In an article entitled ‘L’Union nationale camerounaise’, which was written by Jean-François Bayart and which appeared in the Revue française de science politique, 1970, vol. 20, no. 4, pp. 681-718, there is a reference to Cameroon being ‘semi-presidential’. The article is available as a free download from persee.fr.

On p. 708, Prof. Bayart states (my translation): “The Constitution of 1 September 1961 establishes a semi-presidential regime, where the head of state enjoys greater powers than those set out in the constitution of the Fifth French Republic”.

On the basis of the definition of semi-presidentialism used in this blog, the 1961 Cameroon constitution was not semi-presidential. Indeed, by 1970, at the time of the article, Cameroon was still not semi-presidential. For example, while East Cameroon and West Cameroon had prime ministers for their regions during this period, the country as a whole did not even have a prime minister until the 1975 amendment to the 1972 constitution and even then the PM was not responsible to the legislature. The 1972 constitution ended the Federal Republic of Cameroon and replaced it with a unitary state, the Republic of Cameroon. All that said, it is still interesting that Prof. Bayart is using the term as far back as 1970.

It would be fascinating to know whether Prof. Bayart, who is now the Director of Research at CERI, was associated with Maurice Duverger in 1970. For example, as far as I can tell, Duverger’s first ever reference to semi-presidentialism came in the 1970 edition of his textbook Institutions politiques et Droit constitutionnel, 11th ed., Paris, Presses Universitaires de France. Also, it is noticeable that Prof. Bayart quotes Duverger a number of times in his 1970 article, but usually in relation to his book Partis politiques. So, unless the term was coined by two people independently in the same year, which is possible though unlikely, it would seem to be the case that Prof. Bayart, whose first publication this seems to be, was in communication with Prof. Duverger in that period and was aware that he was using this term.

Anyway, given the fact that Duverger’s concept has never been accepted by French academia, it is interesting to come across such a reference so early on.

If anyone knows of any earlier examples of Duverger using the term ‘semi-presidential, then please let me know.