ABSTRACT
The wind of democracies that shocked African countries at the
dawn of the 1990s led Cameroon to engage in its process of democratization. The
Catholic Church that contributed to the construction of the national life of
Cameroon since the colonial period was also involved in this extensive process
of collective management of public affairs. This observation leads to this
research entitled: "Participation of the Catholic Church in the democratic
process in Cameroon: an analysis of the participation in politics of the
archdioceses of Douala and Yaoundé"
Our exploration of this field of research is part of the
following sociologies: political sociology, which allows the understanding of
the Catholic actors as "homo politicus" from the analysis of their
actions and political attitudes; Sociology of religions which makes us
understand the participation of the Church from the angle of the
interrelationships between the political and the religious and the social
doctrine of the Church. Finally, critical sociology which allows to
demystify all that which is not said about this participation, as well
as the forms of political and religious dominations that hinders this
process.
The understanding of these sociological fields leads to the
empirical observation of the variant and controversial involvement of the
Catholic Church in this democratic process. From this observation flows our
problem and that constitutes our research question: "How can we account for
the variant participation of the Church to the democratic process despite the
noticeable desire of the institution to participate in the construction of
democracy in Cameroon? ''
Our study is enrolled in the intercession of the paradigms -
inter-actionists and constructivist. For this purpose, it mobilizes the
theories of the symbolic inter-actionism and social constructivism, in the
objective of accounting for the variance of the political participation
Cameroonian Catholic stakeholders in the democratic process.
From these theories follows the following general hypothesis:
That the participation of Catholics stakeholders in the democratic process is
guided by the scope of participation in different rational forms and which
motivated them during their interactions in the political field.
In the same perspective, the methodology adopted is part of an
approach which is both qualitative and quantitative. In the qualitative terms,
it is based on empirico-inductive logic and deals from the analysis of the
contents of extracted data and interviews with 20 individuals (Catholic
clerics, politicians and leaders of CSO). In quantitative terms, it is based on
a deductive analysis of results obtained from a questionnaire administered to a
sample of 250 Catholic faithful in Douala and Yaoundé.
The results of this research show that the variant
participation of the Church in politics could be understood at three levels; at
the institutional level: the Church tries to restructure the political game
from its structures. This restructuring process is hampered by its desire to
preserve its cultural heritage though obstinate to democracy and its harmonious
political and tribal relations. At the level of the faithful at the base, it
meets strong alienation of the political society of which they are members with
the predominance of spiritual socialization on political socialization.
Key words: Democratic process, Political participation,
Catholic Church
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