Preventing Governmental Overthrow during the Global Food Price Crisis. How Repression and Partly Effective Concessions allowed the Cameroonian Government to Regain Control during the February 2008 Protests.

Abstract

During the Global Food Price Crisis of 2007-08, Cameroon experienced its first serious societal disruption after its independence. Nevertheless, unlike other countries facing comparable uprisings, the Biya government of Cameroon was able to regain control. This study explains what strategies enabled the Biya government to remain in power and prevent major internal conflicts until it gained a renewed mandate during the October 2011 elections. The three variables proposed by political scientist Harry Eckstein to analyse government actions during uprisings – “effective repression”, “diversionary mechanisms” and “adjustive mechanisms” – are used as analytical framework. Applying this framework, this paper adds two key insights to the historiographic debates on government responses to uprisings. Firstly, it provides insights into the hitherto limitedly examined concessional government responses in instances where living costs sparked protests. Secondly, this is the first time Eckstein’s model is applied to analyse a case study. Consequently, this study shows the model’s usages and limitations: it demonstrates the need to consider Eckstein’s three variables as a continuum. This research also underlines the importance of including an analysis of the effectiveness of adjustive measures, and thus the need to add additional categories to Eckstein’s model. This research shows that, while harsh repression was a central strategy, the government implemented short-term and longer-term oriented adjustive measures as a response to the protestors’ demands of lowering the costs of living. Many of these measures were only partly effective. Nevertheless, the costs of living and their inflation decreased, thereby lowering the burden the Global Food Price Crisis posed upon Cameroonian citizens.