René Lemarchand (born 1932) is a French- American

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

who is known for his research on

ethnic conflict An ethnic conflict is a conflict between two or more ethnic groups. While the source of the conflict may be political, social, economic or religious, the individuals in conflict must expressly fight for their ethnic group's position within so ...

and

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

Rwanda Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by ...

Burundi Burundi, officially the Republic of Burundi, is a landlocked country in East Africa. It is located in the Great Rift Valley at the junction between the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa, with a population of over 14 million peop ...

and

Darfur Darfur ( ; ) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju () while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë , and it was renamed Dartunjur () when the Tunjur ruled the area. ...

. Publishing in both English and French, he is particularly known for his work on the concept of

clientelism Clientelism or client politics is the exchange of goods and services for political support, often involving an implicit or explicit ''quid-pro-quo''. It is closely related to patronage politics and vote buying. Clientelism involves an asymmetri ...

. He is a Professor ''Emeritus'' at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preem ...

, and continues to write, teach internationally and consult. Since retiring he has worked for

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an agency of the United States government that has been responsible for administering civilian United States foreign aid, foreign aid and development assistance. Established in 19 ...

(Agency for International Development,

Department of State The United States Department of State (DOS), or simply the State Department, is an executive department of the U.S. federal government responsible for the country's foreign policy and relations. Equivalent to the ministry of foreign affairs ...

) out of

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N'ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the largest city and the former capital of Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of the overall population ...

Côte d'Ivoire Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest city and ...

as a Regional Consultant for West Africa in Governance and Democracy, and as Democracy and Governance advisor to USAID / Ghana.

Early life and education

René Lemarchand was born in 1932 in

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. After doing undergraduate work in France, he went to the United States for doctoral studies in political science. He completed his Ph.D. at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school the ...

(UCLA), specializing in studies of

Central Africa Central Africa (French language, French: ''Afrique centrale''; Spanish language, Spanish: ''África central''; Portuguese language, Portuguese: ''África Central'') is a subregion of the African continent comprising various countries accordin ...

Career

Lemarchand joined the political science faculty of the

in late 1962. He became the first Director of the Center for African Studies at UF and served in that position until 1965. He worked at UF for his entire academic career. He has specialized in political issues in African nations, especially

ethnic An ethnicity or ethnic group is a group of people with shared attributes, which they collectively believe to have, and long-term endogamy. Ethnicities share attributes like language, culture, common sets of ancestry, traditions, society, re ...

conflicts leading to warfare, and has published works in both French and English. In July 1971, while on a two-month research trip to

Chad Chad, officially the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of North Africa, North and Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to Chad–Libya border, the north, Sudan to Chad–Sudan border, the east, the Central Afric ...

, Lemarchand was arrested and charged with visiting a restricted zone and failing to respond to a summons by the country's president. He was released at the end of August 1971. Lemarchand received a Fulbright award for June–September 1983 to lecture in political science at the University of Zimbabwe, Salisbury, Zimbabwe. He also received a Fulbright for July 1987–January 1988 for research in political science at the University of Chad, N'djamena, Chad and the University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria. Lemarchand has become an expert in ethnic populations and conflicts, such as that in

, the

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide, also known as the genocide against the Tutsi, occurred from 7 April to 19 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. Over a span of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Gre ...

in 1994, and

. He is internationally known as an expert on the cycle of violence in Central Africa. He has taught as a visiting professor at universities in Europe, Africa and North America. Now professor emeritus of political science at the University of Florida, Lemarchand has worked as a consultant in governance for the

and as governance and democracy adviser to USAID/Ghana.

Works

Books

*''Political Awakening in the Belgian Congo'' (

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by faculty ...

, 1964)
"Rwanda and Burundi"
( Praeger, 1970). *''Selective Genocide in Burundi'' (1974) *''African Kingships in Perspective'' (1977) *''African Policy in Southern Africa'' (1978) *''Political Clientelism in Patronage and Development'' (1981) *''The World Bank in Rwanda'' (1982) *''Green and the Black: Qadhafi's Policies in Africa'' (1988) *''Burundi: Ethnocide as Discourse and Practice'' (1994), *''Burundi: Ethnic Conflict and Genocide'' (

Woodrow Wilson Center Press The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS) or Wilson Center is a Washington, D.C.–based think tank dedicated to research and policy discussions on global issues. Established by an act of Congress in 1968, it serves as both ...

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press was the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted a letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it was the oldest university press in the world. Cambridge University Press merged with Cambridge Assessme ...

, 1996) *''The Dynamics of Violence in Central Africa'' (

University of Pennsylvania Press The University of Pennsylvania Press, also known as Penn Press, is a university press affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. History The press was originally incorporated with b ...

, 2009) *''Remembering Genocides in Central Africa''. (

Routledge Routledge ( ) is a British multinational corporation, multinational publisher. It was founded in 1836 by George Routledge, and specialises in providing academic books, academic journals, journals and online resources in the fields of the humanit ...

, 2021)

Articles

*2018
"Rwanda: The state of research"
''Mass Violence and Resistance'' online journal. *2007
"Rwanda: The state of research"
''Online Encyclopedia of Mass Violence'' (4 November). pp. 1-25. *2006. "Consociationalism and power sharing in Africa: Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo". ''

African Affairs ''African Affairs'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal published quarterly by Oxford University Press on behalf of the London-based Royal African Society. The journal covers any Africa-related topic: political, social, economic, environmental a ...

'' 106, No. 422: pp. 1–20. *2006. "The politics of memory in post-genocide Rwanda". Occasional Papers, Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, University of Florida: pp. 25–54. *2005-2006. "The geopolitics of the Great Lakes crisis." L'Afrique des Grands Lacs. Annuaire 2005-2006. *2005. "Bearing witness to mass murder." '' African Studies Review'', Vol. 48, No. 3 (December), pp. 93–101. *2004
Myth-Making and the Rationality of Mass Murder: Rwanda, Bosnia and Cambodia in Comparative Perspective
Leeds ''African Studies Bulletin'', 66 (2004), 31-43. *2003. "Comparing the killing fields: Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia." In Jensen, Steven ed., ''Genocide: Cases, Comparisons, and Contemporary Debates''. København; Sweden; The Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies. *2003. "Where Hamites and Aryans cross paths: the role of myth-making in mass murder", ''

Journal of Genocide Research The ''Journal of Genocide Research'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies of genocide. Established in 1999, for the first six years it was not peer-reviewed. Since December 2005, it is the official journal of the Interna ...

'', vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 145–48. *2002
"Disconnecting the Threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust Reconsidered"
''Idea Journal'', Vol. 7, No. 1, 29 March 2002. *2002. "The fire in the Great Lakes." Peace Research Abstracts 39 (2): pp. 155–306. *2002. "Disconnecting the threads: Rwanda and the Holocaust reconsidered." ''Journal of Genocide Research'' 4 (4): pp. 499–518. *2002. "Le génocide de 1972 au Burundi: Les silences de l'histoire", ''Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines'', no. 167, XLII-3, pp. 551–567. *2000. "The crisis in the Great Lakes". In Harbeson & Rothchild, ''Africa in World Politics'', Boulder, CO: Westview Press: pp. 324–352. *2000. "Hate crimes." Transition 9, 1/2: pp. 114–132. *1999. "Ethnicity as myth: The view from the Central Africa". Occasional Paper, Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen, May 1999. *1999. "Genocide in Comparative Perspective: Rwanda, Cambodia, and Bosnia", unpublished manuscript. *1998. "Genocide in the Great Lakes: Which genocide? Whose genocide?" New Haven, Ct.: Yale Center for International and Area Studies, Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series; pp. 1–13. *1997. "Eyewitness accounts; the Rwandan genocide." In Totten, Parson, and Charny, ''Century Of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts And Critical Views'', New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., pp. 408–423. *1997. "Patterns of state collapse and reconstruction in Central Africa: Reflections on the crisis in the Great Lakes Region". ''Afrika Spectrum'', Vol. 32, No. 2: pp. 173–193; also in ''African Studies Quarterly'' online a

*1995. "Rwanda: the rationality of genocide". ''Issue: A Journal of Opinion'', 23, No. 2: pp. 8–11. *1994. "Managing transition anarchies: Rwanda, Burundi, and South Africa in comparative perspective". '' The Journal of Modern African Studies'' 32 (4): pp. 581–604. *1994. "The apocalypse in Rwanda. Ethnic conflict: the new world order". '' Cultural Survival Quarterly'' 18, 2 (Summer): pp. 29–33. *1992. "Africa's troubled transitions". ''

Journal of Democracy The ''Journal of Democracy'' is a quarterly academic journal established in 1990 and an official publication of the National Endowment for Democracy's International Forum for Democratic Studies. It covers the study of democracy, democratic regi ...

'' 3, No. 4 (October 1992): pp. 98–109. *1992. "Uncivil states and civil societies: How illusion became reality". ''Journal of Modern African Studies'' 30, No. 2: pp. 177–191. *1992. "African transitions to democracy: an interim (and mostly pessimistic) assessment". ''African Insight'' 22; pp. 178–85. *1992. "Burundi: The Politics of Ethnic Amnesia", in Helen Fein ed., ''Genocide Watch'', New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 70–86. *1991. The René Lemarchand Collection at the University of Florida: Box 1: Rwanda Documents, 1930 ulk 1950 – 1991. 57 Folders. *1990. "Lécole historique burundo-française: Une école pas comme les aures". ''Canadian Journal of African Studies'', 24 2, pp. 235–48. *1983. "The state and society in Africa: Ethnic stratification and restratification in historical and comparative perspective". in Donald Rothchild and Victor A. Olorunsola, eds, ''State Versus Ethnic Claims: African Policy Dilemmas'', Boulder, Colorado (1983): pp. 44–66. *1980-81 "Rwanda: Recent history". In ''Africa South of the Sahara'', 1980-81. London: Europa Publications. *1976. "The C.I.A. in Africa: How Central? How Intelligent?" ''The Journal of Modern African Studies'', Volume 14, Issue 03, Sept, pp. 401–426. *1975. "Ethnic genocide". Excerpts from ''Selective Genocide in Burundi'', Report No. 20, Minority Rights Group, London, 1974. Issue 5, No. 21, Summer: pp. 9–16. *1975. "Rwanda: Recent history". In ''Africa South of the Sahara'', 1974. London: Europa Publications. *1974. "The military in former Belgian Africa". In Kelleher Ed., ''Political Military Systems: Comparative Perspectives''. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications. *1973. "African Power Through the Looking Glass". ''The Journal of Modern African Studies'', vol. 11, No. 2 (June), pp. 305–314. *1972. "Political clientelism and ethnicity in tropical Africa: Competing solidarities in nation-building". '' The American Political Science Review'' 66, no. 1 (March): pp. 68–90. *1970. "The coup in Rwanda". in ''Protest and Power in Black Africa'', ed. Rothberg, R. I., and Mazrui, Oxford, p. 891. *1968. "Revolutionary phenomena in stratified societies; Rwanda and Zanzibar". ''Civilisations'' 18, No. 1: pp. 16–51. *1968. "Les relations de clientèle comme agent de contestation: le cas du Rwanda". ''Civilisations'' 18, No. 4: pp. 553–578. *1967. "The passing of Mwamiship in Burundi". '' Africa Report'' (January): pp. 15–24. *1966. "Power and stratification in Rwanda; A reconsideration". '' Cahiers d'Études africaines'' 6, No. 24: pp. 592–610. Also available at www.persee.fr. *1966. "Political instability in Africa, the case of Rwanda and Burundi." ''Civilisations'' 16 (3): pp. 307–37. *1962. "L'influence des systèmes traditionnels sur l'évolution du Rwanda et du Burundi." ''Revue de l'Institut de Sociologie de l'Université Libre de Bruxelles'': pp. 2–24.

Legacy and honors

*1971, Melville J. Herskovits Award for ''Rwanda and Burundi'',

African Studies Association The African Studies Association (ASA) is a US-based association of scholars, students, practitioners, and institutions with an interest in the continent of Africa. Founded in 1957, the ASA is the leading organization of African Studies in North ...

The René Lemarchand Collection of African Political Papers
at the University of Florida, featuring materials on Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire, Chad, Gabon, and Libya, mostly in French, with emphasis on the period of the 1950s through independence, and increasing democratization in the 1980s and 1990s.

References

External links

University of Florida {{DEFAULTSORT:Lemarchand, Rene 1932 births French political scientists Living people University of Florida faculty French male non-fiction writers French Africanists University of California, Los Angeles alumni Historians of Africa Foreign nationals imprisoned in Chad French emigrants to the United States Historians of Rwanda Historians of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Historians of Burundi ASA Best Book Prize winners