African Princes ruled through private agreements with elite factions

Evidence

Less brutal and dominating than the Autocrat is the African political Prince. Unlike the Tyrant and the Autocrat, the Prince rules through private agreement with elements of the elite. Political Princes have royalist characteristics akin to those of a traditional monarchy, where the ruler is the personification of the state and the custodian of its political values and practices. But the new African Prince is obliged to conduct the affairs of state without the supporting normative framework of a political tradition… . [T]he legitimacy of the modern African Prince depends upon his respect for the private understandings and agreements he has made with other members of the oligarchy over whom he presides and with whom he rules. — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 94

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the Prince type, the close cousin to Somalia’s emerging democratic practice that Samatar will distinguish his subjects from.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 94
• XREF: connects to: Italy acquired its Somali protectorates through private treaties with clan sultans