René Lemarchand
Biographic Data
| ID | 3585754 |
|---|---|
| NAME | René Lemarchand |
| GIVEN NAMES | René |
| FAMILY NAME | Lemarchand |
| SIGNATURE | LEMARCHAND R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Florida |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 92 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 701 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 92 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1961 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
African Kingships in Perspective: Political Change and Modernization in Monarchical Settings
Arts & Literature: Looking Back at the Roots of Genocides in Ex-Belgian Africa
Remembering Genocides in Central Africa
Scene of one of the biggest genocides of the last century Rwanda has become a household word, yet bitter disagreements persist as to its causes and consequences. Through a blend of personal memories and historical analysis, and informed by a lifelong experience of research in Central Africa, the author challenges conventional wisdom and suggests a new perspective for making sense of the appalling brutality that has accompanied the region's post-i…
The State, the Parallel Economy, and the Changing Structure of Patronage Systems
This chapter discusses the issues in light of traditional and contemporary forms of patronage or, more accurately, by looking at patronage as distinct from "tribute" and "prebends." It discusses the transformation of African patronage systems seen from a political economy perspective. The chapter examines an attempt is made to show the relationship between systematic bureaucratic corruption and the emergence of parallel economies, and the impact …
The State and Society in Africa: Ethnic Stratification and Restratification in Historical and Comparative Perspective
This chapter examines the views of Marxist and developmental analysts. It focuses on to an exploration of the ways in which the dual processes of state formation and social differentiation have been linked in time and space. While considerable effort has been spent on exploring the internal dynamics of class and ethnicity, and asserting the claims of one over the other, the terms of the debate suggest that much of contemporary Africa is reducible…
Burundi and Rwanda (Hutu, Tutsi)
No two other states in Africa have as much in common as Rwanda and Burundi in terms of size, social structure, language, and colonial experience; yet their trajectories since independence have been radically different. Both have experienced genocide, but the victims in each case belonged to different ethnic communities; they both went through the agonies of civil war, but emerged from this ordeal with strikingly contrasting political systems and …
War and nationalism: The view from Central Africa
[T]he clue to an understanding of nationalism is its weakness at least as much as its strength. It was the dog who failed to bark who provided the vital clue for Sherlock Holmes. The numbers of potential nationalisms which failed to bark is far, far larger than those which did, though they have captured all our attention.Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (1983: 43)
Reflections on the Recent Historiography of Eastern Congo
Considering the scale of violence that has accompanied the crisis in eastern Congo, the avalanche of academic writings on the subject is hardly surprising. Whether it helps us better understand the region's tortured history is a matter of opinion. This critical article grapples with the contributions of the recent literature on what has been described as the deadliest conflict since the Second World War. The aim, in brief, is to reflect on the hi…
The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa
This collection of essays explores the contemporary crises in Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo-Kinshasa, offering important new insights into the cycle of genocidal violence, ethnic strife, and civil war that has made the Great Lakes region of Central Africa the most violent on the continent
Burundi and Rwanda (Hutu, Tutsi)
There is more to Rwanda and Burundi than the arcane histories of two overpopulated (7 million each), poverty‐stricken micro‐states in the heart of the African continent: their minute size belies the magnitude of the tragedies they have suffered. The first will go down in history as the site of one of the biggest genocides of the last century, resulting in the systematic killing of an estimated 800,000 people, mostly Tutsi, in a hundred days from …
Consociationalism and Power Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Journal Article Consociationalism and Power Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo Get access René Lemarchand René Lemarchand Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 106, Issue 422, January 2007, Pages 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adl041 Published: 02 November 2006
Unsimplifying Darfur
Much of the debate about genocide in Darfur appears woefully misinformed about the complex realities of the crisis, in particular its growing imbrication with the conflict in neighboring Chad. The parallel with Rwanda is limited, even though, in both cases, the international community has failed utterly to stop the atrocities committed against innocent civilians. No prevention strategy is likely to succeed unless cross-border raids from Chad into…
Où va le Tchad
Cet article s’efforce de dresser un bilan de l’évolution politique du Tchad sous la présidence d’Idriss Déby, et plus particulièrement depuis 2003, lorsque l’accès à la manne pétrolière fait passer le taux de croissance économique de 1 % en 2001 à 48 % en 2004. Les retombées de la rente pétrolière ont généré de très fortes tensions. Les bouleversements socio-économiques, introduits par la mise en valeur des champs de pétrole se sont traduits par …
Bearing Witness to Mass Murder
The third day after leaving Tingi-Tingi we began to pass the bodies of the dead and the dying.... My eye fell on a teenager hardly sixteen years old. Like the others she was lying at the side of the road, her large eyes open.... A cloud of flies swarmed around her. Ants and other forest insects crawled around her mouth, nose, eyes and ears. They began to devour her before she had taken her last breath. The death rattle that from time to time esca…
Sommers, Marc. – Fear in Bongland. Burundi Refugees in Tanzania: New York, Berghahn Books, 2001, p. 216
Sur environ trois millions et demi de refugiés enrégistrés dans le continent africain, plus d’un demi-million proviennent du Burundi. L’exode de centaines de milliers de paysans hutu vers les territoires avoisinants est l’une des conséquences les plus tragiques et les plus méconnues des tueries qui, jusqu’à ce jour, ensanglantent le Burundi. De 1965 à 1972 environ 150 000 ont pris la fuite vers la Tanzanie, d’autres vers le Rwanda et le Congo, re…
La mémoire en rivale de l'histoire
Aujourd’hui, tous les Barundi, Tutsi, Hutu, Twa, chacun à leur façon (mais rarement en commun, encore moins en communion) portent le deuil des proches et des amis qui ont été victimes des incessantes tueries qui ont ravagé le pays avant même son accès à l’indépendance. C’est par centaines de milliers que se comptent les veuves et les orphelins, hutu et tutsi confondus. S’ils connaissent l’identité des disparus, leur reconnaissance n’a jamais été …
Ruhimbika, Manassé (Müller). – Les Banyamulenge (Congo-Zaïre) entre deux guerres (préface de B. Jewsiewicki): Paris, L’Harmattan, 2001, 299 p
À la fois témoignage, contribution à l’histoire immédiate et recueil de documents, la plupart appartenant à ce qu’il est convenu d’appeler la « littérature grise », ce livre est d’une importance capitale pour qui veut saisir le destin tragique de cette communauté encore trop méconnue. Longtemps engagé dans les projets de développement rural du Kivu, président de la mutuelle Milima avant de fonder le collectif des Forces républicaines fédéralistes…
Vansina, Jan. – Le Rwanda ancien: Le royaume Nyiginya
Voici un livre fascinant, provocateur, riche de réflexions sur le passé et le présent, un livre choc, écrit par le plus réputé des historiens du Rwanda précolonial. En nous invitant à le suivre dans cette plongée dans l’histoire, Jan Vansina prend en quelque sorte le relais des abacurabwenge de l’ancien Rwanda (« ceux qui forgent le savoir »). À ceci près, cependant, que ces derniers étaient les vecteurs d’une histoire officielle que l’auteur s’e…
The tunnel at the end of the light
For those of us old enough to remember what in the 1960s was known as ‘the Congo crisis’ ‐ soon to become the ‘endless crisis'‐ the tragic singularity of the present conjuncture is perhaps less apparent than some of the contributions to this special issue on the Congo might suggest. No one who lived through the agonies of the Congo's improvised leap into independence ‐ followed by the swift collapse of the successor state and the break‐up of the …
A History of Genocide in Rwanda
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and Genocide in Rwanda . By M AHMOOD M AMDANI . Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000. Pp. xvi+364. $29.95/£19.95 ( ISBN 0-691-05821-0)
Disconnecting the threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust reconsidered
The Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are two of the most terrifying and complex catastrophes of the 20th century. Whether measured by the scale of the atrocities committed against Jews and Tutsi, the distinctiveness of their collective identities, and the deliberate, purposeful manner of their annihilation, there are compelling reasons for seeing in the Rwanda carnage a tropical version of the Shoa. Little wonder if time and again the better kno…
Le génocide de 1972 au Burundi: Les silences de l’Histoire
Vingt-deux ans avant l’hécatombe du Rwanda, qui fit environ 600 000 victimes, la plupart tutsi, un autre génocide ensanglantait la région des Grands Lacs : entre 200 000 et 300 000 Hutu furent massacrés par l’armée du Burundi à la suite d’une rébellion hutu qui fit des milliers de victimes chez les Tutsi. Au Rwanda comme au Burundi le meurtre de masse porte tous les signes distinctifs du génocide : le ciblage ethnique des victimes, l’intentionnal…
The Shallow Graves of Rwanda
How does the world community, and particularly the United Nations, deal with genocide? Shallow Graves of is an account of the UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in Rwanda in the mid-1990s. Shaharyar M. Khan's tenure began in the immediate aftermath of the downing of President Habarimana's plane on 6 April 1994 and the massacres that followed. Khan details his encounters with the region's leading actors - Rwanda's soldiers and politicia…
Le (Non)-Renouvellement des Elites en Afrique Sub-Saharienne
Une Colline Entre Mille ou Le Calms Avant la Tempete: Transformations et Blocages du Rwanda Rural
Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Solidarities in Nation-Building
The concept of political clientelism is one if the few genuinely crosscultural concepts available to political scientists for the comparative study of transitional systems. As a descriptive concept, political clientelism helps us uncover patterns of relationships which deviate markedly from those ordinarily associated with class or ethnicity. As an analytic concept political clientelism provides crucial insights into the internal dynamics of soci…
Political Clientelism and Development: A Preliminary Analysis
This is a consideration of political clientelism and its role in development at different stages and under different political systems. Clientelism refers to a personalized and reciprocal relationship between an inferior and a superior or an inferior group and a superior group commanding unequal resources. Status differences determine the complementary rights and duties in the client relationship. Clientelism is a necessary but not a sufficient c…
The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa
This collection of essays explores the contemporary crises in Rwanda, Burundi, and the Congo-Kinshasa, offering important new insights into the cycle of genocidal violence, ethnic strife, and civil war that has made the Great Lakes region of Central Africa the most violent on the continent
Uncivil States and Civil Societies: How Illusion Became Reality
WhatGeertz refers to as the 'pigeonhole disease' is nowhere more evident than in the persistent tendency of political scientists to locate state and society in separate conceptual niches: one inhabited by a potentially predatory species and the other by a defenceless and fully domesticated pigeon. Only where a recognisable entity is sharing the characteristics of a state system, whose boundaries are analytically separate from those of the social …
Consociationalism and Power Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Journal Article Consociationalism and Power Sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo Get access René Lemarchand René Lemarchand Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 106, Issue 422, January 2007, Pages 1–20, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adl041 Published: 02 November 2006
Genocide in the Great Lakes: Which Genocide? Whose Genocide
There can be no reconciliation between Hutu and Tutsi without justice, and no justice without truth. This proposition holds true for all three states of former Belgian Africa. In Rwanda and Burundi, in particular, getting at the truth will remain problematic as long as the perpetrators of genocide readily cast themselves in the role of victims, and the victims, in turn, are seen as perpetrators by their enemies. Basic disagreements between Hutu a…
The Zanzibar Revolution and Its Aftermath
Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice
The Burundi paradox 2. The meta-conflict: violence as discourse 3. History as prologue 4. The crystallization of ethnic tensions 5. The 1972 watershed 6. The restructuring of state-society relations 7. The 1988 killings: the anatomy of fear 8. Toward a grand settlement 9. Hegemony, consociationalism, democracy, or none of the above? 10. Epilogue References Index
Managing Transition Anarchies: Rwanda, Burundi, and South Africa in Comparative Perspective
Againstthe backdrop of Africa's recent transitions to multi-party democracy, two countries stand at opposite ends of a spectrum of success and failure that ranges from the apocalyptic to the nearly miraculous. At one extreme, South Africa, the site of what has been described as 'one of the most extraordinary political transformations of the twentieth century', where the people 'have defied the logic of their past, and broken all the rules of soci…
Africa's Troubled Transitions
Africa's Troubled Transitions René Lemarchand (bio) Throughout much of Africa, the decline of authoritarian rule has been greeted with a mixture of euphoria and apprehension. The initial burst of popular enthusiasm ignited by the flame of democratization is giving way to a growing realization among Africans that, as one wag put it, "at the end of the light is the tunnel." Widespread evidence of political liberalization notwithstanding, there are …
Chad: The Misadventures of the North-South Dialectic
Is there more to Chad than the murderous idiosyncrasies of an improbable state which shares with its neighbors the vicissitudes of drought, famine, and environmental bankruptcy? The question is not merely rhetorical. In order to bring the present conflicts and confusions within the realm of comparative discourse, the uniqueness of the Chadian crisis must be assessed against its generic traits. To those of us who once debated whether Zaire was a u…
The Limits of Self-Determination: The Case of the Katanga Secession
Not the least paradoxical aspect of the United Nations mandate in the Congo, as described in the three-power resolution adopted by the Security Council on November 24, 1961, is that it was designed to prevent the exercise of a right which is explicitly recognized by the Charter. In effect, by "completely rejecting the claim of the Katanga as a sovereign independent Nation" and "recognizing the government of the Republic of the Congo as exclusivel…
Power and Stratification in Rwanda: A Reconsideration
Lemarchand René. Power and Stratification in Rwanda: A Reconsideration. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 6, n°24, 1966. pp. 592-610
Une Colline Entre Mille ou Le Calms Avant la Tempete: Transformations et Blocages du Rwanda Rural
Libya, Chad and the Central Sahara
Libya and Chad have gone to war with each other several times since Independence, ostensibly over their rival claims to the disputed Aozou strip. ^IJohn Wright, senior political analyst in the BBC Arabic Service, traces the ethnic, cultural and economic links between them over the centuries and shows how these connections contribute to present rivalries
The Report of the National Commission to Study the Question of National Unity in Burundi: A Critical Comment
In May 1989 the National Commission for the Study of National Unity appointed by President Pierre Buyoya issued its eagerly awaited report, ostensibly designed to find a lasting solution to the bloody confrontations that have repeatedly pitted Hutu against Tutsi. For the first time in the history of independent Burundi an official statement has been made public which explicitly recognises the centrality of the Hutu-Tutsi problem, and sets forth s…
La politique africaine de François Mitterrand
Reflections on the Recent Historiography of Eastern Congo
Considering the scale of violence that has accompanied the crisis in eastern Congo, the avalanche of academic writings on the subject is hardly surprising. Whether it helps us better understand the region's tortured history is a matter of opinion. This critical article grapples with the contributions of the recent literature on what has been described as the deadliest conflict since the Second World War. The aim, in brief, is to reflect on the hi…
The tunnel at the end of the light
For those of us old enough to remember what in the 1960s was known as ‘the Congo crisis’ ‐ soon to become the ‘endless crisis'‐ the tragic singularity of the present conjuncture is perhaps less apparent than some of the contributions to this special issue on the Congo might suggest. No one who lived through the agonies of the Congo's improvised leap into independence ‐ followed by the swift collapse of the successor state and the break‐up of the …
Disconnecting the threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust reconsidered
The Holocaust and the Rwanda genocide are two of the most terrifying and complex catastrophes of the 20th century. Whether measured by the scale of the atrocities committed against Jews and Tutsi, the distinctiveness of their collective identities, and the deliberate, purposeful manner of their annihilation, there are compelling reasons for seeing in the Rwanda carnage a tropical version of the Shoa. Little wonder if time and again the better kno…
African Peasantries, Reciprocity and the Market. The Economy of Affection Reconsidered
R. Lemarchand — Paysanneries africaines, réciprocité et marché : l'économie de l'affection réexaminée. Voulant être un concept opératoire, l'économie de l'affection nous donne des paysanneries africaines une vision par trop totalisante et atemporelle pour en cerner les dynamismes face à l'économie de marché. Le concept d'échange social, par contre, met davantage l'accent sur les termes des transactions qui régissent les rapports d'accommodement e…
Bearing Witness to Mass Murder
The third day after leaving Tingi-Tingi we began to pass the bodies of the dead and the dying.... My eye fell on a teenager hardly sixteen years old. Like the others she was lying at the side of the road, her large eyes open.... A cloud of flies swarmed around her. Ants and other forest insects crawled around her mouth, nose, eyes and ears. They began to devour her before she had taken her last breath. The death rattle that from time to time esca…
La Face Cachée de la Décentralisation: Réseaux, Clientèles et Capital Social
Parler de decentralisation aujourd'hui est une gageure parce qu'elle declenche, tout comme la decolonisation a une autre epoque, des passions d'une telle violence, qu'on realise seulement a ce moment les veritables enjeux qu'elle recouvre (Cauris, Bamako, decembre 1994). Instruit de cette mise en garde, c'est avec prudence que je m'aventure sur ce terrain seme d'embuches que represente la decentralisation. Si les enjeux sont a la mesure des pussi…
Military Coups in Sub-Saharan Africa: How to Justify Illegal Assumptions of Power
This is a comparative study of military coups in Africa south of the Sahara between 1958 and 1980. The study is divided into three parts. The first part deals with some different theories found in
American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance
The Bases of Nationalism among the Bakongo
Opening ParagraphNationalist assertions among the Bakongo have been at the forefront of the active resistance movements which ultimately led the Belgian Government to grant the Congo its independence. These reactions to the Belgian presence, which can be traced back to the early twenties, expressed themselves in highly diversified forms and with varying degrees of intensity. From the early days of the Belgian rule, however, a duality of tendencie…
The Limits of Self-Determination: The Case of the Katanga Secession
Not the least paradoxical aspect of the United Nations mandate in the Congo, as described in the three-power resolution adopted by the Security Council on November 24, 1961, is that it was designed to prevent the exercise of a right which is explicitly recognized by the Charter. In effect, by "completely rejecting the claim of the Katanga as a sovereign independent Nation" and "recognizing the government of the Republic of the Congo as exclusivel…
Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo
This work examines the factors that contributed to Congolese political fragmentation encompassing the colonial administrative framework, the impact of western political and economic forces, and the transformations brought about by Christianity and western education
Social Change and Political Modernisation in Burundi
Too often dismissed as a feudal backwater in a seething continent, the kingdom of Burundi has scarcely received the attention it deserves from social scientists. If not out of indifference, perhaps out of sheer consternation in the face of the contradictory policies followed by its successive governments, most outside observers have prudently avoided speculating on future developments in this part of Central Africa. This neglect is unfortunate on…
Power and Stratification in Rwanda: A Reconsideration
Lemarchand René. Power and Stratification in Rwanda: A Reconsideration. In: Cahiers d'études africaines, vol. 6, n°24, 1966. pp. 592-610
Rwanda and Burundi
Political Clientelism and Development: A Preliminary Analysis
This is a consideration of political clientelism and its role in development at different stages and under different political systems. Clientelism refers to a personalized and reciprocal relationship between an inferior and a superior or an inferior group and a superior group commanding unequal resources. Status differences determine the complementary rights and duties in the client relationship. Clientelism is a necessary but not a sufficient c…
Eboue
Rwanda and Burundi
Political Clientelism and Ethnicity in Tropical Africa: Competing Solidarities in Nation-Building
The concept of political clientelism is one if the few genuinely crosscultural concepts available to political scientists for the comparative study of transitional systems. As a descriptive concept, political clientelism helps us uncover patterns of relationships which deviate markedly from those ordinarily associated with class or ethnicity. As an analytic concept political clientelism provides crucial insights into the internal dynamics of soci…
African Power Through the Looking-Glass
The language of African scholarship, like Africa itself, is a harp of many strings. It allows for countless variations, even though the central theme may recur. 'Power' is undoubtedly one of the most familiar of such themes: the variations played upon it are legion, ranging from the popular to the esoteric, from the classical to the lyrical.Jean Ziegler's tune in his latest work, Le Pouvoir africain (Paris, 1971), clearly fits into the latter cat…
Burundi: The Tragic Years
Ethnic genocide
The C.I.A. in Africa: How Central? How Intelligent
The virtuousness of the intentions conveyed by David Newsom's homily is indeed difficult to reconcile with the staggering evidence to the contrary recently disclosed through senatorial investigations, press reports, and various other sources. In the context of the post-Watergate era – when Americans have been told of the massive and direct involvement of the C.I.A. in the Angolan civil war, of the assassination plans against the late Patrice Lumu…
Natives and ethnics
Misson for Hammarskjold: The Congo Crisis
African Kingships in Perspectives
The Militarization of African Politics
Church and Revolution in Rwanda
American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance
American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance
offers Bender's outstanding analysis of the U.S. Angolian intervention...two stimulating essays on the regional role of the CIA (by Stephen Weissman and Lemarchand himself), and two divergent views of the best U.S. policy toward South Africa by William J. Foltz and R. Hunt Davis, Jr
Rethinking Southern Africa and United States Interests: Policy, Politics, and Economic Implications
The Politics of Sara Ethnicity: A Note on the Origins of the Civil War in Chad
R. Lemarchand — La politique d'ethnicité sara : note sur les origines de la guerre civile au Tchad. Analyse de l'apparition d'un sentiment d'appartenance commune chez les divers groupes collectivement désignés sous le nom de « Sara » (Ngambay, Mbay, Majingay, Kaba, Lari, etc.). Le phénomène, avec son corollaire d'opposition à base régionale, est assez courant en Afrique, son originalité propre étant, ici, d'être lié à une sorte de conscience de c…
Africa Contemporary Record: 1977-78, Annual Survey and Documents
American Policy in Southern Africa: The Stakes and the Stance
Political science (76 works) · Law (33 works) · Sociology (30 works) · Geography (27 works) · African history and culture studies (24 works) · History (22 works) · Politics (21 works) · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts (20 works) · Global Peace and Security Dynamics (19 works) · African Studies and Geopolitics (16 works)