Management of ethnic diversity in Cameroon against the backdrop of social crises

Abstract

This paper examines how the state of Cameroon has managed ethnic diversity during the reforms period of the 1990s and early years of the 2000-2010 decade. The argument is that the period has seen a new type of crisis management in which a political regime feeds on ethnic tensions and makes political capital out of grievances of local peoples in the metropolitan areas of the highly urbanized areas of the Littoral and South West Province. Beyond these developments, the paper argues for a conceptual distinction between the interests of local peoples and communities and those of elites in search for solutions to the diversity question.