bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Orienting of Attention
Authors: Posner Michael I.
Published: July 2007

Bartlett viewed thinking as a high level skill exhibiting ballistic properties that he called its “point of no return”. This paper explores one aspect of cognition through the use of a simple model task in which human subjects are asked to commit attention to a position in visual space other than fixation. This instruction is executed by orienting a covert (attentional) mechanism that seems sufficiently time locked to external events that its trajectory can be traced across the visual field in terms of momentary changes in the efficiency of detecting stimuli. A comparison of results obtained with alert monkeys, brain injured and normal human subjects shows the relationship of this covert system to saccadic eye movements and to various brain systems controlling perception and motion. In accordance with Bartlett's insight, the possibility is explored that similar principles apply to orienting of attention toward sensory input and orienting to the semantic structures used in thinking.
An Analysis of Context and Constraints-dependent Shopping Behaviour Using Qualitative Decision Principles
Authors: Arentze T.A. , Timmermans H.J.P.
Published: July 2007

This study investigates consumer choice of shopping centre in the context of individuals' daily activity schedules. The hypothesis tested is that activity schedules may constrain location choice and moderate preferences for locations. Observations are derived from an activity-diary data-set and a constraint-based model is used to identify the choice set in each case. A choice is described in terms of a heuristic selecting a location from a choice set. The method CART is used to find the decision tree that best fits the choice observations using a large set of predictors. The results indicate that schedules have a significant impact on location choice primarily by limiting the available time-window in a substantial proportion of cases and secondarily by moderating preferences. It is concluded therefore that spatial shopping models used for analysis or prediction should be based on activity-constrained choice sets at an individual level.
Accessing the Nation: Disability, Political Inclusion and Built Form
Authors: Hastings Jillian , Thomas Huw
Published: July 2007

This paper considers the relationship between the design and development of the built environment and the political project of creating an inclusive polity. Its focus is the examination of attempts, as part of this process, to re-imagine a shared identity as members of a polity and the role of iconic buildings in this. The paper examines aspects of the ways in which the social construction of nation can privilege particular forms of embodied citizenship-namely, those associated with a normalised body form, which is contrasted with the impaired body. It is especially concerned with the way that the design and use of the built environment is part of this process. Case studies of the design and development of the Scottish Parliament and National Assembly of Wales debating chambers illustrate differences in the notions of citizenship being developed in the two countries, but also that the process of negotiating membership of the nation is never complete and hence that gains made to create more inclusive or progressive constructions of nationhood are fragile.
Evidence on the Intergenerational Persistence of Residential Segregation by Race
Authors: Dawkins Casey J.
Published: July 2007

Despite the substantial literature devoted to examining the causes of US Black-White residential segregation by race, there is little evidence on the persistence of residential segregation outcomes across generations. This paper examines the following two questions: Do households reside in neighbourhoods with racial compositions that resemble the household head's childhood neighbourhood? Do residential segregation outcomes persist across generations, controlling for household-level determinants of residential location choice? The empirical work relies on household-level data from the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) matched to the racial composition of the household's census tract of residence to estimate regression models where the dependent variable is a measure of own-race residential segregation in 1980 and 1990 for each household head in the sample. The independent variables include various contemporaneous household characteristics, characteristics of each household head's parents in 1968 and the lagged 1968 neighbourhood racial composition of the household head's childhood residence. Results from several regression models suggest that households choose to reside in neighbourhoods with racial compositions that resemble the household head's childhood neighbourhood. Observable parental characteristics, particularly measures of parental interracial contact, explain much of the intergenerational persistence in segregation among African American households. Among Whites, the intergenerational persistence of residential segregation remains even in models with an extensive set of controls. Across both racial groups, the neighbourhood social ties of parents living in more integrated neighbourhoods are shown to reduce the propensity for children to choose segregated neighbourhoods upon reaching adulthood. These findings suggest that interracial contact may reduce the persistence of residential segregation over time.
Power and Governance: Metropolitan Governance in France
Authors: Nicholls Walter J.
Published: July 2007

The system of metropolitan governance in France has undergone a series of rather dramatic changes over the past 40 years. Where central cities and their powerful mayors once enjoyed a privileged position over other territorial actors, they now find themselves depending upon these other authorities to fulfil many basic governance tasks. Moreover, a layer of organisations, agencies and networks has formed to co-ordinate the collective action of these actors in areas of mutual concern. The increased importance of co-operation and partnerships in metropolitan governance has led to the prominence of the concept of functionalist power (interdependency and co-operation) in many of the analyses of metropolitan governance. By contrast, distributive conceptions of power (hierarchy and conflict) have largely been suppressed, weakening the abilities of scholars to account for a key component responsible for shaping the relational space of actors. The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework that accounts for both aspects of power, and to use this framework to explain changes in the French governance system. In addition, the paper presents the case of Toulouse to provide a concrete illustration of how local actors have responded to changes in their governance systems.
Measure for Measure: Evaluating the Evidence of Culture's Contribution to Regeneration
Authors: Evans Graeme
Published: July 2007

Culture-led regeneration, as it has come to be known, is now a feature of cities-old and new-as they seek to revive former industrial and waterfront sites and city centres, and establish themselves as competitive cities of culture. At the same time, the rationale for cultural input to area and neighbourhood regeneration has been extended to include quality of life, as well as economic outcomes. The evidence of how far flagship and major cultural projects contribute to a range of regeneration objectives is, however, limited. Measuring the social, economic and environmental impacts attributed to the cultural element in area regeneration is problematic and the 'evidence' is seldom robust. The paper reviews both evidence and the indicators used to measure impacts and concludes with an assessment of how and why gaps in evidence persist.
The Economic Effect of Urban Colleges on their Surrounding Communities
Authors: Steinacker Annette
Published: July 2007

Typical university impact studies in the US have focused on large institutions and their impact on an entire metropolitan region. We know little about the impact of small schools or the impact of a college on just its surrounding city or neighbourhood, despite recent interest in the relationship of colleges to city neighbourhood revitalisation. This article illustrates that, with two simple adjustments, the standard impact study can produce an estimate of a typical urban college's economic effect matched to its surrounding community, rather than to the urban region as a whole. A case study using this approach found that even a small US college with a predominantly commuter population had a significant effect on the city in which it was located.
On the Measurement and Meaning of Residential Segregation: A Response to Simpson
Authors: Johnston Ron , Poulsen Michael , Forrest James
Published: July 2007

Using an alternative conception of ethnic residential segregation, and associated statistical measures, this paper re-examines Simpson's analysis of the situation of South Asians in Bradford. It suggests that, contra Simpson, segregation of that ethnic group did increase over the period 1991-2001, with implications for public policy.
Low-income Homeownership: American Dream or Delusion?
Authors: Shlay Anne B.
Published: July 2007

This paper is a critical analysis of recent US policy to promote low-income homeownership. It examines the ideology and assumptions buttressing this policy, evidence on the effects of low-income homeownership and the viability of homeownership as a strategy for low-income families. Evidence suggests that the prospect for sustained growth in low-income homeownership may be limited. Research does not provide uniform support for it as a tool for asset accumulation, neighbourhood economic development or other social and political goals. Alleged effects of homeownership may be artefacts of self-selection and the conflation of homeownership with unobserved characteristics coincident with buying homes. What homeownership does and why are not well understood because of difficulties disentangling what homeownership means. The elevation of low-income homeownership to its current status has deflected political attention away from alternative policies for affordable housing.
Effects of Intergroup Contact on Attitudes of Chinese Urban Residents to Migrant Workers
Authors: Nielsen Ingrid , Nyland Chris , Smyth Russell , Zhang Mingqiong , Zhu Cherrie Jiuhua
Published: July 2007

One consequence of China's marketisation has been the emergence of a 'floating population'-rural Chinese who migrate to China's cities to work. Many urbanites have negative attitudes towards such migrants. To understand how these negative attitudes might be ameliorated, the paper employs Allport's influential contact hypothesis to investigate whether urbanite-migrant friendships affect attitudes. More negative attitudes were observed among males and older urbanites. There was no effect of simply knowing a migrant, supporting Allport's thesis that non-intimate contact is not sufficient to affect attitudes. Friendship alone did not influence attitudes, but interaction effects were detected between having migrant friends and each of age, income and education. Negative attitudes were reduced among urbanites in older, higher-income and higher-education groups if they had a migrant friend.
The ‘uses and abuses’ of civil society in Africa
Authors: Hearn Julie
Published: July 2007

The current discourse on ‘civil society’ in Africa, conducted by Northern governments, international NGOs, activists and academics, often presents civil society as the locus sine qua nonfor progressive politics, the place where people organise to make their lives better, even a site of resistance. This article seeks to remind us that, as originally theorized by Antonio Gramsci, civil society is a potential battleground. It also constitutes an arena in which states and other powerful actors intervene to influence the political agendas of organised groups with the intention of defusing opposition. This article examines the extent to which this form of civil society is being constituted in Africa, in particular, through Northern government support to African policy‐oriented organisations. It does this by looking at three quite distinct national contexts and investigating the relationship between the dominant development project in each, undertaken by the government in ‘strategic collaboration’ with donors and civil society. It focuses on Ghana, South Africa and Uganda during the late 1990s. All three countries have been paradigmatic in terms of donor visions for the continent and have attracted some of the largest aid packages that specifically target ‘civil society’. It is argued that donors have been successful in influencing the current version of civil society in these countries so that a vocal, well‐funded section of it, which intervenes on key issues of national development strategy, acts not as a force for challenging the status quo,but for building societal consensus for maintaining it.
Humanitarian & development actors as peacebuilders?
Authors: Cain Allan
Published: July 2007

The article argues that despite ample justification for donor fatigue, the international community has, in fact, stayed engaged in Angola during the last decade. Investment in humanitarian and development/rehabilitation programming can be understood as a donor strategy for influencing regional stability and building peace. The war raises risks for the major powers who have progressively increased their stake in the lucrative Angolan petroleum economy. The Community Rehabilitation Programme (CRP) launched in Brussels in 1995 had a clear agenda to help consolidate the peace process launched in Lusaka in 1994 and the donor financial support necessary to make the plan viable.

The author argues that the CRP programme incorporated some of the essential elements for effective peace building. These fundamentals included: institutional reform, rural‐urban economic equilibration, social and infrastructural rehabilitation and community buy‐in. The opportunity to have a real impact on the peace process was missed due to the failure of key implementing actors to put an effective operational programme in place in a timely manner. Donor's and more importantly communities, lost patience and the CRP was effectively sidelined. When a belated extension of state administration was attempted in 1998, the CRP mechanism was already moribund. A strategic opportunity to involve communities in the process of civic reconstruction paid for by international donors was wasted. Lessons from these failures can be drawn and the analysis applied to develop improved strategies for engaging communities, local government and other actors such as donors. A renewed programme for alleviating the Angolan humanitarian crisis and at the same time contributing to the peace process is proposed through strengthening communities’ capacities and investing in civic institutions.
An African brain drain: Igbo decisions to immigrate to the US
Authors: Reynolds Rachel R
Published: July 2007

This article outlines the conditions under which a particular group of professional Nigerians has made the decision to immigrate to the United States and how, once abroad, they have established a continuum for immigration from the home area. The paper has been generated from f ieldwork and interviews among Igbo people in the Chicago area, conducted between 1997 and 2000. The article explains the educational, cultural and economic conditions under which Igbo immigration to the US in the late 1970s and early 1980s were undertaken — the time during which members of the immigrant network came to the US. My work here constitutes an effort to define the way that a particular group of immigrants to Chicago came to develop and how they now utilise an immigrant social network. My preliminary question here: how did the Nigerians in my social network make the decision to immigrate to the States? Although there are several factors that affect this decision, for my study, I focus most closely on two interrelated factors: education and cultural specific institutions like household economic decision making patterns. Those factors were chosen because among Igbo middle‐class people of this generation, the need for educational opportunities and a tradition of emigration appears to be the necessary conditions to make an Igbo person decide to immigrate, while economic factors like reduced economic opportunities in Nigeria or lower pay were merely sufficient conditions. The qualitative data presented here is intended to give new shape to research questions that will further develop our understanding of how the socio‐economics of schooling and educational opportunities in Africa and the US come together to reinforce the brain‐drain process in which promising young professionals leave Africa for industrialised regions.
Migradollars & poverty alleviation strategy issues in Congo (DRC)
Authors: Sumata Claude
Published: July 2007

This briefing examines the motivations of agents and analyses the idea of risk‐sharing behaviour in the absence of insurance or intertemporel markets in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Migration might provide a shelter against uncertain income prospects when financial markets ‘malfunction’ or do not exist Labour migration tends to improve economic welfare of the destination countries and immigration may alleviate unemployment and provide inputs such as remittances and skills. Migration can also act as a mechanism for income redistribution and as a source for resources for families with migrants. International migration has had an overall positive impact on poverty alleviation in DRC. Remittances facilitate, to some extent, local entrepreneurial activity.
Territory, Institutions and National Identity: The Case of Acadians in Greater Moncton, Canada
Authors: Bourgeois Daniel , Bourgeois Yves
Published: July 2007

Minority Francophones in a metropolitan area of eastern Canada recently grappled with political questions related to health, education and municipal services involving their language, identity and community. The pursuit of these identity projects called upon strategies of territorial integration and segregation where space shaped the issues, defined the Other and influenced the strategies chosen. Boundaries crystallised spaces of power and played a critical role in the definition of nationalist projects and the formation of minority identity. However, the paper's conclusion requires important nuances. The interplay of territory, institutions and identity is reciprocal. Also, one of the three elements can play a stronger role than the others depending on the territorial scale, the sub-state institution and the status of the minority. Research on nationalism should provide greater focus on the sub-state level and the concept of administrative nationalism is proposed as a means to do so.
Multinational corporations, taste transfer and underdevelopment: a case study from Kenya
Authors: Langdon Steven
Published: July 2007

The multinational corporation (mnc) is the agency through which advanced technology is transferred to the underdeveloped countries. In the case of the soap industry in Kenya, mnc investment has resulted in increasing unemployment and regional inequality, has made little and possibly a negative contribution to the balance of payments, and has failed to make linkages with the local economy and especially its resources. In particular, the mnc, through its promotion of new ‘brand‐name products, transfers tastes from advanced to backward capitalism, thus reinforcing the process of inappropriate technology transfer. Nationalisation and a controlled industrial strategy are options not open to Kenya given the nature of its existing class structure, reinforced by the mncs and furthering their interest.
The concept of ‘development’
Authors: Phillips Anne
Published: July 2007

Rather than just debate whether there is an ‘African capitalism’ and whether it can be ‘developmental’ such questions are themselves rejected as meaningless. There is no satisfactory definition of ‘development’ that does not already imply ‘capitalism’, even on the most technological definition. Theories of underdevelopment thus beg the question. Moreover insofar as they offer justification for the ‘logic’ of socialism, they are focusing on Utopian questions of its desirability, and not on the scientific and politically practical issue: that is, as capitalism develops, what social forces are being generated which can bring about transition?
The rise of a national bourgeoisie in Kenya
Authors: Swainson Nicola
Published: July 2007

Using detailed analysis of data from two case studies, evidence is provided of the growth of indigenous capitalist enterprise in Kenya. A local capitalist class is developing, originally based on merchant capital and gradually moving into manufacturing. Far from this bourgeoisie being ‘auxiliary’ (Leys’ term) to international capital, it has used its connections with the Kenya state successfully to establish itself in direct competition with foreign firms. The tendency of dependency theory to see the principal contradiction as an external imperialism leads to a failure to see the developing internal class contradictions posed by a rising national bburgeoisie and to derive relevant political strategies for the oppressed classes.
The post‐colonial state and its’ Tanzanian version
Authors: von Freyhold Michaela
Published: July 2007

Joining debate with Alavi, Leys and Saul, it is argued here that to analyse the post colonial state it is necessary to know not only generally which classes influence it, but the effect these classes have on the state and society and the relative position of each. A distinction should be made between the rulingclass and the governingclass, the former having always been the metropolitan bourgeoisie, while the latter has developed from the colonial administration to the post‐colonial State with a sophisticated array of instruments to control society, including the development of a form of state monopoly capitalism. An analysis of the Tanzanian state illustrates this argument. The rise to power of the new governing class, the nizers(Africanders) is examined to show that the various ‘progressive’ measures undertaken by the State (nationalisation, ‘socialist’ villages) have been methods adopted by the governing class to extend its control. Whatever the anti‐capitalist nature of the ideology, and the well‐meaning activities of individual socialist intellectuals, this process has only served to strengthen the domination of the ruling class — the international bourgeoisie.
Notes on capital and peasantry
Authors: Bernstein Henry
Published: July 2007

Bernstein examines the diverse ways in which capital and the colonial state incorporated rural producers into the production and consumption of commodities as the means of securing their own subsistence. Regulations, services and the monopoly of crop producers have been used to require an often recalcitrant peasantry to organize production to meet the requirements of international capital and the local state for particular commodities, for trading profits, and for revenues and foreign exchange. The peasantry must be analysed in its relations with capital and the state, in varying concrete conditions, which means within capitalist relations of production. These are mediated not through the wage relation, but through various forms of household production by producers who are not fully expropriated, and who are engaged in a struggle with capital/state for effective possession and control of the conditions of production.
Class struggle and the state
Authors: Innes Duncan , Plaut Martin
Published: July 2007

The authors argue that, although purporting to deal with class struggle, the article on ‘Class Struggle and the Periodisation of the State in South Africa’ in ReviewNo. 7 fails to focus its attention on the fundamental contradiction in South African society ‐ that of the struggle between capital and labour. The reason for this inadequacy lies in the article's dependency on the Poulantzian method of analysis which incorrectly separates ‘economics’ and ‘politics’ from the ‘fundamental relations of exploitation’ in capitalist society. It is only by establishing the unity between the relations of exploitation and their manifestation as political and economic forms that the state's position in the class struggle can be correctly located.
Consciousness, organisation and action amongst Lagos portworkers
Authors: Waterman Peter
Published: July 2007

This paper examines the relatively well‐paid and relatively secure workers employed by the state sector in a peripheral capitalist society. The state sector is of particular importance in Africa as one of the earliest and most stable sources of wage employment. In Nigeria the earliest manual worker unions were based on the public corporations, and many such unions existing in the 1970s could trace their history back 30 or 40 years. Public corporations provide a high proportion of wage employment in Nigeria even today, and they are responsible for such strategic sectors as energy supply, transport, telecommunications, broadcasting, etc. These facts alone would seem to justify attention to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA).
The deepening crisis of the Nigerian national bourgeoisie
Authors: Osoba Segun
Published: July 2007

On the ‘Nigerian national bourgeoisie’. The term is used here in the sense in which Franz Fanon uses it in relation to the African national bourgeoisie or middle class in his chapter on ‘The pitfalls of national consciousness’ in his book, The Wretched of the Earth.It delineates the politico‐geographical context within which this class operates and it is not meant to confer on its members any attributes of patriotic national consciousness or of a capability to combat Euro‐American imperialism. The discussion in this essay clearly underscores the essentially comprador character of the Nigerian bourgeoisie most of whose members are either actually or potentially active collaborators with foreign monopoly capitalist interests in Nigeria.
Class formation in the peasant economy of Southern Ghana
Authors: Vercruijsse Emile
Published: July 2007

Arguing for a class analysis which tries to discover, the dynamic of a society's relations of exploitation rather than simply provide a classification of ‘strata’, Vercruijsse analyses the forms of production involved in canoe fishing as compared with peasant farming in Ghana. In the former case, the complexity of relations between boat‐owners, net owners and fishermen‐labourers and the system of remuneration in kind hide a silent class struggle between fishermen‐labourers and boat and net owners. The basis for the open struggle is being laid by the expansion of large scale fishing with the increasing separation of fishermen‐labourers from the means of production. In comparison, class formation in the sense of the alienation of peasants from the land has scarcely begun though development of land tenancy and wage labour is well under way.
The proletarianization of women in Tanzania
Authors: Bryceson Deborah
                      Fahy
Published: July 2007

Roughly 87% of all Tanzanian women live in the countryside. The bulk of Tanzania women's economic activity, therefore is related to peasant agricultural production and domestic rural household reproduction. Tanzanian women's position has not however, remained static over time. Peasant women have experienced and have themselves acted to effect profound changes in the nature of rural production and reproduction. One consequence of these changes has been a slow but pronounced process of proletarianization.

In this article, it is argued that Tanzania peasant women have increasingly become directly involved in the process of proletarianization. Moreover, female proletarianization has taken a voluntary form which represents a significant step in Tanzanian women's struggles. The first section of this paper elaborates some key concepts in an attempt to construct schematically the theoretical context for section two analysis of Tanzanian women's proletarianization.
The ‘overdeveloped’ post colonial state: a re‐evaluation
Authors: Leys Colin
Published: July 2007

In this article Leys questions some of the formulations on the post‐colonial state and its bureaucracy developed by Hamza Alavi, Roger Murray and John Saul. The articles referred to are Alavi's ‘The State in Post‐Colonial Societies’ (New Left Review,74, July/August 1972) and Murray's ‘Second Thoughts on Ghana’ (New Left Review,42, March/April 1967). But Leys is particularly concerned to open a debate on John Saul's ‘The State in Post‐Colonial Societies‐Tanzania’, published in The Socialist Register(London, 1974).
Law, rangelands, the peasantry and social classes in Kenya
Authors: Gutto S.B.O.
Published: July 2007

In the transformation of pre‐capitalist modes of production into the capitalist one, the superstructures have of necessity also to change. Laws, particularly in their legislative forms in societies that have developed state institutions, are vital as facilitative and protective instruments in the brutal changes required by capital (Marx, Capital Vol.1, Chaps. 26–29). This essay looks into the post‐colonial state use of legislation to establish group title registrations in Maasai rangelands, an exercise which has led to transformation of traditional common property ownership into capitalist private property ownership, albeit on group basis. This is helping to further class differentiations within the rural peasant households. State control that results from these forcible re‐organizations helps the state and international capital, that comes via the state, to penetrate into the hitherto neglected rural areas so as to direct production and expropriate the surplus produced by the peasants. So far the debate has concentrated mainly on production relations in the Central and Rift‐Valley provinces, which were dominated by expatriate settlers during the colonial period. This analysis extends the debate to other areas in Kenya's political economy. The peasant private ownership of what Njonjo calls ‘patches of land’ through the legislations that implemented the Swynnerton Plan starting in the colonial period, is politically significant in dulling the class consciousness of the peasants as an expropriated and exploited class, and who are ‘owners’ of mere subsistence plots, while at the same time being forced into wage labour as ‘workers’. The inability of the economy to generate sustainable industrialisation, and hence lack of employment opportunities leads the ‘peasants‐cum‐wage workers’ to cling more to their ‘patches’ and to demand titles for these where they have not been provided. Produce from these ‘patches’ supplements the miserable wages paid to workers, wages that are sanctioned by the state and hence limits pressure on employers to raise the wages. At the other end the institutionalised low wages make the peasants‐cum‐wage workers cling even more tenaciously to their ‘patches’. The net result at this stage in the development of capitalism and classes in Kenya is a balance between forces of peasantisation and those of proletarianisation.
The agrarian problem: notes on the Nairobi discussion
Authors: Cowen Michael
Published: July 2007

The following points are intended as a contribution to the debate on the subordination of the peasantry to capital. First Njonjo's (1977) conjunctural study of the development of agrarian capitalism in Kenya does not provide any substantial distinction between property ownership and capital. Hence, his basis for supposing an alliance between the indigenous class of capital and peasant proprietors is very tenuous and limited. This is because of the general use which Njonjo makes of conjunctures in the transition to capitalism. Second, the classic form of separation of producers from land through the marginalization of household production has occurred, not where it might be expected, in Central Province, but in areas such as Western Province. Thirdly, we shall attempt to confront some inadequate conceptions of the indigenous class of capital, with regard to the position of the class both in Kenya and as part of the internationalization of capital.
The politics of a changing society: Mumias
Authors: Mulaa John
Published: July 2007

The Mumias sugar scheme provides us with a historical example of the interactions between capital and peasant agriculture. The ideological argument advanced to justify the nucleus estate/peasant outgrower symbiosis is that peasant production is preserved at levels of high technology (hence modernity in methods of work) and greatly improved productivity (hence opportunities for better incomes). The second sections examine the class struggles (politics) that have been going on in Mumias. This essay seeks to find out the real character of this changing society. Is the peasantry being preserved, with their pre‐capitalist cultures intact, as argued by promoters of such projects? Or is the peasantry actually being liquidated? If so, what resistance do they mount? Or is the peasantry being differentiated in the classical sense? What class alliances emerge and how do they manifest themselves politically?
The development of a middle peasantry in Nyanza
Authors: Nyong'o P.
                      Anyang’
Published: July 2007

Although it has been argued that international finance capital has taken a position in support of the ‘middle’ peasantry engaged in household production in Kenya, this support of ‘household producers’ need not necessarily lead to the development or consolidation of a middle peasantry in all areas and with regard to all crops. In the case of Nyanza, it will be argued that the intrusion of international capital into the Nyanzan social formation has led to the stagnation of middle peasant agriculture. Where this middle peasantry is still in formation, it is experiencing very painful birth pangs, thanks to the interests of other social classes busy ferreting surpluses away from it. This essay is an inquiry into the historical social forces that have made it difficult for a middle peasantry to establish itself and flourish in Nyanza.
The military state and Ethiopia's path to ‘socialism’
Authors: Markakis John
Published: July 2007

This paper describes the course of Ethiopia's revolution since 1974 and the problems inherent in attempting to build socialism from above, through the agency of the military. The collapse of Haile Selassie's absolutist empire followed, and encouraged a groundswell of mass demands for the amelioration of numerous class, regional and other experiences of exploitation and oppression. Although these interests were represented within the army that took power, the military state has asserted its primacy over all class forces, and its commitment to a highly centralised Ethiopia against all regional demands. Markakis shows that ‘garrison socialism’ has thus resulted in increasing coercion as attempts at independent class action are crushed, in mounting regional opposition from the peripheries of the old empire — itself often a consequence of frustrated class aspirations — and an intensification of wars against nationalist and separatist movements.
Sweden and the third world: development aid and capital involvement
Authors: Hermele Kenneth
Published: July 2007

Sweden has a certain reputation in the Third World as its aid is less tied, more in the form of grants, is a greater proportion of national income than other donors, and is generally directed to ‘progressive’ countries, like Mozambique, Vietnam and Tanzania. However, even under the Social Democratic governments up to 1976, this ‘radical’ aid policy co‐existed with a general stance of support for the established international economic order. Since then, and more as a response to crisis than a result of the new government of the right, aid policy has been more geared to promoting the further internationalisation of Swedish capital.
Merchant capital and underdevelopment in Sierra Leone
Authors: Zack‐Williams A.B.
Published: July 2007

This article follows up the theoretical work of Kay on the relationship between merchant capital and underdevelopment with an empirical study. Merchant capital in the form of trading enterprises came to Sierra Leone to extract raw materials and sell manufactured goods. Zack‐Williams details this process and briefly examines its effects on the social formation. He notes the failure of merchant capital to transform the social formation and as a corrollary to make the transition to industrial capital through investment in manufacturing. Only the United Africa Company shows signs of making this transition and that only recently.
Primary health care in Zaire
Authors: Schoepf Brooke
                      Grundfest
Published: July 2007

This briefing is based on unpublished research conducted while the author was Chief of the Medical Anthropology Seminar, Centre International de Semiologie, National University of Zaire, 1975–78, and during subsequent brief visits. The term ‘biomedicine’ refers to diagnosis and treatment based on scientific biological research. As practised in Zaire, however, western‐style medicine may involve very little scientific method, and equipment and training bear little resemblance to modern standards of biomedicine. ‘Folk practitioners’ are herbalists, diviners and religious healers, empirical midwives and others. Traditional medicine, a term with ideological overtones, is avoided.
The state and revolution in Ethiopia
Authors: Clapham Christopher
Published: July 2007

The sustained restructuring of the military regime which has taken place in the 1980s is an essentially ‘leninist’ project with three components: new and enhanced structures of institutional and centralised control, down to the grass roots level kebellesand peasant associations but one that has not succeeded in many regions; a drastic, state‐controlled restructuring of the economic base; plus a limited but significant expansion of political representation essentially through the new Workers' Party.

Some of its institutional forms and the economic and social changes (e.g. land reform) are probably irreversible but there has been over‐reliance on the use of state power as the solution to all problems.
Privatisation in Africa
Authors: Young Ralph A.
Published: July 2007

The divestiture of public enterprises has become an increasingly salient issue in Africa. Since the early 1980s, privatisation activity has occurred in most states, with major programmes in one‐third. This pattern of state restructuring has reflected both external and internal pressures, though the former have played by far the more dynamic role. Given the diverse national, class and regional interests it touches upon, divestiture remains not just technically difficult but also a politically sensitive issue for African regimes. Though privatisation programmes have faced multiple obstacles in practice, they provide an important marker as to the shifting balance which is occurring between states and private capital in Africa.
Democratization processes in Africa
Authors: Anyang ‘Nyong'o Peter
Published: July 2007

The two contributions featured here appeared in the ‘CODESRIA Bulletin’ (No. 2, 1991). They were written as a contribution to the agenda of CODESRIA's December 1991 General Assembly, organised around the theme of ‘Democratization Processes in Africa’. Although intervening events may have affected the validity of one or two minor points made, their focus on the twin objectives of individual liberties and social justice provides a valuable insight into the debate unfolding in Africa. It is a debate of universal significance: the reconciliation of political rights with social justice rights remains one of the fundamental problems confronting the socialist project. We are grateful to the CODESRIA Bulletin for permitting us to publish these abridged versions of the two papers. Readers interested in consulting the full originals, and of engaging in the debates sponsored by CODESRIA should write to them at Boite Postal 3304, Dakar, Senegal
Women, ‘tradition’ and reconstruction
Authors: Walker Cherryl
Published: July 2007

This article discusses the tension between the ANC's commitment to gender equality and its engagement within the new government with what I term ‘the politics of traditionalism’. These politics have been most evident in the deadly struggle to out‐manoeuvre the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP), while convincing it to participate in the elections, a struggle in which the Zulu king has been the pre‐eminent (but not the only) representative of the resurgent traditionalism that the ANC has been attempting to defuse and co‐opt. The ‘tradition’ being negotiated is fundamentally patriarchal, and the two goals — gender equality and accommodating ‘tradition’ — are, I argue, ultimately incompatible. Further, given the limitations on the way in which gender equality is perceived within the ANC, as well as the absence of a politically powerful mass women's movement on the ground, it is likely that, in seeking to manage this incompatibility, the ANC‐led government will compromise or delay its commitment to gender equality.
Cato Manor: cruel past, pivotal future
Authors: Edwards Iain
Published: July 2007

Sophiatown in Johannesburg, District Six in Cape Town, and Cato Manor in Durban have become political metaphors for urban dispossession and resistance. Cato Manor has the most complex and violently contested history of land ownership and occupation of any area in Durban. In the early 1960s, the Durban Corporation began to expropriate the land from Indian owners and cleared the area of African shack dwellers and of most Indian residents. Despite the development of some Indian housing during the mid‐1980s, the land still remains largely vacant. Africans are re‐establishing themselves in shack settlements in the area.

The future of Cato Manor is now a major political controversy. The entrenched segregation of South Africa cities makes it extremely difficult to redress the legacy of past policies: all require massive investment in urban infrastructural amenities and low‐income housing. Cato Manor and District Six are the only two large areas of urban land available for planned development of new housing within any South African city. Planning for the best use of Cato Manor is highly complex and has to take account of competing and contradictory claims to the land. The current state of negotiations over the future of the land is hardly a promising beginning. Cato Manor remains a highly contested urban space.
‘The man died’ in Africa95
Authors: Richards David
Published: July 2007

A review of a conference, two exhibitions and a play which demonstrate the themes and arguments generated by africa95which sought to present dynamic cultural work of a continent too often portrayed as a place of famines and tyrants. If the events of africa95were clouded by the murder of an artist, they still had much to say about the ‘glorious productivity of African cultures’.
Book notes
Authors: Bush Roy , Szeftel Morris , Love Roy
Published: July 2007

The Political Economy of Botswana in SADCC
by Balefi Tsie, Sapes Books, Harare, 1995 ISBN 1-77905-019-04.

Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and Democracy
by L Diamond & M F Plattner (eds), Johns Hopkins UP, 1994.
Liberal democracy vs. popular democracy in Southern Africa
Authors: Saul John S
Published: July 2007

This article accompanies an essay reviewing recent literature on ‘transitions to democracy’, which we publish in our next issue. There Saul contrasts two approaches to the understanding of democratisation. Both see transition as part of a larger political and economic process; for one this limits the possible scope and sustainability of democratisation, while for the other it threatens but also enhances its scope and strength. The latter approach, older and currently less fashionable, sees democratisation (and its analysis) as rooted in processes of imperialism, class struggle and state‐society relations. This ‘political economy of democratisation’ approach, characteristic of the work of Shivji and Saul, contrasts with a larger, more pessimistic body of work, which Saul labels the ‘political science of democratisation’. While sometimes used in suggestive ways, it can narrow debate disastrously when detached from any self‐conscious mooring in the critical traditions of political economy. This literature stresses the necessity of democratic institutions and values, but argues that only highly attenuated versions are currently feasible: ‘if reform is to be adopted without provoking a crisis’, then it must be reform consistent with the demands of capital and the neo‐liberalism of the IFIs.

This companion article analyses two highly significant cases of transition in southern Africa; each seems to epitomise the ‘political science’ approach, yet to contain the longer term possibility of ‘popular democracy’. Thus in South Africa the left accepted the necessity of a carefully negotiated transition to obviate the risk of civil war. However, the ANC, to retain the ‘confidence’ of local and external capital and of foreign governments, has had to demobilise its (non‐electoral) popular support, and to abandon a social redistributive strategy in favour of a one dominated by neo‐liberal ‘market solutions’. What keeps a progressive agenda alive in these conditions are the pressures from trade unions, civics, women's organisations etc, where there are growing signs, at least at grassroots level, of resistance to the ANC's new project. In Mozambique, the transition has been less euphoric, more perhaps a matter of transition from authoritarian rule and from war than to a democratic regime. As in South Africa, the transition would seem to disempower popular forces ‐ but outside the electoral arena, there are instances of resistance and struggle within civil society, which may carry with them the longer‐term potential for the growth of popular democracy.
Women in politics & gender equity in policy: South Africa & Uganda
Authors: Goetz Anne
                      Marie
Published: July 2007

There are more women in politics in Uganda and South Africa today than in many more developed democracies. This significant achievement owes to explicit affirmative action interventions in political institutions and processes to favour women's participation. This article analyses these measures for their effectiveness in bringing more women into government, and for their impact on the perceived legitimacy of women in power. It goes on to stress that there is a difference between a numerical increase in women representatives, and the representation of women's interests in government decision‐making. The one does not automatically lead to the other, not just because individual women politicians cannot all be assumed to be concerned with gender equity, but because of institutionalised resistance to gender equity within the apparatus of governance. This problem is exacerbated in the context of structural adjustment, which rules out social welfare measures to subsidise women's reproductive contributions to the economy and thereby level the economic playing field between women and men. In spite of these obstacles, women in power in Uganda and South Africa have taken significant steps to articulate women's interests in politics, with a particular focus on problems of violence against women.