The doctrine of association failed long-term but preserved French rule in the short term.

Evidence

The doctrine of civilization through association, developed closely with the new policy of chiefs and evolues collaborating, was deemed essential to preserving French hegemony in West Africa. To what extent, we may now ask, did policy and ideology serve the Government General and promote progress as claimed? With respect to the evolues, this question was partially answered in the preceding chapter. Throughout the 192o’s, a portion of the new elite continued to pressure the Government General for greater concessions than those contained in the doctrine of association. Far from being content with Dakar’s policy of gradual democratic measures, this group aspired to equality with the colonizer in policy making. In this sense, Dakar’s doctrine of limited power-sharing was a failure for the long-term interests of the Government General. Within thirty years-rather than the centuries Dakar had originally imagined-the federal authorities would have to accept evolues as equals and turn power over to them altogether. In the short term, however, association helped preserve French rule, by offering a counterdoctrine to the evolue ideology of assimilation. This justified giving but a small part of French sovereignty to the new elite, instead of the full equality they demanded. Colonial officials were thus able to preserve, for the entire interwar period, the very authority that was being contested, without appearing as die-hard racists before world or metropolitan opinion. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 711

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Ties to the reader’s throughline on how civilizing ideology rationalized limited, unequal power-sharing under a universalist banner.