Militancy extra-territorial: Cameroon People's Democratic Movement (CPDM) confronts opposition movements
Author: Sylvestre Noa, sylvestrenoa@gmail.com
Department: Département de sociologie
University: Université de Yaoundé 1, Cameroon
Supervisor: Nga Ndongo Valentin
Year of completion: 2021
Language of dissertation: French
Keywords:
extra-territorial militancy
, CPDM
, opposition movements
Areas of Research:
Political Sociology
, Social Movements, Collective Action and Social Change
Abstract
This thesis stems from the observation that contrary to a common idea, Cameroonians living abroad engage in real political rivalry. In other words, the government and the opposition groups each have their allies who vigorously compete for the political field. The question that arose from this observation was how is this political field constituted? It materializes through the export of practices, activists and local political organizations, to preserve the presence on the general political field, the militant action of external citizens. This hypothesis has been supported by a triple theoretical foundation: the theories of collective action, the sociology of activism and political transnationalism. In the end, it appears that the perception of the extreme politicization of external citizens in the African context in general, and that of Cameroon in particular, needs to be put into perspective. It is for this reason that the notion of extra-territorial activism was imposed on this study, which introduces a nuance in the perception of the diaspora, often abusively considered as a political subject. Diaspora is not synonymous with political subject. The advantage of the extraterritorial concept is that it makes this distinction. It also defines the extraterritorial subject as any citizen politically marked abroad by a national political identity (a political organisation). The political commitment of external actors, therefore, does not emerge from a break with the national political field as postulated by political transnationalism. Extraterritorial activism reflects this export of the political field, which takes advantage of the inherent mobility of the contemporary nation state through its capacity to project itself beyond its intangible borders. Because the state has become highly mobile, political activity also finds vitality in the different places where it is established. By giving itself an external existence, the state creates the conditions for the development of political activity. The Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) and the opposition movements facing it take advantage of this presence to establish themselves and organize their activities. However, the extra-territorial political field remains to some extent specific to the internal political field, due to its extreme competition, which allows a rebalancing of forces between the main political protagonists. Neither the CPDM nor the opposition movements can claim hegemony.
