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MAAS / Department of Development Studies / See the attached abstract below

Student Number : 0415917E - MA research report - School of Social Sciences - Faculty of Humanities / The conceptualisation of Ivorian crisis as an ethnic conflict is misleading an strengthens Afro-pessimism. This study intends to show that by addressing issues of nationality and ethnicity, the Linas Marcoussis accord dealt woth symptoms rather than the disease of the Ivorian crisis. Moreover, the conflict has become a mode of accumulation. The conflict in Ivory Coast was ignited by contestation over resources. In other words, the conflict has its roots in the scarcity of resources and the absence or failure of institutions that guarantee equitable distribution. Taking cognisance of the fact that the lack of indigenous capital means control of the state is control of economic resources. Economic growth translated to political stability because the various demand-bearing groups were co-opted and rewarded. The advert of democratisation and economic crisis meant access to resources became hotly contested. Against this backdrop, ivoirite became a nationalistic rhetoric for political mobilisation in the absence of an economic alternative grounded in the contradictory nature of the Ivorian state.

No description available.

I argue that competing visions of development guided the interventions of the United States and France in the West African country of Ivory Coast during the late colonial and early independence periods from 1946 through the 1960s. Indeed, the postwar arrival of American modernity provided an opportunity for nationalist leaders to triangulate the relationship between metropolitan France and colonial Ivory Coast. The ensuing politics of triangulation forced French colonial officials, diplomats, and development experts to “dub” modernization in order to bolster (neo)colonial ties between France and the Ivory Coast. By dubbing I mean the effort to translate and adapt for French purposes development concepts and techniques first elaborated in the United States. I explore these issues in case histories of the port of Abidjan, Kossou dam, and San Pedro development projects. I highlight the discursive as well as institutional frameworks that shaped the development of Ivory Coast. In the early twentieth century, French colonialism’s mission civilisatrice and mise en valeur posited that the colonizers were rational and productive, while the colonized were backward and incompetent to exploit their natural resources. After the Second World War, the ascendant American modernization paradigm added a new level of valuation to colonialism’s moral economy. It proposed a dynamic and progressive teleology in which the colonized could become modernized and actually “work by themselves” to reproduce hegemonic U.S. technological, economic, and political norms. Modernization was a civilizing project as well, but in contrast French (neo)colonialism now appeared static and paternalistic. French attempts to recuperate their position in the Ivory Coast deployed the epistemic memories of decades of work in the colony but ironically involved promoting forms of regional planning pioneered by the Tennessee Valley Authority. To reach these insights, I have used an interdisciplinary historical methodology that is multiarchival and multisited. My dissertation is based on research in numerous French and American archives as well as oral histories with French and American actors who participated in the (post)colonial development drive in the Ivory Coast.

La Côte d’Ivoire, pays d’Afrique de l’Ouest prospère et stable depuis le début de l’indépendance de 1960, bascule dans une longue et douloureuse guerre, le 24 décembre 1999, à la suite d’une mutinerie de soldats. S’en suit alors un intense ballet diplomatique visant à rétablir la paix et la Côte d’Ivoire assiste alors à plusieurs tentatives de médiation internationale. Cette recherche vise à comprendre la notion de succès en médiation en proposant de modéliser le conflit ivoirien à partir d’un modèle de la théorie des jeux, celui du dilemme du prisonnier. / Often cited as a model of peace and stability, Ivory Coast, a West African economic powerhouse, was embroiled in a civil war in September 2002 that disrupted the institutional order. During this time, the country was divided into the Southern and Northern zones. The former, a coastal area, is referred to as the "Governmental Zone". The Northern is the area that was captured in September 2002, by a few thousand army mutineers. Between the two North and South divide lies the buffer zone called the Zone de confiance, which served as a military buffer zone between the North and the South. How did the division occur? How did the several mediation work? Could we ensure that the signing of a peace agreement guaranteed a mediation success?

I argue that competing visions of development guided the interventions of the United States and France in the West African country of Ivory Coast during the late colonial and early independence periods from 1946 through the 1960s. Indeed, the postwar arrival of American modernity provided an opportunity for nationalist leaders to triangulate the relationship between metropolitan France and colonial Ivory Coast. The ensuing politics of triangulation forced French colonial officials, diplomats, and development experts to “dub” modernization in order to bolster (neo)colonial ties between France and the Ivory Coast. By dubbing I mean the effort to translate and adapt for French purposes development concepts and techniques first elaborated in the United States. I explore these issues in case histories of the port of Abidjan, Kossou dam, and San Pedro development projects. I highlight the discursive as well as institutional frameworks that shaped the development of Ivory Coast. In the early twentieth century, French colonialism’s mission civilisatrice and mise en valeur posited that the colonizers were rational and productive, while the colonized were backward and incompetent to exploit their natural resources. After the Second World War, the ascendant American modernization paradigm added a new level of valuation to colonialism’s moral economy. It proposed a dynamic and progressive teleology in which the colonized could become modernized and actually “work by themselves” to reproduce hegemonic U.S. technological, economic, and political norms. Modernization was a civilizing project as well, but in contrast French (neo)colonialism now appeared static and paternalistic. French attempts to recuperate their position in the Ivory Coast deployed the epistemic memories of decades of work in the colony but ironically involved promoting forms of regional planning pioneered by the Tennessee Valley Authority. To reach these insights, I have used an interdisciplinary historical methodology that is multiarchival and multisited. My dissertation is based on research in numerous French and American archives as well as oral histories with French and American actors who participated in the (post)colonial development drive in the Ivory Coast.

A framework for a strategy fit with national and organizational culture holds several implications for multinational business managers. First, culture is a critical variable in the strategy process and it should be explicitly examined as a part of the process. Second, culture might encourage and support organizationally a particular business level strategy and may affect marketing practices. This approach views transactional and relational practices as part of a continuum. This study has examined over 250 firms in the United States and the Cote d’Ivoire on the dimensions of their organizational culture, national culture and contemporary marketing practices. In essence, this is a test of the convergence theory versus cultural specificity debate. The study first establishes a model in the US of the relationship between organizational culture and contemporary marketing practices and then tests it in Cote d’Ivoire. Lisrel is used to examine the goodness of the fit of the model. Results indicate that differences in national cultures call for differences in marketing practices since the US model does not fit in Cote d’Ivoire. The differences between the two models and implications for a new Ivorian model are discussed.

Comme dans les autres pays ouest africains, les transports en Côte d'Ivoire ont connu un programme d'ajustement qui a notamment conduit à la dérégulation du secteur. Les conséquences de cette politique furent, entre autres, la libéralisation du transport routier et la privatisation du chemin de fer «Abidjan-Niger ». Malgré ces réformes, les infrastructures de transport sont dégradées et les services restent très inégaux. C'est dans ce contexte que se pose aujourd'hui la question du rôle du corridor rail/route ivoiro-burkinabé en Côte d'Ivoire. Ce corridor de transport qui relie le port d'Abidjan à Ouagadougou au Burkina Faso ne participe-t-il pas davantage au désenclavement des pays limitrophes qu'à celui des territoires ivoiriens? L'analyse des circulations au niveau de l'axe montre deux faits. D'une part, il se présente comme un axe majeur qui participe à la structuration des territoires traversés comme à Bouaké ou à Ouangolodougou, et d'autre part, il apparaît comme un axe qui produit de l'enclavement comme par exemple pour les localités de Loho, Boli, Raviart ou Céchi qui, bien que situées sur le chemin de fer, restent difficiles d'accès. Ces deux phénomènes révèlent le rôle ambivalent du corridor et amène à relativiser son importance dans la structuration du territoire national ivoirien. / Like in other West African countries, transportation in Ivory Coast has gone through a structural adjustment program which has led to the deregulation of the industry. Among others, the consequences of this policy have been both the liberalization of road transports and the privatization of the "Abidjan-Niger" railway. Following these reforms, transport infrastructures are scratched and services remain unequal. ln this nowadays context, the issue of the function of the Ivory Coast-Burkina Faso railway/road corridor in Ivory Coast can be considered. Does this corridor which links the Abidjan harbor to Ouagadougou, in Burkina Faso, participate more to the opening up of the adjacent countries or to Ivorian territories? The analysis of the circulations on the corridor highlights two major elements. On the one hand, it appears as a major axis which participates to the setting-up of the territories it goes through, such as Bouaké or Ouangolodougou. On the other hand, it appears as an axis which generates inaccessibility such as regarding Loho, Boli, Raviart or Céchi, which, despite located along the railway, remain difficult to reach. The two phenomena show the ambivalent role of the corridor and lead to consider with relativeness its importance in the Ivorian national territory structuration.

La cryptococcose neuroméningée (CNM) est la seconde infection opportuniste chez les patients infectés par le VIH. Il s’agit de la 4ème cause de décès dus aux maladies infectieuses en Afrique avec une mortalité annuelle de 600.000 cas. Les levures responsables appartiennent au complexe d’espèces Cryptococcus neoformans / C. gattii. Notre étude décrit, l’épidémiologie et la résistance aux antifongiques de souches environnementales et cliniques de cryptocoques en Côte d’Ivoire. Les isolats sont issus d’une file active de 1750 PVVIH et de 667 prélèvements réalisés dans l’environnement de vie des patients. Nous démontrons une grande diversité génotypique au sein de notre cohorte, la présence de plusieurs espèces de cryptocoques dans un seul prélèvement chez un même patient ainsi que dans des prélèvements issus de suivi de patients, ce qui n’avait jamais été démontré en Afrique de l’Ouest. Nous avons constaté que la récurrence de la CNM est due à des infections multiples par des souches différentes au cours du temps. Nos résultats décrivent également pour la première fois, l’isolement de cryptocoques à partir de fientes de pigeons à Abidjan. Et nous constatons que les génotypes des isolats environnementaux et cliniques sont très différents, ce qui exclut les fientes de pigeons comme source de contamination des patients dans notre échantillon. Enfin, la majorité des isolats est sensible aux antifongiques de référence mais un patient peut être contaminé par des isolats de sensibilité différente. / Cryptococcal meningitis (CM) is the second opportunistic infection in HIV infected patients. It is the fourth cause of death due to infectious diseases in Africa with an annual mortality of 600,000. The yeasts responsible belong to the C. neoformans / Cryptococcus gattii species complex. Our study describes epidemiology and resistance to antifungal of environmental and clinical strains of Cryptococcus in Ivory Coast. The isolates are from an active list of 1,750 patients VIH positive and 667 samples taken in the living environment of patients. We demonstrate a high genotypic diversity within our cohort and the presence of several species of Cryptococcus in one sample from the same patient as well as in samples from patients follow up, which had never been shown in West Africa. We found that the recurrent cryptococcosis is caused by multiple infections by different strains over time. Our results describe also, for the first time, the isolation of Cryptococcus from pigeon droppings from Abidjan. And we notice that, as the genotypes of environmental and clinical isolates are very different, that excludes contamination of patients by pigeon droppings. Finally, most of the isolates were susceptible to reference antifungal but a patient might be contaminated by isolates with different susceptibility.