Parents, Private Schools, and the Politics of an Emerging Civil Society in Cameroon

While scholarly cautions are needed as regards both simplistic dichotomies and the subtle rhetoric that converts ‘civil society’ into a new sacred depository for ‘a wide range of emancipatory aspirations’, 1 frequently pitted against that ‘predatory species’ we call the state, 2 the view from Yaoundé suggests that questions about social classes are likely to be helpful in any analysis of the complex relationship between state and society in contemporary Africa.