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For nearly two centuries, Madagascar has seen a periodic return of many-sided crises every time an authoritarian power – the armed branch of the dominant oligarchy – runs out of steam. Such crises regularly reveal the permanent lack of understanding between the ruling class and the people. This article suggests an explanation for this situation. Ever since the nineteenth century monarchy, attempts to build a western-style nation-state have run up against an unrecognized Malagasy political culture founded on kinship, a kind of heavenly mission, and ancestral lands. The two antagonistic forces have perverted themselves through their mutual distrust to the point of creating a situation where social and political anomie appears endless.