Trying to Rally Citizens around Authorities: Neotraditionalism and Nation building in Postcolonial Sub Saharan Africa
Trying to Rally Citizens around Authorities: Neotraditionalism and Nation building in Postcolonial Sub Saharan Africa

Summary/Abstract: In post colonial states, in particular in sub Saharan Africa, an appeal to the historical past for the construction of national identity acquires great importance. It becomes important especially due to the failed attempts to copy political models based on European theories and experience and therefore turning to “neotraditionalism” as an ideological basis in an attempt to rally citizens around authorities. What makes it possible is the eclecticism of public consciousness and collective picture of the world generated by colonialism and strengthened by the transformations of the postcolonial era. Neotraditional relationships, of course, do not absorb all the diversity of types of relationships in socially and culturally very multi layered postcolonial societies. However, it should be noted that today, they find areas of implementation in public consciousness and practice, and there is even a tendency to expand these areas.

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