Institutional Terra Non Firma: Representative Democracy and the Chieftaincy in French West Africa

Abstract

This chapter examines the collision between the so-called ‘traditional’ African chieftaincy, the practical and ideological cornerstone of pre-war colonialism in French West Africa, and the post-war expansion of African electoral democracy. The Fourth Republic enacted far-reaching reforms in an effort to maintain French rule, expanding the right to vote and creating new representative institutions. However, chiefs were appointed rather than elected and colonial administrators increasingly struggled to justify this anachronism by claiming to respect African ‘tradition’. The problem was given greater urgency by rising popular discontent with the chiefs, whose reputation had been tarnished by stories of abuses and scandals. Elected African political leaders therefore pushed to reform the chieftaincy. Giving the chiefs a legal footing was necessary to reconcile the institution with the post-war zeitgeist but also raised a flurry of practical problems. How could the colonial state reconcile its long-time intermediaries with its nominal commitment to modernising empire? Could chiefs and elections coexist? Where precisely did the power to shape governance in French Africa lie? This chapter explores these questions through African politicians’ proposals and deliberations in the newly established territorial and French Union assemblies. Chieftaincy reform also had wider repercussions for the political life of West Africa, emerging as a wedge issue through which African leaders tested and expanded the powers of the newly created assemblies. Their campaigning exposed fault-lines within the French administration and offers an example of African political mobilisation turning the egalitarian language of the post-war ‘modernising mission’ against the colonial power.