| This dissertation examines the influence of communalism, especially the role of communal interest group variables of religion, language (linguistics variations) and ethnicity (and tribalism especially), upon political and administrative systems. The dissertation explores the near-universal historical political impact of communalism including a review of theoretical analyses and of research concerning the incidence of communal based political forces in selected nations in various regions of the world.;The dissertation presents two extensive case studies, one on Ghana and one on Cameroon, to evaluate the intermeshing of religion, language and ethnicity, and political appointments and other specific public policies, centralization -decentralization, and group communal attempts at dominance particularly via appointments to strategic ministries--relied upon to retain political power, to control allocation of scarce resources, and to promote political integration or at least to preclude political system disintegration due to communal centrifugal forces. The study concludes that in prismatic societies generally, and certainly in the two African nations under consideration, communalism plays a more significant role than ideology in determining the degree of successful national political integration and political stability. |
