), especially pp. 9–23, since this author is more self-questioning and less categoric about the existence of ‘civil society’ in Africa.Google Scholar

⁶ See Toulabor, Comi M., Le Togo sous Eyadéma (Paris, 1986).Google ScholarAside from continuing allegations that the French supported the overthrow of Sylvanus Olympio in January 1967, there is no doubt that Eyadéma had subsequently promoted French interests on the African stage and at OAU summits, and that in spite of his anti-colonial rhetoric about authenticité à la Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaïre, the French reciprocated his gestures materially and politically in return for preferential treatment in sales of mineral and phosphate exports.Google Scholar

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⁸ Kpatindé, Francis, ‘Mathieu Kérékou au pied du mur’, in Jeune Afrique (Paris), 1521, 26 02 1990.Google Scholar

⁹ The Conférence nationale in Mali was convened and granted sovereignty by the armed forces once they had overthrown the political incumbent, and without their support the opposition would have been ineffective.Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Pollard, Robert, ‘La Démocratie ambiguë’, in Année africaine, 1992–1993 (Paris, 1993), pp. 17–57, and Marchés tropicaux et mediterranéens (Paris). Togo's gross revenue rose from 974,000 million CFA francs in 1987 to 114,700 million in 1990, with a 74 per cent increase in gift aid from 8,200 million to 14,300 million CFA francs.Google Scholar

¹¹ See Mbongo, Pierre Moukoko, ‘Régimes militaires et transitions démocratiques en Afrique: à la recherche d'un cadre d'analyse théorique’, in Afrique 2000: revue africaine de la politique internationale (Geneva), 13, 05 1993, pp. 39–60, for claims that potential civilian opponents must not openly antagonise the interests of the army as a necessary precondition for the successful realisation of a change in political leadership.Google Scholar

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¹³ Given the restriction of developmental opportunities in the North of both Togo and Benin during the colonial era, the leaders of both countries had exploited the facilities afforded by the army as the main, if not only, outlet for social mobility there. This factor helps to explain the respective predominance of Ewe- and Fon-speaking peoples of the South amongst indigenous élites.Google Scholar

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²⁰ Heilbrunn, ‘The National Conference as a Democratising Process’, pp. 7–11.

²¹ Ibid. p. 5.

²² See Bayart, Jean-François, The State in Africa: the politics of the belly (London, 1993 edn.), p. 240Google Scholar: ‘The social frustratïons caused by the economy of survival force many “little men” to make radical choices: either allow oneself to sink into dementia, like the unemployed man in Douala who cut off his penis because he “never had enough money to merit a woman” — according to La Gazette de la nation (Douala), 2 08 1984— ‘or to seize by force that which society denies them.’Google Scholar

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²⁸ Although the Conférence des cadres of 1978–1979 had aroused the hopes of former critics of the PRPB single-party system, they had been left greatly disappointed that dialogue brought few concrete changes.Google Scholar

²⁹ See Callaghy, Thomas M., ‘Lost Between State and Market: the politics of economic adjustment in Ghana, Zambia, and Nigeria’, in Nelson, Joan M. (ed.), Economic Crisis and Policy Choice (Princeton, 1990), pp. 257–62.Google Scholar

³⁰ The CN in Benin had also been given the task of forwarding proposals for the implementation of the 1989 structural adjustment programme.Google Scholar

³¹ See Bourmaud, Daniel and Quantin, Patrick, ‘Sur Mesure et pr^t-à-porter: les conférences nationales en Afrique noire, 1990–91’, p. 11, 4ème Congrès, Association française de science politique, Paris, 23–26 September 1992. They note that the shorter the CN, the more likely it was that the ‘victory of the winning team’ was already pre-ordained (because of the unequal power relations), whereas the longer the CN the more complicated it became. Where la politique du ventre also intervened, the likelihood of success was less Certain. In the Congo the CN lasted three months, costing Western governments 3,500 million CFA francs or FF70 million.Google Scholar

³² Agence France Presse, 20 June 1990.

³³ See Sada, H., ‘Chaillot n'est pas La Baule’, in Jeune Afrique, 27 November–3 December 1991.Google Scholar

³⁴ Agence France Presse, 25 December 1992. Charles Pasqua is now Minister of the Interior in Edouard Balladur's RPR Government in France.Google Scholar

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³⁸ See Marchés tropicaux et méditerranéens, 19 March 1991, and ‘Transition exemplaire au Bénin’, in Jeune Afrique, 1579, 3–9 April 1991. It was reported that all Southern residents had left Parakou, and that two people had been killed and 15 injured.Google Scholar

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⁴⁰ Callaghy, Thomas M. comments on the dangers of democracy being viewed as the substance not the form of political life, in ‘Politics and Vision in Africa: the interplay of domination, equality and liberty’, in Chabal (ed.), op. cit. pp. 30–52.Google Scholar

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⁴² Allen, Chris, ‘“Goodbye to All That”: the short sad story of socialism in Benin’, Conference on ‘Marxism's Retreat from Africa’, University of Birmingham, 1992.Google Scholar

⁴³ Callaghy, , ‘Lost Between State and Market’, pp. 257–319.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Vittin, ‘Crise renouveau’, loc. cit. pp. 37–59.