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The Politicization of Teachers' Associations in the Côte d'Ivoire

This article explores the role that teachers in the Côte d'Ivoire played in the democratization process in the early 1990s. More specifically, it looks at the socio-economic and ideological factors that placed teachers at the helm of the contestation movements that contributed to the end of nearly three decades of autocratic one-party rule. While this is a case study, its implications are, mutatis muntantis, more general. The principal argument developed in this article is that teachers occupy a strategic but precarious position in many African societies (Diop and Diouf 1990). They, more than any other social group, with the possible exception of students, embody the contradictory dimensions of post-colonial African politics and society. On the one hand, as Robert Fatton (1987, 63–64) notes, they are connected to the ruling class in so far as those in power often turn to them as a way to legitimate their rule. On other hand, teachers are part of Africa's fragile middle class, since they benefit from the relatively high expenditures of African governments on education. Nevertheless, they, particularly secondary and university teachers saw themselves as an alternative elite to those in power (Oyediran 1993, 221).