29
Under Houphouet, the leading family of Korhogo controlled a de
facto regional barony; they dominated local affairs and had great
influences within the organs of provincial government and other
outposts of the party-state that were sited in their region. Resources
and prerogatives so devolved were used by the top elite to reinforce
their authority vis-a-vis subordinates such as village-level chiefs
(whose subordinate status was also institutionalized within the
administrative structures of the postcolonial state).
31
The Senoufo/Korhogo provincial elite was also represented in the
core institutions of the postcolonial state via deputyships and
ministerial posts, in subordinate relation to the supreme ruler but as
formal equals of Houphouet’s other provincial bosses, who were managed
by the center via divide-and-rule tactics. John Rapley described the
Korhogo ruling family, the Coulibaly family, as one of the most
powerful families in Côte d’Ivoire, second only to the family of
Houphouet-Boigny himself. Regional development initiatives in the
Korhogo region (infrastructure, development of export-oriented cotton
production, sugar cane plantations and refineries) are what mobilized
the resources needed for inclusion of this region in the “national
integration” project, and provided institutional machinery for core-
periphery linkages that reached down to the grassroots level. This
process constituted and maintained a regional fiefdom for the Korhogo
ruling family.
South-central and southwestern Côte d’Ivoire, by contrast,
colonial and postcolonial rulers found no preexisting social
hierarchies that could serve as footholds for the modern state. Here,
31
It is true that over time, there was some friction with administrative
officials who were posted in Korhogo regime to act as direct agents of the
center (eg. agricultural development experts). This, however, was generally
resolved via compromise with the neo-traditional provincial elite.
Convention