The Big Man has attracted considerable attention from social scientists, both as an explanatory force as well as a phenomenon to be explained. But the concept has become unmoored from its original meaning. Once used to refer to an apex figure within a patrimonial regime, today Big Men are often described as dictators or thieves. I show this using an original dataset covering discussions of Big Men in leading African Studies journals since 1980. I find that authors, especially political scientists, overemphasise theft and underemphasise accountability of Big Men. Then, drawing on my research with Ghanaian local politicians, I show how Big Men are constantly under pressure from their supporters. The paper concludes with a modest call to put the Big Man back in his place as powerful but also empowered, and thus indebted, to those beneath him.

中文翻译：

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大个子还是布吉人？政治学中的大人物概念

大人物作为一种解释力和一种有待解释的现象，引起了社会科学家的极大关注。但是这个概念已经脱离了它的原始含义。曾经用来指代世袭政权中的顶级人物，如今大人物经常被描述为独裁者或小偷。我使用原始数据集展示了这一点，该数据集涵盖了自 1980 年以来主要非洲研究期刊中大人物的讨论。我发现作者，尤其是政治科学家，过分强调盗窃，而低估了大人物的责任。然后，根据我对加纳当地政客的研究，我展示了大个子如何不断受到支持者的压力。这篇论文的结尾是一个温和的呼吁，要让这位大个子重新回到他的位置，因为他既有权势又有权势，因此对他下属的人表示感激。