ABSTRACT
The political history of Cote d'Ivoire was, from the emergence of indigenous political forces until the 1990s, intertwined with the political career of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny. From independence through the mid-1970s he delegated limited powers to three lieutenants: August Denise, Jean Baptiste Mockey, and Philippe Yace. His reign has been characterized as benevolent authoritarianism. His decision to liberalize may be attributable largely to the economic downturn, which left him unable to nourish his political machine, but economic forces have been kinder to Ivoirian cultivators recently. The Ivoirian case supports the recent literature on democratization suggesting that successful liberalization results from economic failure under authoritarian government. There remains, however, the difficulty of achieving stable pluralist democracy in a multiethnic state. As the Mexican one-party-dominant experience demonstrates, semi-democratic systems can achieve long-term stability and may provide the basis for an evolutionary path toward true pluralist democracy.
