Sudan's Political transition 1990s

Two Leadership Styles and Patterns of Political Liberalization Author(s): Jennifer Widner Reviewed work(s): Source: African Studies Review, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Apr., 1994), pp. 151-174 Published by: African Studies Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/525117 . Accessed: 03/11/2011 16:07

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

African Studies Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Studies Review.

http://www.jstor.org

Two Leadership Styles and Patterns of Political Liberalization

Jennifer Widner

In his novels and essays and most recently in the pages of The New York Times, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe has repeatedly claimed that the "trouble with Nigeria" lies with its leaders (1982, 1993)-and few of those who followed the pronouncements of General Babangida would say that the actions of the Nigerian head of state were without import for the political future of the country. Achebe finds an intellectual ally in social scientist Giuseppe de Palma (1992), who argues that the actions of decision makers at critical junctures in the process of political opening shape the range of choices and the kinds of risks they and their successors face subsequently. Although the conditions that make democratic consolidation more or less difficult may be a function of levels of socioeconomic development, the presence or absence of a civic culture, or the existence of a middle class, the de- cisions of leaders matter. Democracies are crafted, not born whole.

This essay tries to identify the sources of difference in leadership style during a period of political reform. It proceeds from two observa- tions. First, tactical and strategic choices of leaders are partly a func- tion of the incentive structures political and economic institutions offer. Electoral rules, the amount of central control over important electoral resources such as the media, participation in regional monetary agree- ments-all of these institutions shape the options available for build- ing coalitions.1

How leaders perceive the constraints rules and organizations cre- ate and the costs, benefits and risks attached to alternative courses of action affects outcomes too, however. Personal experience, schooling, the ideas current among a leader's friends and advisers-these also in- fluence decision making. This repertoire of skills, styles and preferences enables some decision makers to learn from their mistakes while others repeat the errors of the past, and it prompts some to try to change the rules of the game by re-designing institutions instead of respecting the limits set by existing structures. In short, character matters in the way leaders incorporate the features of the political landscape social scientists so often take as given into their decision making.

The essay probes the interrelationship between institutions and ideas in styles of governance by comparing the strategic choices of Felix

African Studies Review, Volume 37, Number 1 (April 1994), pp. 151-74.

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

Houphouiet-Boigny of COte d'Ivoire and Daniel arap Moi of Kenya dur- ing the period of political liberalization that swept Africa between 1989 and mid-1993. In some important respects these two cases were sim- ilar. By the end of 1992, the governments of both leaders had conducted multiparty elections, and both incumbents survived the electoral con- tests and maintained their positions. In other ways, their strategic choices in negotiating pressures for political reform diverged dramati- cally.

Under Houphouiet-Boigny, COte d'Ivoire moved to a multiparty system in May 1990 and held competitive elections several months later.2 The aging president was not a strong advocate of political liber- alization, but he nonetheless turned to multiparty competition early in the wave of political change that swept Africa, beginning in 1989. Irregularities marked some aspects of the elections his government or- ganized. For example, so little time elapsed between the legalization of opposition parties and the conduct of elections that it was difficult for groups other than the established Parti Democratique de COte d'Ivoire (PDCI) to mount effective campaigns in rural areas. Loubards, or thugs, turned up at opposition campaign rallies in some parts of the country in the early weeks of the campaign period. In urban areas, people sometimes did not know where polling places were located (many students assumed irregularities would occur and did not bother to try to cast ballots), and both the PDCI and opposition parties attempted to buy votes in some areas. After the elections, the tempo- rary jailing of the main opposition leader, Laurent Gbagbo, and peri- odic clashes with students and teachers threatened the new political openness.

On the other side of the balance sheet, the level of electoral vio- lence was low by comparison with many other countries, except on the university campus, and the incidence of ballot-tampering was also suf- ficiently limited that observers judged the election acceptable. Although the government had jailed the main opposition leader, Laurent Gbagbo, after the election, on the grounds that his activities incited violence, by the third quarter of 1992, the government had not only released Gbagbo, but it also had allowed him to speak at length on state-run television. It tolerated a flourishing opposition press as well as criticism in official newspapers and from technocrats who voted against the PDCI, and it conferred legal status on new, autonomous syn- dicates. Opposition members of the national assembly worked side by side with members of the long-established PDCI, their jokes attracting laughter and their comments taken seriously.

This style was partly promoted by the kinds of institutional con- straints Houphouet-Boigny faced, as detailed below. It also had prece- dents in the Ivoirien president's handling of earlier periods of discon- tent within his country, however. Felix Houphouet-Boigny generally

152

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

controlled political opposition through co-optation, periodic reasser- tion of authority over expanding and proliferating patronage networks, and tight control of the resources necessary to build a credible opposi- tion. Political violence was a fallback strategy used in comparatively fewer circumstances than was typical of many other sub-Saharan African countries, although it was most definitely part of the tactical repertoire. Most notably, Houphouit-Boigny brought younger genera- tions into his cabinet and into the party roughly every six years after independence. He convened national "days of dialogue" during periods of economic crisis, drawing hundreds of representatives of different so- cial groups into conversation with officialdom. He expanded political competition first in 1980, when he sponsored a move from single-party list voting to multi-candidate, single-party elections, then in 1990, when, on 3 May, his government sanctioned a move to a multiparty system.

As French scholar Jean-Franqois Medard has observed (1991), Daniel arap Moi's style was different. By contrast with Houphouet- Boigny, Moi long resisted pressures for expanded political participa- tion. At a time when many governments in sub-Saharan Africa were yielding to new popular pressures for participation, he reduced oppor- tunities for political competition through proscription of several forms of association, including ethnic welfare societies. He long resisted pres- sure to legalize opposition parties and continued to jail those who criti- cized his government. Only at the end of November 1991, when interna- tional donors suspended aid pending action to clean up corruption and reduce levels of political repression, did Moi promise elections.

In the campaign period, the Kenyan president differed from Houphouiet-Boigny in his relatively heavier reliance on security forces to monitor the opposition and disrupt political participation.3 He used the Kenya African National Union (KANU) youth wing and the secret police to monitor opposition, and his close ally, Nicholas Biwott, coor- dinated use of the employees and trucks of Kenya Power and Lighting to mount surveillance campaigns during and after the election. Like Houphouit-Boigny, Moi employed patronage to shatter clientelist networks that provided potential bases for competitors. He relied more heavily than his Ivoirien counterpart on violence as a political tactic, including direct promotion of ethnic clashes and killings in part of the Rift Valley, and his resort to violence persisted at a higher level after the elections took place.

In the view of observer teams, most of the standards for fair elec- tions were not met (IRI 1993). The KANU government rigged the elec- tions not by stuffing ballot boxes but by manipulating the electoral pro- cess. Civil servants delayed opposition campaigns by refusing to process documents in a timely manner. The provincial administration pre- vented opposition candidates from offering nomination papers in 17 con-

153

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

stituencies in the Rift Valley. In some places, it blocked access of par- ties and church groups to public places.

In the campaign period, KANU used its access to facilities and capital to great effect. Observer teams noted that vehicles belonging to government ministries sometimes bore KANU campaign posters and transported KANU campaign workers and candidates. There were also allegations that KANU financed its campaign by printing money, adding several billion new bank notes dated 2 January 1992 into the country's money supply and triggering higher inflation (IRI 1993, 26). Youth for KANU allegedly had access to 1.2 billion Kenya shillings through the Hospital Insurance Fund.

Election-day irregularities observed by foreign teams included late delivery of voting materials and late opening of polling places, in- sufficient voting materials in some polling stations, errors on ballot pa- pers, registration lists with voters' names missing, registration lists with pages missing, no provision for illiterate voters to cast secret bal- lots, and general confusion. With 36.45% of the vote, Moi and KANU remained in power, however. One of Moi's first acts was to suspend parliament, although he reconvened the legislature in late March 1993.

This article argues that the institutions associated with the po- litical economies of COte d'Ivoire and Kenya accounted for much of the divergence in the strategies leaders adopted during the period 1989 through 1893 but that a straightforward institutional analysis does not distinguish a Houphouet-Boigny from an Eyadema in Togo, nor a Moi from an Ali Hasan Mwinyi in Tanzania. To more completely account for the variation observed, it is essential to consider the repertoires of skills and understanding to which heads of state have resorted. Differences in leadership style are in part a function of the perceptions the men developed in the early part of their careers, although institutions shaped the short-term choices they faced. The formative events in Houphouiet-Boigny's political career taught lessons that later made it possible for "Le Vieux" to contemplate preemptive liberalization. Daniel arap Moi's early political lessons did not develop the same kinds of skills in coalition management and heightened the leader's uncertainty about his own ability to survive in competitive politics.

The Comparative Context

The Kenya and C6te d'Ivoire cases can contribute importantly to understanding the relative strength of ideas and institutions in shaping leadership styles because their many similarities permit social scien- tists to discount the significance of a number of possible sources of varia-

154

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

tion. They make a useful paired comparison because they resemble one another in the character of their resource bases, their independence-era choices of development strategy, general level of economic performance until the late 1970s, level of ethnic diversity and security situation.

Although the political economies of the two countries differ in significant ways, as outlined below, Kenya and C6te d'Ivoire share some important economic characteristics. The two countries have simi- lar resource endowments; both draw much of their revenues and foreign exchange earnings from export agriculture and specifically from sale of beverage crops-coffee, cocoa (COte d'Ivoire ), and tea (Kenya). In consequence, both experienced the "beverage boom" of the mid-1970s and the sudden cash windfalls which that generated as well as declining terms of trade during the 1980s for main crops. Production systems used in growing these commodities are also similar. Although there are important industrial plantations in each country, a substantial portion of beverage crop production remains in the hands of smallholders, who rely on a combination of family members, share tenants and hired workers for farm labor.

Economic strategies pursued at independence also shared impor- tant characteristics. Unlike many of their neighbors, these two coun- tries pursued export-oriented policies at the same time they sought to substitute domestic production for some imports. They offered growers relatively higher proportions of the world market price for the com- modities they produced, by comparison with neighboring countries in Africa, and they limited indirect taxation of export crop producers by keeping official exchange rates much closer to market rates than did most other governments south of the Sahara. They invested in rural ac- cess roads and other infrastructure designed to promote production by small farmers. They tolerated emergence of private entrepreneurs, al- though the governments also invested heavily in some sectors. Finally, they cultivated trade ties with western countries and encouraged for- eign direct investment, in contrast to Tanzania and Ghana.

In sociological and cultural terms, the two countries also share some important characteristics. Although majorities are still rural, rates of urbanization and rates of population growth are extremely high, compared to other developing countries.

Further, in neither country does one ethnic community predomi- nate. The largest ethnic group in each encompasses less than 20% of the population, and coalition building among ethnic communities is essen- tial to secure a national electoral victory.

It might be argued that because of the strength of the Kikuyu community in the Kenyan economy, Moi, a Kalenjin, faced an especially difficult negotiating challenge. It is not abundantly clear than the sit- uation of Houphouet-Boigny was much different. Certainly the Kikuyu held especially strong positions in the Kenyan economy during the first

155

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

two decades after independence, while commercial and industrial elites in COte d'Ivoire typically came from a wide variety of communi- ties. Over the past decade, the Nairobi-based business elite has grown to include members of other groups too, in large part through Moi's in- tervention to break up the dominance of his predecessor's old support- ers. By contrast with Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, both Moi and Houphouet-Boigny have had to cultivate cross-ethnic ties to secure business support.

Finally, the two countries are like one another in that although both have reputations for high levels of political stability, both have also been the site of ethnically based insurgencies and coup attempts. The similarities between the security situations in the two countries mean that it is not possible to account for the differences in strategy leaders pursued in the period of political reform. First, Kenya and COte d'Ivoire stood out from their neighbors in having survived to mid-1993 without a successful coup attempt, although members of the air force, in league with other groups, mounted a sustained struggle for power in Kenya in August 1982 and soldiers mutinied in COte d'Ivoire on several occasions during the early 1990s-at one point seizing the airport. In the aftermath of the more serious coup attempt in Kenya, the Moi gov- ernment restructured parts of the military and jailed the alleged perpe- trators. Although the event must certainly have contributed to a sense of paranoia on Moi's part, it did not distinguish his situation from those of other leaders on the continent or from Houphouiet, especially in the wake of measures to prevent a recurrence.

Second, both countries had experienced ethnic insurgencies of which vestiges survived. In neither case did these threaten state secu- rity, however. In Kenya the uprising of displaced Kikuyu squatters in the Mau Mau rebellion complicated the task of maintaining political order in the first years of independence. Moi's predecessor, Jomo Kenyatta, had to broker a compromise between the Mau Mau and the rising Kikuyu commercial class while bringing other communities into government. In the 1980s a shadowy organization, Mwakenya, re- asserted the ideals of Mau Mau, but it had little evident grassroots strength, despite its claims to the contrary.

Indeed, the Moi government masterfully rehabilitated many of the former Mau Mau leaders, whom the Kenyatta government had kept at bay, in an effort to undermine the power of Kikuyu politicians and businessmen in their communities. Under Moi's patronage, Kariuki Chotara, Fred Kubai and other former Mau Mau acquired positions of power for the first time, and others, such as Samuel Thiberi, received support from the president to compete for the elected positions formerly held by such prominent members of the Kikuyu community as former Vice-President Mwai Kibaki. The one ethnic conflict that provoked widespread violence under Moi's regime was the clash between al-

156

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

legedly government-sponsored Kalenjin, Moi's group, and Kikuyu farm- ers residing in the Rift Valley.

In COte d'Ivoire, there were two brief ethnic insurgencies under Houphouet's rule. One was the uprising of the Bete community in and around Gagnoa in the early 1970s. The second was the longer-term at- tempt of the Sanwi peoples (an Agni group in the Southeast) to secede, beginning in the late 1950s and continuing through the 1960s. Both were resolved by force. The Bete conflict persisted through the 1980s in much reduced form, and many Ivoiriens argued that the base of support of opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo and his Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) was Bete and represented a continuation of the Bete struggle for control.

The security situations were also similar in that by 1989, both countries had civil wars raging next door. Hunger was a persistent prob- lem for neighbors through most of the 1980s and both countries had be- come bases for international relief operations. By 1989, however, civil war in Liberia had created a refugee problem in the western part of the COte d'Ivoire and had started to precipitate a back-flow of weaponry and banditry into some parts of the country. To the north of Kenya, con- flict was raging in the Sudan and brewing in Somalia, whose border ar- eas with Kenya had long been closed to most traffic. Both governments faced difficult security situations, but the challenges did not differ sig- nificantly between them.

Because leadership styles, the outcomes in this analysis, vary, while these conditions do not, it is possible to discount explanations that locate the divergence between the Houphouiet and Moi strategies in a country's dependence on primary agricultural commodities, capital- ist economic orientation, ethnic heterogeneity or underlying security situation. The sources of difference must lie elsewhere.

Political Economies and Political Liberalization

The institutional legacies of French and British colonial rule shaped the strategic choices of Houphouit-Boigny and Moi in the 1989- 93 reform period. They influenced the way the burdens of economic cri- sis were distributed across members of the two societies, the extent to which independent interest groups could mobilize protests that could cripple the economy, the strength of political ties between the new op- position and the grassroots, and the ease with which the head of state could control critical electoral resources. The distinctive political economies associated with a Francophone versus Anglophone heritage created short-run constraints and opportunities for both leaders.

First, the economic crises of the 1980s affected the two countries differently, creating more intense pressure from key elites for political

157

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

change in C6te d'Ivoire than in Kenya. COte d'Ivoire is a member of the Franc Zone. That means it cannot devalue unilaterally. Further, and more importantly for this analysis, it also means that the capacity of the government to run a deficit and to borrow from its central bank is limited. By international agreement, COte d'Ivoire could only borrow limited amounts from its central bank, the BCEAO (Banque Centrale des Etats de l'Afrique de l'Ouest), a bank owned by the several member nations. It could not print money. In economic hard times, when the gov- ernment ran a deficit, the leadership had to lay off public employees, cut pay, or raise taxes sharply. None of these moves was at all popular. The need to curb the government deficit inspired a renewed effort to privatize public enterprises as well as thousands of layoffs from cash- strapped parastatals. Sharply higher taxes and elimination of many perks, such as free or subsidized housing or medical care, brought elites into the streets between January and April 1990, precipitating the move to multiparty rule on 3 May of that year.

Most African countries with Anglophone traditions have no agen- cies of external restraint such as the Franc Zone. Kenyans felt the in- creasing economic problems of their country in different ways, in conse- quence. With greater control over the management of its own currency, the government in Nairobi could borrow and print money, fueling higher levels of inflation. By keeping nominal wages constant, the gov- ernment could allow inflation to erode public sector wages. There was no serious re-structuring and sale of public enterprises (indeed, the gov- ernment created some new corporations in its effort to build political support). The deterioration in purchasing power that occurred provoked less protest than layoffs did in COte d'Ivoire, although over time it con- tributed to the sense of malaise among Kenya's elite. In short, the gov- ernment counted on money illusion to buy time and to keep discontented elites, the prime-movers behind political reform in most of Africa, off the streets and in their offices.

In this way, variations in the economic institutions of the two countries helped account for the pattern of regime change. The rules of participation in the Franc Zone meant that the urgency of liberalization, or of some other method of responding to popular discontent and channeling conflict, was initially higher in COte d'Ivoire than in Kenya. The design of monetary policy institutions distributed the costs of economic crisis differently and altered the political landscapes of the two countries, as a result.

Economic institutions heightened pressures for political reform in C6te d'Ivoire, compared to Kenya, in another sense as well. Modeled explicitly on the arrangements sought by French farmers in the 1940s and 1950s, a stabilization scheme had long protected the country's planters from fluctuations in the world prices of coffee and cocoa- commodities produced in abundance in the forest zone. The political

158

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

preference for central absorption of market risk, a legacy of the colonial period, meant that farmers received relatively stable real prices for their crops. As long as world prices did not drop persistently and as long as the government had the cash reserves to pay farmers a subsidy when world market prices dropped, this system could function. During the late 1980s, the prices of cocoa and coffee tumbled precipitously, how- ever, and the stablization fund was no longer able to pay farmers the guaranteed price (or more properly, reimburse traders for paying farm- ers the official farm-gate producer price). In 1989 the government was forced to slash prices for the two crops in half. The sums farmers re- ceived diminished even further thereafter. By 1990 the collapse of the cocoa- and coffee-based "miracle ivoirien" had produced severe reduc- tions of standards of living in the countryside, increasing demands of rural relatives upon urban kin, and a clear sense of dissatisfaction with government.

By contrast, in Kenya the government had opted for a system that had long passed a higher portion of market risk onto the farmers. That meant that when world prices for agricultural exports fell, farmers and the state divided the risk. In this way, producer prices and world mar- ket prices bore a stronger relationship to one another, and farmers re- ceived the price signals necessary to help them allocate resources more efficiently among alternatives. The collapse in world market prices was felt not as a sudden reduction in standards of living but as a gradual change, to which farmers had several years to make adjustments. Although dissatisfaction with government had grown in Kenya during the 1980s, there was no such sudden event as the slashing of cocoa and coffee prices to crystallize concern and provide a focal point for ac- tivism. Instead, political change in Kenya long remained the preserve of lawyers, clergy and politicians who suffered the government's dis- favor. The popular well-spring of support for change materialized later.

The institutional contexts of the two countries varied in a third respect too: in the way parallel associations were organized and in the amount of autonomy these groups had from the government. In COte d'Ivoire, before 1990, different producers' groups or trades unions were organized through centralized syndicates, along corporatist lines. That is, interests were structured by single, officially recognized unions, each with a monopoly over the function of representation within its sphere, often with government subsidy or sponsorship. The syndicates were part of a centralized system of peak associations and they met with decision makers at intervals and in forums set aside for that purpose. In most cases, the syndicates were tied to the ruling party.

This structure had two main implications for pressure for politi- cal reform in C~te d'Ivoire. First, it meant that Houphouet encountered stronger pressure for change in 1989 than did his counterparts in most of

159

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

Anglophone Africa, save Zambia, where the country's mining base had produced a strong, centralized union structure too. When followers broke with their old leaders in these associations, the centralized, corpo- ratist structure lowered the cost of collective action to members. It per- mitted rapid negotiation among members and helped militants monitor contributions of members to lobbying efforts, thereby reducing free- riding problems. It facilitated rapid communication. In short, it made general strikes easier to carry out.

That is exactly what happened in COte d'Ivoire. If Abidjan's elites had greater personal cause for concern, if their pocketbooks were affected more severely in the 1980s than those of their Kenyan counter- parts, they could also organize more quickly and effectively. In rapid succession, teachers, doctors, pharmacists, dentists, vets and bank workers engaged in devastating strikes between February and mid- April. Even gas station managers threatened action. New, independent syndicates took root-usually breakaway sections of the official asso- ciations the government had tolerated since independence. Some, in- cluding those representing university professors, bus drivers, govern- ment health-care workers, the government press and computer pro- grammers, formed an autonomous federation, the Federation des Syndicats Autonomes de COte d'Ivoire.

Ironically, it also lowered the costs of negotiating with different parts of Ivoirian society and reduced the perceived risks that tolerat- ing parallel associations would make COte d'Ivoire ungovernable. Even after the dominance of PDCI-linked peak associations waned, the grouping of autonomous syndicates into industry-wide, as opposed to enterprise, unions and then again into a centralized autonomous federa- tion facilitated the task of negotiation. In the past, the corporatist form had made it easier to include representatives of key segments of society in broad discussion with government officials. It made possible Houphouiet-Boigny's celebrated "jours de dialogue," or convocations of representatives of different social groups. Similarly, the prospect of be- ing able to manage the transition to multi-party rule in the incumbent's favor was increased by the centralized, corporatist structure of new, autonomous interest associations in COte d'Ivoire. In that case, there were association leaders who could be brought into negotiations and who could speak for or wield influence with members.

In this way, the structure of parallel associations bequeathed by the French added to the pressures for political change Houphouet faced, in the short-run, but also lowered the risks of chaos or ungovern- ability in the short- and medium-term. Houphouet had to offer a cre- ative response to these pressures or risk social and economic chaos. As a first step, instead of banning association activity, his government de- cided to open up political participation, not only legalizing opposition parties but also allowing new syndicates to develop and even to publish

160

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

their own newspapers. This step at once lowered the level of anger in the streets and led many of the discontented to direct their energy to the inevitably difficult task of building their own organizations. In a second phase, it sought influence less through imposition of restrictions on activity (although union members sometimes reported cases of ha- rassment) than through competition. For instance, at the same time it opened up new space for associational life, it instigated the formation of PDCI-linked rival unions almost everywhere independent groups tried to form. Thus, there were two unions representing workers in the electricity sector, two for university students, two for primary and sec- ondary school teachers, and two for telecommunications workers. Even in the area of agriculture, where smallholders had lacked an associa- tion since Houphouit-Boigny folded his Syndicat Agricole Africain (SAA) into the PDCI at independence, the government tried to counter the activity of the Syndicat des Agriculteurs de COte d'Ivoire (SYNAGCI) by inspiring the Groupements de Vocation Coop&rative (GVCs) to form a separate union of their own. (The farmers' unions, as many of the other groups, began to shed their explicitly political affil- iations with the PDCI or the opposition parties within a year or two of formation, however.) In the very short run, the strategy of the Houphouit government channeled high levels of anger among people well positioned to disrupt the economy. It then pursued a distinctive strategy designed to ensure that no one union could take all of the work- ers or managers in a sector out on strike at the same time.

By contrast, many Anglophone countries, including Kenya, had long tolerated independent employers' unions, farmers' unions and other semi-autonomous groupings on a regional-, crop-, or industry-specific basis. Only labor was organized along corporatist lines in Kenya. In most cases these groups remained outside the ruling party and had no representation in government decision making. They did not ally with one another in the kinds of party-linked federations so common before 1989 in Francophone Africa, such as the Union General des Travailleurs de COte d'Ivoire (UGTCI), which regrouped most trade unions before the move to multiparty rule.

Instead, they organized the interests of their members without central coordination or collaboration. Parallel associations in Kenya both inspired fear in the ranks of the governors, as a result of their in- dependence from the ruling party, and suffered from the burdens that fragmentation imposed on collective action. Worried about the ability of some of these organizations to engage in public protest, using inde- pendent financial resources they had amassed, the Moi government sought to undermine many of the groups or to incorporate them into KANU during the last years of the 1980s. Partly as a result of the frus- tration of their activities by the government but also because of the ab- sence of forums for collaboration and their relatively greater numbers,

161

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

the associations found it difficult to launch general strikes. Under these conditions, organizing costs were exceptionally high. As a result, Kenyan associations had less short-run bargaining power than their Ivoirien counterparts.

In Kenya, when the president's office perceived a potential chal- lenge by an economic gate-keeping group, it moved quickly to shatter the association's power base through a combination of legal restrictions and sponsorship of competitive groupings along the lines of the second stage of the Houphouit government's approach. The transport sector of- fers a case in point. Better organized than others, the transporters had demonstrated on several occasions before KANU and the president's of- fice took steps to counteract their power. In 1986 Kenya Bus Service, Ltd. withdrew bus service from the routes around Nairobi, stranding many thousands of government workers, to protest new government regu- lations banning standing room on vehicles. So great were the disorder and public outcry that the government relented, temporarily. Within three months, the political party KANU began to run nyayo buses (nyayo means "following in the footsteps" in Swahili and was among the slogans of the Moi government) on many routes, with vehicles con- tributed by European donors and the drivers, drawn from the National Youth Service, a government-run vocational training program. Moi took the decision to launch the service at a KANU parliamentary group meeting shortly after the initial protest. Two years later, in 1988, the Nyayo Bus Services Corporation was established as a public enterprise, still partly directed by the political party.

The main alternative to bus transport was the matatu system, a relatively unregulated, low-cost form of travel in converted pick-up trucks. This part of the sector proved to have strong bargaining power, too. In 1990 the government moved against owners and drivers on suspi- cion that some were playing seditious music for the passengers' listen- ing pleasure and political education-songs of protest against the raz- ing of shanty towns in Nairobi, some of Kenyatta's early speeches, and several tunes commemorating the deeds of men such as Kenneth Matiba, a wealthy businessman who had led a public bid for multi-party rule and been detained, and J. M. Kariuki, a defender of populist interests, who was assassinated during Kenyatta's reign. Many of the tapes were released and played in advance of the multiparty demonstrations and riots of mid-1990. The president's office moved quickly to de-register the offending vehicles and the Matatu Vehicle Owners Association, making it difficult for the sector to organize to influence policy.

Export-crop growers were also organized in the Kenyan economy and could exercise some bargaining power in large part because of the heavy dependence upon the revenues these generated as a source of for- eign exchange. They constituted a possible ally for the multi-party ad- vocates, at a time when the fairness and quality of government-run

162

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

agricultural services and pricing procedures had deteriorated for some crops. The Moi government moved to defuse the threat of action from farmers' unions, just as it had in the case of the transport sector. In the tea sector, the Moi government succeeded in reorganizing the Kenya Tea Development Authority to give higher prices and higher quotas to farmers in the Rift Valley, particularly from the president's Kalenjin strongholds, at the expense of the Central Province communities that cultivated the tea leaves that typically commanded higher prices on the international market. The introduction of Nyayo Tea Zones, a new parastatal, also limited the bargaining power of outraged tea farmers by flooding the tea factories with leaves from new, government- controlled land and by rendering less valuable the smallholder tea. Similarly, Moi moved to take direction of the coffee cooperatives away from Central Province farmers, who threatened potential opposition.

As a result of the different structure of parallel associations in the two countries, Daniel arap Moi was under less immediate threat of an effective strike by producers' groups and key economic gatekeepers than was Houphouit-Boigny. Whereas general strikes forced the Ivoirien president to consider political liberalization as a way of at- tenuating dissatisfaction, Moi was under no such pressure. He held out against political reform until a strike of a different sort: the hold-up of assistance from donor countries and multilateral organizations at the end of November 1991.

The fourth respect in which institutional legacies shaped incen- tives for political liberalization stemmed from the different traditions of the two countries with regard to electoral rules. Moi had more to fear from a multi-party election than did Houphouet-Boigny because of the system of electoral rules that had dominated in Kenya since indepen- dence. In Kenya, as in most Anglophone countries, multi-candidate sin- gle-party elections were the norm in the years after independence. Under these rules, those who aspired to hold seats in parliament had to show voters they could deliver. Pork barrel politics that helped ce- ment ties between voter and candidate flourished. Many politicians built extensive machines at the grassroots level. In a multi-party election, opposition parties could potentially tap these machines or bases of grassroots support. That lowered the costs of conducting an op- position campaign and hence increased the chances of an opposition vic- tory.

Moi had reason to fear this scenario. Kenneth Matiba, the earli- est and long the main opponent of the regime, had cultivated support far beyond his own constituency of Mbiri. He had invested in Mbiri over many years, luring projects into its villages and even publishing an investor's guide to help convince businesses to relocate there. He used his business contacts and his earlier prominence in the country's football federation and in Kenya Breweries to build a national network. His

163

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

speeches addressed the concerns not only of workers and business people but also of farmers, particularly tea-growers. Oginga Odinga, who rose to challenge Matiba's leadership of the opposition, could also call on a large network of Luo and the dispossessed from earlier campaigns. Mwai Kibaki, once Moi's vice-president, eventually threw his hat in the ring, and he too knew how to mobilize at the grassroots, having done so on Moi's behalf in 1978.

By contrast, until 1980, single-party list voting predominated in COte d'Ivoire. One candidate-the candidate nominated by the party- ran in each circonscription. Voters had no choice. That system created incentive for aspirants for public office to cultivate the favor of party officials, not the grassroots. In order to become a nominee, a political hopeful had to win the support of the secretaires generaux of the party at the local level and those above them in the hierarchy. For that rea- son, the party machine was much stronger in COte d'Ivoire than in Kenya through much of the country's early post-independence history, and relatively few deputes, even among the country's senior politicians, invested in projects back in the villages.

In 1980, the country moved to a multi-candidate single-party sys- tem, but few candidates had built effective grassroots machines in rural areas by the time of the 1990 elections. For opposition politicians, the absence of these networks increased the costs of conducting a campaign. Officers of new parties had few contacts in the villages. They had to build cells, first in the country's seven regional centers, then in key parts of the rural areas. As in most parts of Africa, strangers from out- side the immediate area could not simply walk in and install a repre- sentative, either. The presence of the party or even a visitor from a new party entailed a long process of introduction through the village nota- bles. Time was of the essence. In a short campaign period, the advan- tage was clearly to the incumbent party. Indeed, in all except the Agni areas, the PDCI won massively in the presidential and legislative elections.

That Houphouet had little to fear from a competitive election was revealed in the results of the 1990 polling. Although they had one prior experience of a multi-candidate election, most rural Ivoiriens ap- peared confused about the meaning of the contest. French scholar Yves Faure has examined election returns and determined that so unused to competitive party politics were most Ivoiriens that the inclusion of op- position candidates most often meant that many voters refused to vote. Turnout varied inversely with the number of candidates on the ballot (Faur& 1991, 37). Absent the cultivation of constituencies, in the short run at least, people cast their ballots for the label they knew, and when confused by competition, they did not vote.

The ease of entry into the new political arena in the absence of extensive grassroots networks and the difficulty of establishing broad

164

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

political support are reflected in the relatively greater fragmentation of the opposition in COte d'Ivoire than in Kenya. Although division among Moi's opponents and the apparent fragmentation of the democ- racy movement in Kenya along ethnic lines surprised many outside ob- servers, it was far less extensive than the splintering that occurred in COte d'Ivoire. In Kenya, after initially putting up a united front behind Charles Rubia and Kenneth Matiba and their Forum for the Restoration of Democracy (FORD), three main parties and five much smaller parties emerged to oppose KANU, the main ones including FORD-Asili led by Kenneth Matiba, FORD-Kenya led by Oginga Odinga, and the Democratic Party (DP) led by Mwai Kibaki. (The smaller parties were the Kenya Social Congress, the Labor Party Democracy, the Party of Independent Candidates of Kenya, the Kenya National Democratic Party, and the Social Democratic Party. A tenth party, unable to register because of its religious appeal, was the Islamic Party of Kenya.) Wangari Mathai's Middle Ground Group (MGG) tried to unite the opposition, but failed, at least in the short-run. By contrast, 21 parties emerged within three months of the announcement of multi- party elections in COte d'Ivoire. Only at the last minute was there lim- ited collaboration among the four largest opposition parties, and in many cases multiple opposition candidates ran against the PDCI nomi- nee, splitting the vote and ensuring that the Ivoirien opposition would acquire few seats in the legislature.

The fifth respect in which the institutional contexts in the two countries differed was in the degree of central control over critical elec- toral resources, such as the media. As in most Francophone countries, be- fore 1990, the press remained highly centralized in COte d'Ivoire. Houphouet's government had exclusive access to television and radio, managed the country's two newspapers, Fraternite Matin and Ivoire Soir, and banned publication of issues of Jeune Afrique and other maga- zines when their content appeared critical of the country's leaders. Although the government liberalized its media policies when it an- nounced the progam of political liberalization in May 1990, for the campaign period it retained substantial control over television and ra- dio, permitting coverage of other parties only late at night when most hard-working Ivoiriens were long asleep. The Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI), the main opposition group, circulated cassettes to try to make up for the lack of press coverage, but these could receive only limited dis- tribution.

In Kenya, by contrast, as in most parts of Anglophone Africa, the press was less tightly regulated, although crackdowns in the late 1980s had precipitated a much higher degree of self-censorship than existed in some earlier periods of Kenyan history. There were more non- government newspapers and periodicals than in C6te d'Ivoire, including two daily newspapers, one of which was owned by the Aga Khan. The

165

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

informal sector and matatus did a booming business in subversive tapes in the years before 1989. Church leaders used sermons as forms of politi- cal communication (they did so only after the announcement of political liberalization in COte d'Ivoire). In sum, the cost of waging an opposition campaign in Kenya was lower not only because of the existence of exten- sive grassroots political networks but also because of the more limited ability of the central government to control access to the press.

This institutional difference between the two countries disap- peared rapidly after the announcement of multi-party elections in COte d'Ivoire. Although the access of the opposition to the press during the campaign period remained limited, beginning in 1991 all media opened up considerably. State-run television gave more balanced coverage to opposition press conferences, and, although they retained their politi- cal party affiliations and sometimes turned vitriolic, both state and opposition-run newspapers gradually inched away from polemic to- ward more straightforward reportage. The number of television and ra- dio channels expanded to include more foreign news broadcasts and programs, and rates of purchase of satellite dishes suddenly out- stripped those in Senegal, where opposition parties and newspapers had long been legal. Journalists from the new press and from Fraternite Matin and the state-run television stations formed their own Union des Journalistes, which invited speakers and sponsored workshops all aimed at professional development.

This institutional explanation of the differences in leadership style between Felix Houphoueit-Boigny and Daniel arap Moi suggests that membership in the Franc Zone and the French colonial legacy of centralized producer price stabilization, corporatist interest represen- tation, party-list voting (in this case, single-party, party-list voting), and higher levels of government control over the media distinguished the political landscape in COte d'Ivoire from that in Kenya. These in- stitutions shaped the costs, benefits and risks associated with alterna- tive strategies for responding to heightened popular pressures for par- ticipation in 1989. Thereby, they influenced the leadership styles of the two heads of state. The interest groups that feature so centrally in pluralist explanations of politics were important, but the bargaining power these groups could muster varied between countries because of the distinctive political and economic institutions in place in each.

Biography and Response to Political Competition

An analysis of the institutional incentives political leaders face is necessary but not sufficient to account for the kinds of choices these elites make.'Experience and ideology shape the way leaders see the costs and risks associated with different political tactics as they unfold

166

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

over time. They influence their assessment of their own personal talents in organizing coalitions and responding to difficult situations-and thus their estimates of the particular perils attached to different courses of action. They shape the degree to which a leader may consider changing the rules of the game-that is, modifying the institutional context in- stead of living with the constraints it imposes. Social scientists there- fore neglect the role of ideas and character at their peril, as Achebe points out.

One source of these perceptions is ideology. The systems of ideas about the relationships between polity, economy and society that are embodied in shorthand form in ideologies prompt leaders to give the benefit of the doubt to some explanations of the problems they encounter and lead them to discount others. They predispose decision makers to take only some potential sources of risk seriously. They may privilege certain tactics while they downplay the usefulness of others (e.g., in some forms of Marxism, the relative usefulness or even advisability of unionization compared to electoral competition, employee buy-outs, or violence). Most important, they often prescribe learning routines or methods for evaluating new situations.

Ideologies are many and varied and need not have a base in the philosophical systems that came into conflict with each other on the continent during the Cold War. Most ideologies resemble the "local so- cial science" or "local knowledge" that James Scott describes. They are a me'lange of family religious beliefs and ethics, book-knowledge ac- quired in schools, object lessons, observations of others and even gossip. They are systematic but they are not necessarily internally consistent. Evaluating the significance and application of these beliefs requires not just content analysis of the language surrounding decisions but also an understanding of the meanings with which life experiences have en- dowed symbols and events.

Thus, to systematically assess the impact of ideas or "local knowledge" on political strategy requires observation of policy views and behavior4-and knowledge of the biographies of leaders. With the caution that further research is required to help establish the propositions offered, this section of the essay posits a causal relationship between the "local knowledge" Houphouet-Boigny and Moi forged in the course of early leadership challenges and the political tactics they employed during the period of reform that began in 1989. The claim here is that the variations in the first brushes with politics of Houphouet-Boigny and Moi in the colonial and early independence periods provided distinctive sets of perceptions and repertoires of skills. Houphouet-Boigny's early political career contained some important kinds of experiences Daniel arap Moi did not share, and these may have given the Ivoirien leader greater confidence in his ability to maneuver in a multi-party environment.

167

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

Houphouet-Boigny and Dialogue The leadership style Houphouet-Boigny exhibited in 1990-92

had its roots not only in the way five distinctive institutions shaped the options available to him and the costs and benefits attending dif- ferent strategies but also in the way his earlier political experiences shaped his own skills and preferences. Houphouet-Boigny himself had early and long experience of grassroots organizing. His efforts to launch the Syndicat Agricole Africain (SAA) and, later, the PDCI required that he build networks throughout the country during the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. At first he did so on his own, developing contacts with dif- ferent communities through his position as a paramedic on cocoa plan- tations in Guiglo, Abengourou, Dimbokro and Toumodi, where he was stationed. His initial efforts, in 1932, included writing an "anonymous" tract, "On nous a trop voles," and organizing a cocoa boycott. Upon as- suming the position of Chef du Canton des Akoue, after his brother Augustin's death in 1939, he began to constitute a farmers' union in op- position to the Planteurs de COte d'Ivoire, a syndicate that included French settlers. For five years, his activities pertaining to the nascent SAA flew in the face of the law, and he learned that it was possible to build an opposition movement underground, an achievement that may later have made him cognizant of the limited capacity of single-party systems to contain determined political entrepreneurs. In 1944 he gained the backing of the French governor, Andre Latrille, who granted legal recognition to the SAA. Able to proceed openly with his efforts, he secured a large American car for his campaign trips, with the aim of attracting attention. He established a flashy headquarters to signal his competence and his strength. Finally, he built ties with Dioula traders, because the Dioula moved frequently between regions, perforce spoke several languages, and could get the word out in a country where few of Houphouet's potential followers would be able to read, write or speak French. In 1945 he won election to the post of deput6 to the Assemblee Constituante de la Republique Frangaise, and a year later he created the PDCI out of the electoral committee of the SAA.

This community organizing phase began when Houphouet was already middle-aged and lasted for over two decades. The experience gave him first-hand knowledge of just how hard it is to forge and maintain a grassroots political base and just how unstable the commit- ments of followers can be. In 1990 the lessons of these years may well have enabled him to see that, however vociferous, the new parties and unions that clamored for recognition would be hard-pressed to marshal their forces effectively in a short campaign period.

The particular character of C~te d'Ivoire's colonial experience is likely to have shaped Houphouet's perceptions in three important ways, too. First, in their dealings with Houphouet, the French played

168

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

a good cop/bad cop routine-whether intentionally or not is unclear. Some saw him as the ally of the French communists, the embodiment of evil, and sought to send him to jail. Others dealt with him respect- fully, behind the scenes. In so doing, the behavior of French officials forced the twin recognitions that oppositions are not monolithic and that opponents sometimes change their minds. Three key events con- veyed these lessons. One was the arrival of Andre Latrille as governor of COte d'Ivoire. Latrille's mission was to weaken the generally pro- Vichy settler community, something he did by empowering Houphouet. Latrille's behavior taught that the oppressors were not all of the same view and that a political entrepreneur could use the advantages of- fered by competing factions within their ranks to build greater inde- pendence. The second key event was the willingness of Mitterrand to ignore the calls of the French right and to deal secretly with Houphouet, who became an ally of the French Communist Party through his participation in the Rassemblement Democratique Africaine (RDA) in 1946. The behind-the-scenes negotiations suggested that oppositions were rarely unified. Indeed, they could be fragmented.

If the first lesson was that oppositions are not necessarily mono- lithic, the second was that opponents often change their minds. Houphouit eventually became Ministre d61gue a la Presidence in 1957, then, in rapid succession, Ministre d'Etat, Ministre de Sante Publique et de la Population, again Ministre d'Etat, and finally Ministre Conseiller du Gouvernment Frangais pour les Affaires Etrangeres, in which capacity he served at the United Nations. This tenure in gov- ernment and Houphouit's earlier, 1946 victory in repealing forced labor provisions showed that with much effort the opposition could be won over to the support of those they had once made subject. This recogni- tion is quite clear in Houphoueit's speeches on the economic relationship between COte d'Ivoire and France. It is also reflected in patterns of deci- sion-making vis-a-vis economic matters. Less often have scholars recog- nized the likely effect of these ideas in the political realm.

If the first and second lessons of the colonial experience tempered the tendency to believe that opponents were monolithic and un- changeable in their views, the third was that multi-party politics were highly manipulable. Houphouiet had a ringside view of the machinations of political party leaders at a time when the French re- public was in a deep political crisis. He also watched as the French, fearful of an overwhelming PDCI victory in C6te d'Ivoire, loaned a helping hand to several opposition parties there, encouraging creation of ethnic political groupings, in particular. He could not have helped but have come away with a sense of the extent to which it is possible for a well-financed and shrewd political entrepreneur to shape out- comes in competitive party systems. However much people might want to equate form and substance, multi-party competition and democracy

169

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

are not the same. Houphouet learned that lesson at the hands of the French.

Houphouet-Boigny held his positions in the SAA and in the French government long enough to know that people's views can change and that most opportunities, if missed, do come around again, even if in different forms. These experiences cultivated a relatively longer time- horizon in Houphouet's decision making by comparison with many other African heads of state. That capacity to envision a long run, to think that there could be a later time when others would have greater incentive to bargain, is essential to a spirit of compromise, which en- tails trade-offs over time.

Whether Houphouet interpreted these encounters in exactly the manner expressed here is not known. What is clear is that in an earlier era, the Ivoirien president had himself occupied situations analogous to those of his contemporary opposition, and he had observed the ways in which the French authorities dealt with him and with other oppo- nents. Further, there is a stiking resemblance between his handling of the events of 1990 and the French management of decolonization during the 1940s and 1950s.

Moi and Nyayo Daniel arap Moi's early political experiences were quite differ-

ent from those of Felix Houphouet-Boigny. In the pre-independence pe- riod, he began his career as a teacher at a remote school, but he ad- vanced so quickly through the ranks that he never spent more than a year in a position. A year was scarcely long enough to launch programs to make visions real or even to make incremental improvements in the operation of an organization. It could have brought little serious expe- rience of coalition-building or of planning strategies with long time- horizons, in consequence. These are the kinds of experiences that teach ways of taking short-run losses in order to build the base for long-run gain and how to maintain ties with opponents whose help one may need in the longer term.

Second, Daniel arap Moi never had to organize a grass-roots cam- paign himself. His first experience in elected office came when he had to fill a seat vacated by another. Later in his career, others ran his campaigns for him. Charles Njonjo and Mwai Kibaki, a technocrat, brokered Moi's 1978 victory. They, not Moi, knew firsthand the me- chanics of organizing a campaign and the difficulties of making deals stick. They, not Moi, sat for days with representatives from different parts of the country in order to compose an ethnically and regionally balanced slate that would secure broad support. Although known for traveling to visit government projects in the field, Moi never had pri-

170

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

mary responsibility for negotiating electoral support in ethnically di- verse communities, while Houphouet-Boigny did have such experience.

Further, Moi's experience in brokering elite coalitions or alliances was limited. His role within the Kenyatta government gave him back- ground in overseeing police and security forces, not in cutting deals with politicians over the distribution of economic benefits. Indeed, he was one of the key figures behind the effort to close down the Kenya People's Union (KPU), rather than to negotiate a compromise to keep the radical wing of the party in the fold (Widner 1992, 58-59). Although some have suggested that Moi acquired equivalent experi- ence in his efforts to build a Kalenjin identity and political base (Kasfir 1993), this effort on his part was based more on the exclusion of important politicians in his community-for example, support for the detention of J. M. Kariuki-supporter Jean-Marie Seroney, son of his own teacher-and elevation of others such as Nicholas Biwott through state patronage than on compromising with people of different points of view.

Moi may also have acquired from his early political career a more limited sense of the ambiguity and malleability of political iden- tities. Whereas Houphouit's experience with the French suggested that the opposition was not necessarily monolithic, Moi's experience of political competition or opposition came mainly from his participation in the Kenya African Democratic Union (KADU) conflict with KANU. He was one of those KADU members who eventually folded his tent and joined KANU. KADU then disappeared. He had no sustained experience as a member of an opposition and consequently no op- portunity to learn the many variations the face of power may have over time and between settings and individuals.

Conclusions

The differences in response to popular demands for political change in 1989-90 by Houphou@t-Boigny and Daniel arap Moi stem from both incentives generated by the countries' different political legacies and the early colonial- and independence-era political experiences of the two leaders. The kinds of political tactics the men chose depended on calculations about 1) the institutional capacity to attenuate the ef- fects of economic crisis on the incomes of key elites; 2) the way economic institutions distributed the risks associated with sales of export crops and thereby affected the sense of well-being among rural majorities; 3) the threat of concerted action by parallel associations to public order; 4) the extent to which opposition groups could quickly secure support at the grassroots; and 5) the ability to control opposition access to the media. In Houphouet's case, the institutions of the Franc Zone

171

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

limited the ability of the government to let salaries erode through inflation and necessitated salary cuts, layoffs or taxes-all guaranteed to provoke reaction. Moreover, although the government had tightly controlled association through syndicates linked to the ruling party, when the followers broke with the union leaders, they were well- positioned to engage in general strikes. If political liberalization looked like a means of defusing discontent and channeling frustration, it also looked relatively safe. That is, the dependence on single-party list voting until the 1980s meant that few politicians had organized constituencies or built machines at the grassroots level. As long as elections occurred shortly after the legalization of opposition parties, Houphouit and the PDCI were sure to capture most of the rural vote. Finally, tight control over television and radio during the campaign meant that the president and the PDCI could convey their views more effectively than could the opposition. For this reason, too, an election did not appear to threaten the chance of another term in office.

In Moi's case these calculations produced different results. Absent the constraints of participation in the Franc Zone, it was much easier to allow inflation to eat away at the standards of living of elites, with- out forcing major restructurings, layoffs or taxes. The impact of economic crisis on the country's elites was not as dramatic as it was in COte d'Ivoire, in consequence. Second, although most possessed greater auton- omy than their Francophone counterparts, parallel associations were not centralized and faced considerable collective action problems, lim- iting the degree to which they could bring pressure to bear on the gov- ernment for democratic reforms. No matter how compelling their moral case, the groups in the Nairobi streets lacked the leverage of critical economic gatekeepers and could not threaten the regime effectively in consequence. Further, if Houphouiet believed he could win a competitive election because his opponents would be hard-pressed to organize con- stituencies quickly, Moi had reason to think just the opposite. With its long tradition of hotly contested single-party multi-candidate elec- tions, many politicians operated powerful grassroots machines. These could help marshall support for opposition candidates and did so, al- though they split their votes among too many to displace the presi- dent. Finally, the government had a less complete monopoly over the media than did the Houphouit regime, in COte d'Ivoire. Again, this characteristic not just of Kenya, but of other Anglophone countries, may have heightened Moi's fear that the opposition would be able to win a competitive election. The result of his calculation was to hold out against political liberalization until forced by donors to engage in democratic reforms.

The biographies of the two presidents also influenced the choice of political tactics or leadership style. This part of the analysis re- mains speculative and offers a direction for future research. It suggests

172

Leadership Styles and Political Liberalization

that Houphouit's apparent confidence that he could win a competitive election most likely also had roots in his long experience with community organizing and campaigning, while the lack of hands-on campaign work in Moi's background may have inclined him to overes- timate the extent of the threat posed by the opposition. Likewise, a finely tuned sense of the many ways in which oppositions can collapse enabled Houphouit to legalize opposition parties and hold elections with considerable confidence that the outcome would favor the PDCI. Indeed, it also helped his party strategically precipitate division and disorganization in some quarters. Institutional incentives alone did not account for the divergent leadership styles of the two men. Different personal histories generated distinctive repertoires of skills and thereby influenced perceptions of opportunities and risk during the pe- riod of political change.

Notes

1. For a more detailed and comparative version of this argument than appears in these pages, see Widner 1994.

2. Academic analyses of political reform in C6te d'Ivoire include Bakary 1991a, 1991b; Crook 1991 and Faur6 1991.

3. There are several important descriptions and analyses of the period of the 1991-93 period of political change in Kenya. These include Holmquist and Ford 1992, Barkan 1993, Cohen 1993, and the International Republican 1993. See also Widner 1992.

4. The writing of Robert Putnam (1973) and Anthony King (1973) on ideology and policy provide models for this kind of research.

References

Achebe, Chinua. 1993. The New York Times, June. . The Trouble with Nigeria. Portsmouth, HN: Heinemann Educational Books.

Bakary, Tessy. 1991a. La Democratie par le haut. Paris: L'Harmattan. . 1991b "Le Retour au pluralisme politique en C6te d'Ivoire." Annee africaine, 1990-

1991, 161-190. Barkan, Joel D. 1993. "Kenya: Lessons from a Flawed Election." Journal of Democracy 4/3

(July 1993): 85-99. Cohen, John M. 1993. "The Importance of Public Service Reform: The Case of Kenya."

Journal of Modern African Studies 31/3 (September 1993): 449-76. Crook, Richard. 1991. "Les Changements politiques en C6te d'Ivoire: une approche insti-

tutionelle." Annee africaine, 1990-1991, 87-114. Faurt, Yves-A. 1991. "L'conomie politique d'une d6mocratisation: 6lements d'analyse

'

propos de l'experience recente de la C6te d'ivoire." Politique africaine 43 (October): 31- 49.

Holmquist, Frank and Michael Ford. 1992. "Kenya: Slouching Toward Democracy." Africa Today 3: 97-111.

International Republican Institute. 1993. "Kenya: The December 29, 1992 Elections." Paper prepared for the United States Agency for International Development New York: IRI.

King, Anthony. 1973. "Ideas, Institutions, and the Policies of Governments: A Comparative Analysis." British Journal of Political Science, 34 (July/October 1973): 291-313; 409-23.

173

AFRICAN STUDIES REVIEW

Medard, Jean-Frangois. 1991. "The Historical Trajectories of the Ivorian and Kenyan States." In Rethinking Third World Politics, edited by James Manor, 185-212. New York:

Longman. Palma, Giuseppe de. 1992. To Craft Democracies. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Putnam, Robert. 1973. "Political Attitudes of Senior Civil Servants in Western Europe."

British Journal of Political Science, 3 (July): 257-90. Widner, Jennifer A. 1992. The Rise of a Party-State in Kenya: From Harambee! to Nyayo!

Berkeley: University of California Press. . 1994. "Political Reform in Anglophone and Francophone African Countries." In

Economic Change and Political Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa, edited by Jennifer A. Widner, 49-79. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

174