IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/aaechp/978-3-031-72574-6_3.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Federalism and Expansion: The Collapse of the Federal Experiment in Cameroon and Aftermath

In: Federalism and Decentralization in Africa

Author

Listed:
  • Leonid Issaev

    (HSE University)

  • Andrey Zakharov

    (Russian State University for the Humanities)

Abstract

The Federal Republic of Cameroon (1962–1972) became one of the most striking examples of federal dysfunction in Africa, freed from the colonialists. In fact, the goal of the federalist deal concluded after decolonization between the elites of French-speaking and English-speaking Cameroon. This was not the dispersal of power in a diverse society nor the protection of the English-speaking minority, but the territorial absorption of one part of the country by the other. The path to this “fraudulent contract” was tortuous and complex; it took a little over ten years. The irony, however, is that the perversion of the federal idea began to affect Cameroonian statehood in the most negative way after several decades. The war for the independence of the so-called Ambazonia, waged by separatists in the former English-speaking enclaves, shows that neglecting the “federal principle” where it seems to be in demand can be very costly.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonid Issaev & Andrey Zakharov, 2024. "Federalism and Expansion: The Collapse of the Federal Experiment in Cameroon and Aftermath," Advances in African Economic, Social and Political Development, in: Federalism and Decentralization in Africa, chapter 0, pages 27-44, Springer.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:aaechp:978-3-031-72574-6_3
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-72574-6_3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:aaechp:978-3-031-72574-6_3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.