bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Laissez-Faireism for Africa?
Authors: Schatz Sayre P.
Published: November 2008

There are fads in development economics,1and the latest today, at least in the North, is what may be calledlaissez-faireism. This states the belief that a retreat from government activism in economic affairs is the major means of improving the quality of a country's performance. It is seen as ‘central to the solution of a lot of the problems we see around the world’.2

Such a strategy stresses the benefits of reliance on markets, on profit incentives, and on the growth of private sectors. Free-market pricing is crucial not only for products (in Africa, particularly agricultural products), but also in factor markets and in international transactions. Wages should be allowed to find their own level, as determined by supply and demand. Exchange rates should also be permitted to approach their natyral levels, for artificially over-valued exchange rates are especially damaging. Tariffs and other forms of protection should be cut back. Countries should turn away from inward-looking import-substitution towards outward-looking export-orientation.3
Measuring the War Experience: Ghanaian Soldiers in World War II
Authors: Israel Adrienne M.
Published: November 2008

During World War II, some 65,000 Ghanaians were under the command of British officers in the Royal West African Frontier Force, and since India was the transit and refuelling station for those en route to Burma, the 30,000 who served there briefly experienced life in both countries. There has been much conjecture about the impact of the war on participating African soldiers,1 and this article focuses on the nature and socio-economic implications of their experience as later revealed by the veterans themselves in two rather overlooked sources of information: oral interviews and locally published materials.
U.S. Policy Towards Angola Since 1975
Authors: Tvedten Inge
Published: November 2008

It is generally agreed that the battle of Cuito Cuanavale in March 1988 marked the final attempt to secure a military solution to the Angolan conflict. Thereafter, in December 1988, South Africa, Cuba, and Angola signed the so-called ‘New York accord’ that included a timetable for the phased withdrawal of the South Africans and the Cubans from Namibia and Angola, respectively; in June 1989, the Gbadolite agreement initiated African attempts to end the continuing armed struggle in Angola; and in March 1990, Namibia achieved its long-awaited independence. But despite these efforts and developments, the war continued between the Government that had been established in Luanda by the Movimento Popular de Libertacão de Angola (M.P.L.A.) in November 1975 and the União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola (Unita), with devastating implications for the country's estimated ten million inhabitants. Not before May 1991 was a final peace agreement signed in Portugal, and then with considerably poorer options for political stability and economic recovery than would have been the case after the original accord in New York.
Things Fall Apart Again: Structural Adjustment Programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Riddell J. Barry
Published: November 2008

International economics and global politics are unfamiliar territory for many. However, the operations of institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) have profound impacts upon the countries with which they treat, and these extend beyond financial issues and geo-politics. This article indicates how the I.M.F. has imposed ‘conditionalities’ in sub-Saharan Africa as integral elements of Structural Adjustment Programmes (S.A.P.s) that affect not only the lives of all the inhabitants, but also the nature and landscapes of the nations concerned — their very geographical composition.
The Politics of Government–Business Relations in Ghana
Authors: Tangri Roger
Published: November 2008

The emergence of a consensus that the performance of the public sector in Ghana had been poor, and that there were limits as to what it could achieve in terms of economic growth, led the Provisional National Defence Council (P.N.D.C.) to implement various policy reforms. As the Governor of the Bank of Ghana argued in 1984: ‘Given the dismal performance of the public sector, there is need for greater reliance on private investment in the Government's efforts to resuscitate the economy’. At the same time, the P.N.D.C. began to reassess the economic role of the public sector. According to a recent document prepared by the National Commission for Democracy, ‘changed national policies’ in Ghana include ‘the reduction of the state's rôle in the economic life of the nation through shifting of more responsibility to the private sector.
Rapid Population Growth and Poverty Generation in Malawi
Authors: House William J. , Zimalirana George
Published: November 2008

There has been a long controversy over the likely impact of population dynamics on economic growth and development. As long ago as 1789 the Reverend Thomas Malthus argued in his famous ‘Essay on the Principle of Population’ that food production would not keep pace with the population's natural proclivity to grow in an unchecked fashion. In the absence of prudential checks, the result would be starvation, vice, and misery, with a tendency for economies to stagnate at a subsistence or poverty level of income.
Class Analysis and Rural Africa: the Kenya Tea Development Authority
Authors: Steeves Jeffley S.
Published: November 2008

Academics and aid officials are increasingly turning their attention to two aspects of rural development: the structure of the local society, and the social impact of agricultural programmes. In part this reflects a pessimistic and moralistic reassessment of earlier attempts to promote development in the Third World. However, this analytical focus also represents the continuing evolution of research by those who are engaged in refining their theoretical perspectives on rural society.
Military Coups and Military Régimes in Africa
Authors: Decalo Samuel
Published: November 2008

In the past several years there has been a proliferation of studies on coup d'états in Africa and the political role of African military structures. Armies have been analysed in terms of their social and ethnic composition, training, ideology, and socialising influences. Intense debate has focused around the overt and covert reasons for their intervention in the political arena. Simple and complex typologies of civil–military relations and of military coups have been constructed; statistical data – both hard and soft – has been marshalled and subjected to factor and regression analysis, in order to validate general or middle-range theories of military intervention. And once in power, the officer corps' performance has been examined in order to generate insights into its propensity to serve as a modernising or developmental agent.
Workers, Unions, and Development in Africa
Authors: Sandbrook Richard
Published: November 2008

The International Studies Programme of the University of Toronto sponsored a conference on this topic from 6 to 8 April 1973, with participants not only from Canada, but also from Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The main aim was to assess the extent to which both radical and liberal writers are correct in ascribing to the working class a fairly passive rôle in Africa's economic and political development. In selecting the 13 papers for presentation, an attempt was made to provide a balanced coverage of Africa south of the Sahara, although Nigeria justifiably received the greatest attention. The discussions were particularly rewarding because of the presence of seven scholars and trade union leaders from West and East Africa, as well as a number of Canadian union officials who had served as advisers in Africa. The attendance of such an array of expertise was only possible because of the generosity of the University of Toronto, the Canada Council, the Canadian International Development Agency, and the Canadian National Office of the United Steelworkers of America.
Education for Rural Development in Botswana: A Comment
Authors: Mitchison Naomi
Published: November 2008

Education for rural development in Africa is a sure-fire subject, but changes happen quickly, and sometimes disastrously for projects which looked like having a long life. Jennifer C. Ward's optimistic discussion of experiments in Botswana – in this Journal, x, 4, December 1972, pp. 611–20 – is unfortunately somewhat out of date. Both Swaneng Hill School and Shashi River School have almost ceased their old emphasis on involvement with practical village life and their possibilities of producing a new type of boy or girl. Under Government-appointed headmasters, both these schools are now back to standard examination-passing, with all the emphasis on classroom work and most pupils doubtless looking forward either to the whitecollar professions or to office jobs, both in the daily increasing ranks of the public and private sectors.
The Malawi—Tanzania Boundary Dispute
Authors: Mayall James
Published: November 2008

Since Malawi became independent on 6 July 1964 diplomatic relations with her eastern neighbour, Tanzania, have been almost permanently strained. Differences between the two states have focused on three sets of issues: contrasting attitudes and policies towards the white minority régimes to the South, President Banda's suspicion that Tanzania was aiding and abetting the attempts by certain prominent Malawi exiles to subvert his régime,1and a dispute over the de-limitation of the boundary between the two states along Lake Malawi (Nyasa).

These issues are not easily separable: for if it had not been for Banda's outspoken policy towards the white South (which led him alone amongst African statesmen to establish diplomatic relations with South Africa), there would have been no compelling grounds for Tanzania, which opposed this policy, to offer asylum and support to his political opponents; and if it had not been for Tanzania's confrontation, not only with South Africa but also with the Portuguese authorities in Mozambique (with whom Malawi also maintained close relations), it is doubtful whether President Nyerere would have been provoked during May 1967 into bringing the Lake dispute into the open. There is no doubt also that Malawi exiles in Dar es Salaam were actively campaigning against Banda's régime, at this time, over the whole range of his policies, including the question of the Lake.
Nnamdi Azikiwe and Nineteenth - Century Nigerian Thought
Authors: Echeruo Michael J. C.
Published: November 2008

This article is concerned chiefly with the connection between Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe's thought and that part of Nigeria's intellectual history which was the product of its nineteenth-century heritage. This relationship is important because, until comparatively recently, the intellectual life of what is now Nigeria was really an extension of that of the Negro. What we generally speak of as the beginnings of modern Nigerian social and political thought are really parochial manifestations of the more general history of the black man.
People and Capitalism in the North-Eastern Lowlands of Ethiopia
Authors: Bondestam Lars
Published: November 2008

This article was written before information on the great Ethiopian famine of 1973 had reached the outside world. Since I was not then aware of the catastrophe, the facts given here should not be regarded as a reconstruction of the causes of the famine. On the contrary, the deterioration in the conditions of the indigenous inhabitants had been known for some years – in fact, since the beginning of the capitalist offensive in the north-eastern lowlands of Ethiopia, namely the Awash Valley. I had already predicted the famine in late 1971 in two reports,1 and in discussions with officials of the Ethiopian Government.
Class Formation in the Swollen African State
Authors: Diamond Larry
Published: November 2008

As the state has moved back to the centre of analysis of political change and conflict, increasing attention has focused on its rôle in forming new classes and in structuring the possibilities of class action. As Nelson Kasfir notes, both Marx and Weber ‘saw the vital role the state could play in consolidating the class position of a dominant social group’.1Neither, however, saw the state as the inherent locus of the process of class formation and of class domination. For Marx, the state was typically the instrument of a ruling class whose origin and basis was in control over the means of production. For Weber, power, class, and status were potentially independent dimensions of stratification.
Socialism and the ‘Soft State’ in Africa: an Analysis of Angola and Mozambique
Authors: Scott Catherine V.
Published: November 2008

The overthrow of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia in 1974, and the independence of Angola and Mozambique in 1975, as well as Zimbabwe in 1980, seem to have strengthened the case for classifying African régimes on the basis of their ideology.

In a collection of mainly country-studies of socialism in sub-Saharan Africa edited by Carl Rosberg and Thomas Callaghy in 1978, various explanations were advanced about why the so-called ‘first wave’ of radicals failed to transform African societies successfully, and a common theme was the major rô played by ideology in differentiating ‘African’ from ‘scientific’ socialist régimes.1In 1981 David and Marina Ottaway contrasted the ‘African socialism’ of Guinea, Zambia, and Tanzania with the ‘Afrocommunism’ of Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia, and contended that ideology was the best indicator of the clear differences that existed in both their institutions and policy choices.2In 1982 Crawford Young placed African régimes in three ideological categories: ‘Populist socialist’, and ‘African capitalist’.3
The Nationalist Revolution in Eritrea
Authors: Markakis John
Published: November 2008

Now in its third decade, the nationalist revolution in Eritrea is Africa's longest conflict, and one whose nature is often misunderstood by friend and foe alike. Its supporters see it as an anti-colonial campaign, the same as that waged by people elsewhere for independence. Certainly, colonialism has something to do with it, since Eritrea itself was its creation. However, Eritrean nationalism did not emerge as a reaction to the colonial situation. It made its appearance after the collapse of Italian rule, when the fate of the former colony hung in the balance. The issue that proved the catalyst was Ethiopia's determination to absorb Eritrea, as she was soon to do with the collaboration of many of the inhabitants. These peculiar origins have been cited as good reasons for dismissing Eritrean nationalism as a sham, even though the events of the last 25 years offer ample proof to the contrary.1 This article offers a summary view of the conflict's history, and makes an attempt to distil the essence of the movement which is still fighting Ethiopia.2
Adjustment with Growth: a Fragile Consensus
Authors: Ravenhill John
Published: November 2008

Six years of intense debate have produced a measure of agreement on a solution for Africa's malaise. This is captured by the latest catchphrase of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, ‘Adjustment with Growth’, which implicitly acknowledge past errors by African governments – or, minimally, that a continuation of previous policies is no longer tenable in a changed external environment. An emphasis on ‘growth’ recognises that ‘adjustment’ must encompass more than ‘stabilisation’, that the continent needs additional externally-provided financial resources on concessional terms if import strangulation is not to exacerbate the downward economic spiral in which many countries are currently trapped. This fragile consensus is facing its first serious practical test as the World Bank attempts to extend its Structural Adjustment Lending programme in Africa. Clearly, significant differences remain between the attitudes of African governments and external donors, and within the academic community, on the sources of the continent's problems and on the policy measures that are needed to counteract them.
Coffee After Copper? Structural Adjustment, Liberalisation, and Agriculture in Zambia
Authors: Kydd Jonathan
Published: November 2008

In contrast to its policies in the economic sphere, Zambia has one of Africa's most liberal approaches to press freedom. To convey the flavour of public debate during, or immediately after, the 19-month experiment with a market-determined exchange rate, 10 quotations are presented below:

Large scale mining will continue for 12 to 20 years, but small-working may go on for 50–60 years.

– Francis Kaunda, Chairman, Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines, June 1987.

Coffe after copper.

– Campaign slogan of the Coffee Growers Committee of the Commercial Farmers' Bureau.

Even real socialist countries have to find and use foreign exchange.

– Kebby Musokotwane, Prime Minister, replying to a question in the National Assembly, August 1986.

Zambia's cardinal mistake was to subsidise consumption for a long time, thereby delaying diversification.

– Kenneth Kaunda, President of Zambia, May 1986.

The economic reform programme has begun to succeed: devaluation has stimulated exports.

– Kenneth Kaunda, August 1936, Opening the 21st U.N.I.P. National Council Meeting.

It was not socialist principles which ruined the Zambian economy, but unfavourable economic terms which the North has imposed on the South…I have no power…we agreed to the IMF reform programme much against out better judgement.

– Kenneth Kaunda, August 1986, interviewed by Swedish, West German, and Cuban journalists.
Uncivil States and Civil Societies: How Illusion Became Reality
Authors: Lemarchand René
Published: November 2008

WhatGeertz refers to as the ‘pigeonhole disease’ is nowhere more evident than in the persistent tendency of political scientists to locate state and society in separate conceptual niches: one inhabited by a potentially predatory species and the other by a defenceless and fully domesticated pigeon. Only where a recognisable entity is sharing the characteristics of a state system, whose boundaries are analytically separate from those of the social system, can political science claim a disciplinary domain of its own. The ongoing debate over the relative merits or demerits of state-centred approaches has only served to add further salience to the dichotomy between state and society, but with little agreement as to where the one begins and the other leaves off.
Slum Clearance and the Informal Economy in Nairobi
Authors: Macharia Kinuthia
Published: November 2008

Giventhe socio-political and economic changes that have taken place since independence nearly 30 years ago, the Kenya African National Union (Kanu) Government has been remarkably slow to acknowledge the significance of those small-scale business activities popularly referred to as ‘Jua Kali’—Swahili for ‘hot sun’, since hardly any enjoy the benefit of either adequate shade or shelter.
Ex-Servicemen at the Crossroads: Protest and Politics in Post-War Ghana
Authors: Israel Adrienne M.
Published: November 2008

Before the late 1960s, historians generally agreed that World War II had increased mass support for African nationalism. Initially, they claimed that soldiers returned home politicised by war-time experiences and looking for opportunities to spread new ideas acquired through contacts with Asian nationalists. Subsequent scholars gradually chipped away at these assumptions, some completely discarding them as ‘myths’. Current opinion suggests that the way African soldiers reacted to the war depended on their ethnicity, class origins, education levels, and military occupations, and that their role in independence politics depended on local conditions.
The Use of Sports in Policy Implementation: the Case of Tanzania
Authors: McHenry Dean E.
Published: November 2008

There is general agreement that sports are used for political purposes. The controversy over whether this should or should not be the case is really a struggle about how they should be used. Those who argue for the separation of sports and politics tend to be satisfied with the existing use, while those against the separation tend to be dissatisfied with the present situation. The positions are rational: each group seeks to use this arena to achieve its own political objectives. Although some involvement of politics in sports appears universal, the degree varies considerably from country to country.
Legitimising State Capitalism: Malian Militarism in Third-World Perspective
Authors: Wolpin Miles D.
Published: November 2008

Although the analysis which follows centres upon the West African state of Mali, much of what is said applies in varying measure to other examples of military state capitalism in Africa and elsewhere. Its importance is underscored by the fact that this is an increasingly common régime variant in the Third World. Similarly, domestic militarism has been transformed from an unusual occurrence to a phenomenon which evokes little more than a déjà vu response. Today nearly half of the governments of the ‘South’ are directly or indirectly dominated by the military, whereas three decades ago little more than 15 per cent could be so classified.
Why Did the Ujamaa Village Policy Fail? – Towards a Global Analysis
Authors: Ergas Zaki
Published: November 2008

Genuineefforts have been made in recent years to build a more egalitarian and just society in Tanzania. A ‘leadership code’ forbids senior government and party officials to have a second income from business interests or rents; a steeply progressive tax system reduces income differentials from a ratio of 1/100 before independence to 1/10 in the 1970s; a period of national service is obligatory for secondaryschool and university graduates; fairly successful attempts have been made to radically reform the whole educational system; and the major financial, industrial, and commercial enterprises have been nationalised. But 13 years after its inception in 1967, it is now generally acknowledged that the policy of creatingujamaavillages has failed in terms of what they had been designed to achieve: namely, the building of a socialist society in the rural areas of Tanzania where more than 90 per cent of the population lives.
Why Swaziland is Different: an Explanation of the Kingdom's Political Position in Southern Africa
Authors: Bischoff Paul-Henri
Published: November 2008

Explaining Swaziland's political position in the context of Southern Africa has been difficult and never in vogue. This small Kingdom with a population of less than 700,000 has often been neglected in African analyses, and where facts and figures have been presented, these have not been sufficient to give us any real understanding as regards what has happened in recent years, and why. What to some has defied objective explanation has been the Kingdom's non-conflictual relationship with South Africa which, in a regionally polarised situation, has come to be interpreted as a ready willingness to collaborate with theapartheidstate.
Mozambique: a Delicate Peace
Authors: Alden Chris , Simpson Mark
Published: November 2008

Thepace of conflict-resolution in the Third World has been nothing short of astounding since 1990. A whole array of low-intensity wars have been terminated. Some, such as in Nicaragua and El Salvador, had occupied pride of place in the reinvigorated test of wills between Moscow and Washington during the 1980s. Others, as in Kampuchea, were fuelled by the parallel rivalry between Moscow and Beijing, which both fed off and had an impact on the key dispute between the United States and the Soviet Union. A few, such as the ‘bush war’ in Namibia and the fighting in the Western Sahara, never became serious testing-grounds for the superpowers.
Regional Hegemony: Domination and Resistance in the Horn of Africa
Authors: Iyob Ruth
Published: November 2008

Contested territories and challenges to state sovereignty have become almost the norm in post-colonial Africa. The nexus of many of these conflicts resides in a status quo which gives primacy to territorial integrity over the right of peoples to self-determination. The comparative advantage thus accorded to sovereign states has resulted in a disequilibrium that legitimated the violation of both regionally and internationally sanctioned rules enshrined in the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U.) and the United Nations (U.N.). Thus a normative bias in favour of the imperative of stability and order was justified by reference to the fragility of the newly independent régimes. In the process, the right of self-determination was narrowly interpreted to refer solely to those African peoples waging liberation struggles against European colonialism or white rule.
Importance of Public Service Reform: the Case of Kenya
Authors: Cohen John M.
Published: November 2008

Internationaldonors supporting Kenya's development strategies have increasingly tied aid to the implementation of policy and sectoral reforms. After being confronted by more than 150 required structural adjustment conditions, the Government's good rhetoric but slow response led frustrated donors in November 1991 to suspend all foreign-exchange relief, and large blocks of bilateral aid, pending substantial progress in meeting these requirements.
Ex Africa: an Africanist's Intellectual Autobiography
Authors: Gann L. H.
Published: November 2008

Scholarlyconcern with Africa is of ancient origin. But modern African studies in departments at major universities date only from the aftermath of World War II. As I approach the age of seventy, I find myself a member of the diminishing group of scholars that helped to create this particular field, as well as also belonging to the last generation which, at one time, wished to serve the British Empire. An intellectual autobiography is not a confession. But this brief account does seek to delineate those forces which shaped my career as an Africanist during the last 40 years.
Land Reform in Zimbabwe: Some Legal Aspects
Authors: Naldi Gino J.
Published: November 2008

The Government of Zimbabwe has only recently begun to implement the commitment of the liberation movements to give land to poor ‘communal’ farmers, especially those dispossessed by the whiteminority régime after Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. It needs to be recalled that by virtue of the Land Tenure Act of 1969 almost half of the country's agricultural land was allocated to Europeans, who had ‘greater access to the regions considered suited to intensive crop and livestock production’, and that ‘On average, each of the nearly 7,000 European farms was roughly 100 times the size of any of the 700,000 or so holdings in the Tribal Trust Lands’. The fact that much of this land was under-utilised only served to increase African resentment.
The Neglected Tragedy: the Return to War in Angola, 1992–3
Authors: Pereira Anthony W.
Published: November 2008

Thestate system during the so-called ‘cold war’ rested on a paradox. Peace and stability in the developed countries was accompanied by scores of ‘hot’ wars in the Third World, fuelled and at times created by the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies. Each superpower had a high incentive to arm client states and rebel armies, in return for political loyalty and access to primary products. Nowhere did the logic of this system have such negative effects as in Africa. There, the result was the militarisation of states, the escalation of wars, and the strengthening of authoritarian forms of rule.
Rebuilding Organisation Capacity in Uganda Under the National Resistance Movement
Authors: Brett E. A.
Published: November 2008

Eight years of reconciliation, policy reform, and economic recovery have now followed 20 years of dictatorship, corruption, civil war, and economic decline in Uganda. This stems from the interaction between a government which has created a benign environment for development, and donors who have provided generous support conditional on compliance with a standard package of structural adjustment policies involving changes in macro-economic management. These include the removal of price distortions on foreign exchange, capital, and essential commodities, improved fiscal and financial discipline, the reduction of marketing monopolies and state controls, and civil service reform. Government has set up participatory political structures at national and local levels, restored law and order, and taken many of the unpopular decisions required to enforce the changes demanded by adjustment policy.
Development Strategy in an Early-Stage Economy: Uganda
Authors: Clark Paul G.
Published: November 2008

WHAT are the economic conditions for attaining Uganda's ambitious development goal, the doubling of income per capita in 15 years? My purpose here is to discuss the logic of five major structural changes which may be regarded as necessary for a substantial acceleration of Uganda's rate of economic growth. Since each of these changes would require energetic government policies to bring it about within the time- span considered, they can also be thought of as key elements of development strategy. I hope that the logic of these structural changes may be suggestive also for other countries at a somewhat similar stage of development, particularly in Africa.
Seminar on Rural Development
Authors: Chambers Robert
Published: November 2008

This seminar, jointly sponsored by Syracuse University and the University College, Dar es Salaam, was attended by East African civil servants, staff members of the three Colleges, and research workers from the multidisciplinary Syracuse University Village Settlement Project in Tanzania. While some general ideas about rural development were presented, notably by Anthony Rweyemamu in his paper ‘On the Concept of Development from Below’, the main focus was on settlement schemes, in particular Tanzania's pilot village settlements.
Symposium on the City of Freetown
Authors: Crowder Michael
Published: November 2008

The Institute of African Studies at Fourah Bay College organised a symposium on the city of Freetown which brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to discuss the history and present social and economic structure of Freetown, under the joint directorship of Professor Eldred Jones, head of the Department of English at Fourah Bay College, and Christopher Fyfe, Reader in African History at Edinburgh University. A similar project on Ibadan was undertaken at the Institute of African Studies at the University there in 1963 and the collected papers are soon to be published by Cambridge University Press under the editorship of Peter Lloyd, Akin Mabogunje, and Bolanle Awe. More recently the University of Dakar held a series of discussions about Dakar and the resulting papers are to be published by Présence Africaine.
Demographic Research and Training in Africa
Authors: Okonjo Chukuka
Published: November 2008

The governments of Africa, in planning for economic and social development, have become increasingly aware that they can no longer afford to treat population as an exogenous variable. They have begun to study the component variables of population change, and their interrelationships, and have paid special attention to the critical role of fertility.
Élite Formation in Africa: Class, Culture, and Coherence
Authors: Miller Robert A.
Published: November 2008

A unified élite means the end of freedom. But when the groups of the élite… become a disunity, it means the end of the state. Freedom survives in [the] intermediate free zones.1Any system that restrains [solidification of the élite] however slightly can only excite awe.2
The Impact of Foreign Rubber Concessions on the Liberian Economy, 1966–1971
Authors: Ghoshal Animesh
Published: November 2008

Many less-developed countries are richly endowed with natural resources but, due to their lack of domestic savings, must depend on foreign capital for the exploitation of these resources. The industries which are established usually produce primary products and are geared to export markets, since the host countries, particularly the ‘small’ ones, lack a broad domestic market. Thus for many L.D.C.s the relevant question is how the export-oriented primary products can make the maximum contribution to broadly-based economic development.1 Countries which fail to produce domestic capital goods are said to have incomplete economic systems, but the export industry, by making available foreign exchange for capital goods imports, can be regarded as a quasi-capital goods sector. The same argument holds more generally for manufactures or, indeed, for goods in which a country has a comparative disadvantage. As Henry Wallich puts it in his study of sugar in the Cuban economy, exports and imports may assume the roles played by investment and saving in developed countries, with exports being the main generating force in national income.2
Population Mobility in Rural Swaziland: a Research Note
Authors: Lea John P.
Published: November 2008

Population mobility in its various forms has long been recognised as a major determinant of social and economic policies in many transitional, which is the stage in a country's economic development that has been defined by W. W. Rostow as the ‘transitional era when a society prepares itself – or is prepared by external forces – for sustained growth’1 Although much has been published about population migration in Africa, little research has been conducted into the nature and frequency of periodic visits by rural inhabitants to the main urban centres. These journeys are of particular interest to those who are engaged in the physical planning of rural settlements as they provide a clue to the identification of those amenities and services that may be required in the future, as well as the level of demands upon the local transportation system.
Amílcar Cabral: a Theory of Imperialism
Authors: McCulloch Jock
Published: November 2008

The speeches and articles of Amílcar Cabral represent an attempt to think of imperialism and the colonial relationship in a new way. His published works sought to explain how a subsistence agricultural society was being transformed under the abnormal conditions attendant upon colonial domination. Superficially, Cabral does not present any new or particularly complex interpretation of colonialism. With the exception of a few rather brief essays, most of his work is a description of a guerrilla war fought against the last of the great colonial powers. Yet the appearance of the terms ‘mode of production’ and ‘productive forces’ indicates that his understanding of imperialism is founded on a new set of presuppositions. Cabral used these terms before they became common among the ranks of the ‘advanced left’, and at a time when the concept of the mode of production was essentially a possession of Soviet Marxism. In the early 1960s, Soviet visions of the ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ were achieving much the same effect as modernisation theory in the West. That most of Cabral's important essays were written at this time only emphasises the innovativeness of his work.
Group Interests and the State: an Explanation of Zimbabwe's Agricultural Policies
Authors: Skålnes Tor
Published: November 2008

While most African states are struggling hard to correct the severe imbalances in their economies that have been created, in part, by declining agricultural exports and rising food imports, recent evidence from Zimbabwe suggests that growth is being fuelled by the strong performance of the agricultural sector. In September 1988, it was expected that the value of crop production for 1988–9 would rise by 40 per cent over the previous year, contributing strongly to a real increase in the gross domestic product (G.D.P) of 5–6 per cent.1The great foreign-exchange earners, tobacco and cotton, broke previous output records and achieved very favourable prices on the world market as well, and the maize harvest also improved significantly.
A Critique of Nigeria's Proposed Two-Party System
Authors: Akinola Anthony A.
Published: November 2008

Shortly after assuming office as Head of State in August 1985, President Ibrahim Babangida inaugurated a 17-member Political Bureau, headed by Professor Sylvanus Cookey, whose terms of reference included ‘The review of Nigeria's political history, identifying the basic problems which led to failure in the past and suggesting ways of resolving and coping with these problems’.1 One of the most controversial of the Bureau's proposals was that the number of political parties should be limited to two in order to ensure that Nigeria's future politics would be based on principles and not ethnicity.2 The Government accepted this recommendation as part of the programme for a return to civilian rule in 1992, and has decided that two parties will be registered in 1989.3
Managing Transition Anarchies: Rwanda, Burundi, and South Africa in Comparative Perspective
Authors: Lemarchand René
Published: November 2008

Againstthe backdrop of Africa's recent transitions to multi-party democracy, two countries stand at opposite ends of a spectrum of success and failure that ranges from the apocalyptic to the nearly miraculous. At one extreme, South Africa, the site of what has been described as ‘one of the most extraordinary political transformations of the twentieth century’, where the people ‘have defied the logic of their past, and broken all the rules of social theory, to forge a powerful spirit of unity from a shattered nation’. At the other end of the scale, Rwanda, a synonym for abyssal violence — a name that will go down in history as the epitome of an African Holocaust. Burundi, though spared the agonies of her neighbour, has not fared much better. There a remarkably successful transition was abruptly brought to a halt by an attempted military take-over, setting off an explosion of ethnic violence on a scale consonant with her reputation as a leading candidate for the title of genocidal state.
Cameroon's Democratic Crossroads, 1990–4
Authors: Krieger Milton
Published: November 2008

Cameroon'supheavals since 1990 have not been widely reported among the more visible and violent African state-society conflicts. Their anonymity on the continent's political agenda is understandable, since by the formal, most visible indices, little has changed since pluralist pressures appeared. The ‘Gaullist’ monolith state remains fundamentally in place after 25 years: the constitution retains the unitary executive stamp of 1972, against federalist and devolution challenges, although multi-party politics were legalised in 1990. This and a new press law have been the régime's major concessions to emerging opposition forces, and led to presidential and national assembly elections in 1992.
The Debt Tables of the World Bank
Authors: Dent Martin
Published: November 2008

As members of the Debt Crisis Network of Charities and Non-Governmental Organisations, my colleague, Bill Peters, and I, Co-Chairmen of the Campaign for Jubilee 2000, were invited to the annual presentation in London of the World Bank's very detailed Debt Tables that are prepared with great care each year by Malvina Pollock and her team in Washington. They draw on statistics from 129 (116 in 1992–3) third-world governments, which are dealt with country by country in four pages of analysis in Volume 2, having been aggregated in Volume 1 to give totals for each major area, and for different income groups. Both sets of figures include lengthy and informative introductions analysing the changes and structures in debt and finance for developing countries during the last year.
Education and National Integration in Nigeria
Authors: Peshkin Alan
Published: November 2008

The new nations of the world hold many expectations for their education systems. They expect that schools will produce the labour force for their manpower requirements, the leadership for their bureaucracies, and the citizenry for an enlightened social order. In pluralistic countries, governments expect also that schools will assist in integrating sub-populations fragmented by religious, linguistic, or ethnic differences. This article will examine the theme, ‘education and national integration’, in Nigeria, whose federal form of government was erected in recognition of profound cultural disparities.
Conference on the Legal, Economic, and Social Aspects of African Refugee Problems
Authors: Betts T. F.
Published: November 2008

The presence of large numbers of refugees in independent African countries is one of their gravest problems. These refugees do not normally come into the countries of asylum in manageable numbers, but enter in tens of thousands, usually totally destitute, into regions poor in communications and social services—even for the local inhabitants—and with little if anything in the way of surplus local food supplies. The logistics and finance of providing immediate succour have presented enormous difficulties, intensified by the need to remove them as far as possible from the frontiers of their countries of origin, in order to avoid political tensions between the countries concerned and to observe the Organisation for African Unity's recommendation of 1964. Their settlement, among people who are only just self-sufficient in subsistence foods, places great strains on the technical resources of countries struggling for a decent standard of living for their own inhabitants, and deeply committed to their own development plans.
The House of Chiefs and the Political Development of Botswana
Authors: Proctor J. H.
Published: November 2008

A major problem encountered by the builders of many of the new states in Africa has been that of defining a satisfactory position for the traditional tribal authorities in a more integrated and democratic political system. In Botswana a solution has been sought not only at the level of local government, where much of the Chiefs' power has been transferred to elected district councils, but also at the national level, where a House of Chiefs has been created to advise Government and Parliament. This body merits examination as a constructive effort to synthesise indigenous and imported institutions, and to accommodate the interests and demands of the hereditary rulers and their more conservative subjects, who remain deeply rooted in the tribal structure, in a manner which is acceptable to the new élite and their supporters, who are eager to modernise quickly.
The Organisation of Scientific Research in the Malagasy Republic
Authors: Valette Jean
Published: November 2008

For many years very little attention was paid to scientific research in Madagascar. To be more precise, the public authorities considered that this problem should be left to private initiative, or at least to the initiative of certain key individuals concerned with research in their own special field. Another sign of the times was that it long appeared useless even to envisage any co-ordination.
Israel and Black Africa: a Rapprochement?
Authors: Nadelmann Ethan A.
Published: November 2008

Ever since the signing of the Camp David accords and the Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty of March 1979, rumours and predictions have abounded of a diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and Black Africa. Israel's unique relationship with those states, which commenced immediately following their independence and ended with a dramatic rupture during the last months of 1973, has continued on a discreet and unofficial basis since then. This article seeks to provide a greater understanding of the present relationships between Israel and Black Africa, and its future possibilities, through an examination of the forces and trends which have determined its course during the past two decades.
A Wider Eastern African Economic Union? Some Geographical Aspects
Authors: O'Connor A. M.
Published: November 2008

Economic integration in East Africa has been discussed throughout the past 50 years or more, although—until recently—only in terms of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Almost as soon as Kenya and Uganda became established as political entities, close economic links were established between them, and when British administration was extended to Tanganyika after 1918 that country was brought into close relationship with its two northern neighbours. Thus a customs union between Kenya and Uganda was established in 1917, and Tanganyika was gradually incorporated within it between 1922 and 1927. The links were strengthened as economic development advanced, and were formalised under the East Africa High Commission from 1948 onwards: so they became an important part of the inheritance of the three states as they gained political independence in the years 1961–1963.1
Inter-Regional Seminar on National Youth Service Programmes
Authors: Callaway Archibald
Published: November 2008

In response to urgent local situations, many African nations have set going special programmes for youth. These programmes—largely a phenomenon of the 1960s—represent a distinct break with customary methods of meeting the needs of youth for civic education, specialised training, and community service. They are administered separately from systems of formal education and do not easily fit within the category of what is usually known as non-formal education and training. Nor do these programmes have much in common with the familiar boys' and girls' clubs of such wide variety, deriving from both kinship and modern influences, which are to be found in African villages, townships, and cities. Most of these national youth service programmes provide facilities whereby trainees can make an organised, disciplined contribution to national development during their period of service. Such service to the nation through work projects may be for a few months or may stretch over a period of one or even two years. Almost all the programmes are rural-oriented. A few cater only for girls and young women. Examples are: Jeunesse pionnière nationale (Central African Republic), Mouvement de la jeunesse (Chad), Action de rénovation rurale (Congo Brazzaville), Service civique (Mali), Formation et production (Tunisia), University Students' Service (Ethiopia), National Youth Service (Kenya), National Youth Organisation (Liberia), Young Pioneers (Malawi), Youth Service (Zambia).
Zonal Rural Development in Africa
Authors: Betts T. F.
Published: November 2008

A report of the conference on the legal, economic, and social aspects of African refugee problems, which took place in Addis Ababa in October 1967, appeared in this Journal, V, 4, December 1967. That conference had recognised three phases of activity on the African refugee problem: the phase of succour and relief when the refugees first pour across the frontiers of the countries of asylum; the second phase, when they are rescued from their overcrowded reception areas, and established on the land to produce their own food, with at least a minimum of social services and amenities; and the third phase, which was of most interest to the conference, involving the new concept of zonal integration and development. Since then there has been some important progress in clarifying, planning, and putting into practice this new form of rural development, which by now merits a separate report.
Libya: an Analysis of the Oil Economy
Authors: Heitmann George
Published: November 2008

Prior to the discovery of rich oil deposits, Libyan development prospects seemed markedly discouraging. In a primarily agricultural economy, cultivation was narrowly confined to two physically separated coastal belts constituting less than 3 per cent of the country's total land area. Under the combined influence of outmoded techniques and the hostility of an arid soil, agricultural productivity was low. Possibilities for developing other forms of economic activity were few and unpromising. Libya seemed destined for an existence of continued dependence upon foreign assistance.