bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The African Concept of Balkanisation
Authors: Neuberger Benyamin
Published: November 2008

In modern African political literature there is a recurrent reference to the dangers of ‘balkanisation’. Already during the 1920s the Gold Coast nationalist Kobina Sekyi compared Africa with the Balkans, and warned not to follow the ways of ‘balkanisation’ Later Kwame Nkrumah, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Sékou Touré, and other anti-colonial leaders continued to employ the term which rapidly became a basic part of the phraseology of modern African nationalism. I shall attempt to analyse the concept, and to show its use, definition, ambivalence, and implications.
The Underdevelopment Theory: a Case-Study from Tanzania
Authors: McHenry Dean E.
Published: November 2008

The frustrated aspirations of most Africans for a significantly better life following independence have evoked considerable attention. A growing number of scholars are accounting for the situation in terms of a set of loosely connected propositions contained in the ‘underdevelopment theory’,, at the core of which is the idea that colonialist/neocolonialist countries have created the conditions of underdevelopment by:

(i) encouraging the entry of foreign investment which extracted/extracts a significant proportion of the surplus produced;

(ii) fostering a commercial bourgeoisie which failed/fails to use its profits for productive investment purposes; and

(iii) promoting an indigenous class which acted/acts in the interest of the imperial power to perpetuate the condition of underdevelopment.
The Education System as a Response to Inequality in Tanzania and Kenya
Authors: Court David
Published: November 2008

This article examines the attempt of Kenya and Tanzania to deal with the universal problem of how to reconcile inequalities in the distribution of rewards with a concern for equality. It argues that in both countries the mainspring of educational policy is a desire to alleviate the potentially disruptive consequences of inequality, although for different purposes and by different means. The broad purpose of the article is to compare contrasting educational practice in Kenya and Tanzania from this perspective as a way of illuminating two distinctive modes of development. More specifically, it attempts to identify some of the contradictions and dilemmas inherent in their particular use of education. Finally, it uses this analysis to make a speculative assessment of how each is faring in the task of building a relatively integrated polity.
Concepts in the Description of African Economies
Authors: Elkan Walter
Published: November 2008

The tribe of economists to which I belong regard concepts as more or less ‘kosher’, but not description. Economics, most of them would probably argue, is concerned with analysis and prediction; description is for lesser breeds. For example, students are taught the intricacies of analysing the supply of money, but it is rarely suggested to them that they might reasonably be expected to know how money actually comes into existence, which would involve knowing and being able to describe what a bank is, what it does and how. Confronted with such searching questions, they are therefore generally floored – and last year's students are, of course, this year's professional economists!
The Functioning of the Kenyan Industrial Court
Authors: Brown John L. , Muir J. Douglas
Published: November 2008

In 1964, in response to a growing number of strikes, the recently-formed independent Government of Kenya established a new method of resolving industrial conflict. The purpose of this short article is to describe the operation and effects of the Kenyan Industrial Court, and to draw attention to some features that have affected its efficient operation.
Nationalism Versus Coexistence: Neo-African Attitudes to Classical Neutralism
Authors: Nworah Dike
Published: November 2008

The dynamics of world neutralism, either as an international doctrine or as a state policy,1 have witnessed variable responses from African states since the inception of the ideology known as peaceful coexistence. Between 1920, when Lenin talked of a ‘peaceful cohabitation with the peoples of all nations’, and 1961 when the Communist Party defined peaceful coexistence – by an official imprimatur – as ‘an objective necessity for the development of human society’, and denounced ‘war as a means of settling inter-national disputes’, the chrysalis of classical neutralism could be said to have spanned the decade between the close of World War II and the Bandung Conference of 1955.2
The Ombudsman in Zambia
Authors: Martin Robert
Published: November 2008

The implementation of the principle of legality in public administration depends upon the existence of a number of factors. Most important among these are a government which is more or less committed to upholding the principle, a citizenry which is both aware of its legal rights and prepared to resist attempts at infringing them, and institutions through which such challenges can be prosecuted.
‘We Won't Die for Fourpence’: Malawian Labour and the Kariba Dam
Authors: Boeder Robert B.
Published: November 2008

Recent events in Southern Africa have focused attention on the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in that region, and this short article recalls the role of those from Malawi – before that country became independent – in the strike which held up the construction of the Kariba dam in 1959. As is well known, there had been previous strikes in this area,1 but the Kariba walk-out coincided with an outbreak of opposition to colonial rule in Nyasaland, and prompted the declaration of a state of emergency, perhaps the first unmistakeable sign that the Central African Federation was doomed.
The Social and Political Thought of Amílcar Cabral: a Reassessment
Authors: Chabal Patrick
Published: November 2008

Amílcar Cabral was primarily a man of action. His political leadership is best understood by looking at what he did rather than at what he said. More importantly, his writings were essentially analyses of the events in which he was involved; they were not theories about, or inquiries into, abstract social or political questions. He did not view himself as a political theorist although his writings obviously have theoretical relevance. He was loath to commit himself to any ideology or theory. The majority of his writings are party documents, and they reflect the very specific purpose and audience for which they were intended.
Ideology and Leadership in Somalia
Authors: Sheik-Abdi Abdi
Published: November 2008

The 1977–8 war in the Horn of Africa and its traumatic aftermath has brought Somalia to a critical junction. The expulsion of the Soviets in November 1977, following their overtures to Ethiopia, and the subsequent rout of the Somali army, along with Ogadeni guerrillas, by a combined Cuban–Ethiopian–Yemini force led by Russian generals, has left this nation demoralised, isolated, and ideologically sundered. A fluid and somewhat confused socio-economic and political situation, only made less chaotic by President Mohamed Siad Barre's powerful personality and will to survive, characterises this post-war Somalia.
Southern African Responses to Eastern European Developments
Authors: Anglin Douglas G.
Published: November 2008

Much has been written and said concerning the implications for Soviet policy towards Southern African of President Gorbachev's novoye myshlenie or ‘new thinking’, and its repercussions throughout Eastern Europe. On the other hand, comparatively little attention has been paid to the governmental and societal responses to these developments within Southern Africa. In part, this neglect reflects the fact that, until recently, the reaction has been rather muted, especially in comparison with the eruptionsin francophone Africa, notably in Algeria, Benin, and Gabon, but also Côte d'Ivoire, Madagascar, and even Zaïre. The reluctance to recognise the relevance for the region of the astonishing changes in Eastern Europe can largely be explained by an understandable preoccupation with more pressing domestic problems.
Let There Be Light: the Voices of West African Novels
Authors: Riddella J. Barry
Published: November 2008

The novels of an area tell a tale: Obi Okonkwo's career as a civil servant in Lagos, Kamara's political life in Sierra Leone, and Baako's return to a changed Ghana. But they also say more in that they depict much of the reality of the countries and their peoples, their ideas and goals, and the historical and contemporary forces which influence them. In this way, therefore, the literature contains both fictive and factual essences.
Politics, the Cocoa Crisis, and Administration in Côte d'Ivoire
Authors: Crook Richard C.
Published: November 2008

It is, no doubt, a journalistic cliché to assert that Côte d'Ivoire is ‘in crisis’. It is both undeniable and obvious that the world's largest cocoa producer, dependent for the majority of its foreign-exchange earnings and for the livelihood of the majority of its working population on the export of cocoa and coffee, is severely affected by the collapse in commodity prices which has occurred since 1980. With the exception of the false boomlet of 1986, cocoa prices have fallen throughout the decade, from a peak of £3,500 per ton in 1977 to the £670–750 range of the 1989–90 season. In real terms the dollar price of cocoa is now only 25 per cent of its 1977–8 value.
Reagan and the Pax Afrikaana
Authors: Cokorinos Lee , Mittelman James H.
Published: November 2008

A Frequent error in foreign policy analysis is to allow government to set the agenda of inquiry. Officials invariably define the terrain too narrowly. Their concerns are short term, not only because of the immediacy of problems stalking policy-makers, but also because averting fundamental questions about the social forces that shape the day-to-day agenda of government redounds to the advantage of those who control state power. Consequently, the task of the analyst is to overcome the inhibiting parameters of public discourse. Without trivialising matters of practical politics, the analyst must transpose prefabricated questions into more productive lines of inquiry.
Regional Integration and the Crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Robson Peter
Published: November 2008

The appalling experience of most African countries has led many observers to conclude that the continent has now reached a critical stage in its development, and that a political, social, and economic ‘nightmare’ by the turn of the century cannot be ruled out.1 One pessimistic scenario suggests that even with fundamental improvements in domestic economic management, up to four-fifths of Africa's population in 1995 will be below the poverty line compared with three-fifths today.2 This is the context in which African leaders enunciated new development priorities in their 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, notably greater self-reliance and industrialisation geared to domestic markets. Outside the continent, a growing concern with dismal African prospects has generated two action programmes by the World Bank,3 while new guidelines have recently been produced in the European Community for supporting African development.4 Without exception, all of these appraisals see a major role for regional co-operation and economic integration.
Exchange Rates and the Management of the External Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa
Authors: Rwegasira Delphin G.
Published: November 2008

The performance of Africa's external sector during the 1970s has been described in a number of important publications. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the continent's share of world exports declined from 3·9 per cent in 1970 to 3·4 per cent in 1979. The performance of the region's export sector had been sluggish throughout this period, growing at an annual rate of only 0·6 per cent in volume compared to 6 per cent during the last five years of the previous decade. The World Bank report on sub-Saharan Africa described the 1970s as having been characterised by growing balance-of-payments deficits, attributable partly to external factors — notably the two large oil-price shocks, the slow growth in world trade in primary commodities, and the persistently rising price of imported manufactured goods — but partly caused also by domestic factors. Even within the group of developing countries, Africa's share of non-fuel exports is estimated to have declined from over 18 per cent in 1970 to about 9 per cent in 1978. During this decade the volume of imports expanded by an estimated 58 per cent annually — although for the sub-Saharan region the growth rate was only 3 per cent — while the terms of trade worsened significantly. Official development assistance rose substantially as a whole, but offset only a part of the growing deficit.
Mali and the U.M.O.A.: a Case-Study of Economic Integration
Authors: Crum David Leith
Published: November 2008

A study of the Republic of Mali's readmission into L'Union monétaire ouest-africaine provides an illustration of some of the problems inherent in African economic integration as political concerns intrude on development issues. In a broader sense, this case-study displays the difficulties involved in achieving the goal expressed in the very name of the Organisation of African Unity. It also shows the dual pull felt by many post-independence states: a desire for greater autonomy, as well as the necessity of maintaining some important links with the erstwhile colonising power.
From Prebendalism to Predation: the Political Economy of Decline in Nigeria
Authors: Lewis Peter
Published: November 2008

Upontaking power in August 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida promised a decisive course of economic and political change for Nigeria. Alongside a phased transition to democratic rule, the new President outlined far-reaching reforms intended to alleviate major distortions in the economy, to resolve a lingering impasse with external creditors, and to reduce a mounting burden of debt. Within a year, a comprehensive structural adjustment programme (SAP) was launched, incorporating key policies advocated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and yielding significant early results in stabilising the economy and arresting decline.
The Right to Organise as Mother of All Rights: the Experience of Women in Tanzania
Authors: Tenga Nakazael , Peter Chris Maina
Published: November 2008

Theright to organise is of the greatest importance because of our need to come together in order to pursue common interests and goals. It goes hand in hand with the right to associate and to assemble freely, covers all sections of society, and its highest manifestation is normally the creation and continuing significance of political parties, trade unions, and other non-governmental organisations.
South Africa and Global Climate Change
Authors: Rowlands Ian H.
Published: November 2008

Globalclimate change is now firmly on the international agenda. Although the heady days of the 1992 Earth Summit have been replaced by an atmosphere of greater caution, events in 1995 have nevertheless revealed that climate change is set to be one of the key international issues during the coming decades. Indeed, it is inevitable that global climate change – as both a physical phenomenon and a social institution – will have a tremendous impact on every nation's future.
Returning Voyagers: the Ghanaian Novel in the Nineties
Authors: Wright Derek
Published: November 2008

Ghanaian novelists are notorious for their long absences from fiction, and the 1990s have seen the long-awaited return of some major talents. Kofi Awoonor and Ama Ata Aidoo allowed, respectively, 21 and 14 years to pass between the publication of their first and second novels, while 17 years separated the fifth and sixth works of Ayi Kwei Armah, the best-established writer of the three. Meanwhile, each has been active in other genres during the long intervals — poetry, short stories, essays – and none of them have fallen silent. Awoonor indicated, shortly after his experimental poetic first novel, This Earth, My Brother (1971), that he was at work on another, from which a lengthy extract was actually published in a journal in 1975,1 and advance notices of the full version continued apace, even though it did not appear until 1992. Armah allowed it to be known in 1989, in a rare interview, that since The Healers (1978) he had completed three more novels which, for want of a suitable African publishing house, remained in manuscript form.2 In the foreword to her 1991 novel, Aidoo refers to an interview in 1967 in which she stated that she ‘could never write about lovers in Accra because surely in our environment there are more important things to write about’. The very vehemence of the protest suggested at the time, however, that the author's mind was already running along the lines of this subject, which might at some future date receive full fictional treatment.
Structural Adjustment and the Fragile Nation: the Demise of Social Unity in Tanzania
Authors: Kaiser Paul J.
Published: November 2008

Tanzaniais one of the few African countries that has remained relatively calm since independence. However, its long history of ethnic, racial, and religious cohesion has begun to fray as the Government attempts to reform its ailing economy in accordance with World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities. This process offers an opportunity to explore the degree to which there is a causal link between liberal economic reform and social unity. This is especially relevant as many African régimes are implementing similar policy prescriptions in the form of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), the terms of which often depend on the minimal financial leverage that African negotiators havevis-à-visthe advanced industrial countries of the North.1York Bradshaw and Zwelakhe Tshandu have argued that ‘the burgeoning debt crisis may represent the “new dependency” for many African countries which cannot acquire capital from other sources besides the IMF and the World Bank.’
South Africa in Remission: the Foreign Policy of an Altered State
Authors: Evans Graham
Published: November 2008

This article examines the extent to which the foreign policy of South Africa has altered since the inauguration of the Government of National Unity (GNU), following the historic, non-racial multi-party elections in May 1994. Has the African National Congress (ANC)-led regime succeeded in its stated aims of ‘normalising’ relations with the outside world while simultaneously forsaking traditional assumptions and perspectives about the national interest, and how best to define, defend, and promote it? Or has the understandable preoccupation with, and demands of, internal reconstruction led to a situation where foreign policy is ‘on hold’, in the sense that little attention has so far been directed at substantive questions concerning the norms, values, and conventions implicit in the strategic culture and policy inclinations of the ‘ancien régime’? In other words, what are the elements of continuity and change?
Land Mines: an African Tragedy
Authors: Gruhn Isebill V.
Published: November 2008

Africa has had more than its share of catastrophes. While the causes of its contemporary dilemmas are debated at many fora, its people continue to suffer at an ever-accelerating rate. To make matters worse, the dismal decline in so many aspects of African life over the past decade has led to numbness and cynicism within and without the continent, causing people to lump separable problems and their solutions into the all-embracing notion of ‘disaster’.
Duty, Honour, Country: Coping with Rhodesia's Unilateral Declaration of Independence
Authors: Sklar Richard L.
Published: November 2008

On 11 November 1965, the Government of Rhodesia, firm in its resolve to maintain minority racial rule by persons of European descent, abrogated the colonial constitution then in effect and declared its independence of Great Britain. The works under review in this essay examine the dilemmas of Zambian leaders, on the one hand, and loyalist members of the Rhodesian judiciary as well as the loyalist governor of Rhodesia, on the other.
Popular Legitimacy in African Multi-Ethnic States
Authors: Jackson Robert H. , Rosberg Carl G.
Published: November 2008

The historical development of the modern state is marked by, among other important changes, the transformation of political legitimacy from the authority of princes to the mandate of the people, from dynastic to popular legitimacy. Since states are the creatures not only of their domestic environment but also of international society, we must distinguish between internal and international legitimacy. Martin Wight defines the latter as ‘the collective judgement of international society [i.e. other states] about rightful membership of the family of nations’. According to him, the convention of international legitimation that has predominated since 1945 is based on the combined and paradoxical principles of majority rule, which rejects the legitimacy of colonialism, and territorial integrity, which nevertheless accepts territorial divisions established under colonialism. We define internal legitimacy as the recognition of a state and its government as rightful by its population, which during the modern era has increasingly meant a popular recognition democratically expressed.
Algeria's Socialist Villages – a Reassessment
Authors: Sutton Keith
Published: November 2008

It is generally acknowledged that a policy of agrarian reform involves much more than the mere redistribution of land to obtain an equitable system of production. A parallel and essential supporting range of complementary institutions usually need to be reorganised at the same time, concerned with credit, marketing, extension, and settlement, so that they can further rather than constrain and negate the reform. The old skewed land-holding structure, especially if involvinglatifundiaestates, has probably contributed to a particular pattern of rural settlement that is quite inappropriate to cope with the more equitable distribution of land, unless large private estates are directly converted into state or multi-member farms. The beneficiaries of reform frequently need resettling on or near their newly-acquired land, and associated co-operative agencies for equipment, inputs, and marketing, together with programmes to provide basic social and commercial services, may well call for a nucleated form of settlement to be created.
Portugal and Africa: the Politics of Re-Engagement
Authors: Macqueen Norman
Published: November 2008

In the years since the April Revolution of 1974 and the subsequent process of decolonisation, Portugal's relations with its former African colonies have undergone considerable strains, and on occasion have been marked by deep suspicion and acrimony. Yet, over the period, the general tendency has been one of accelerating rapprochement. The pace and depth of this re-engagement has, for numerous reasons, varied between the states involved. More or less cordial relations were established with Guiné-Bissau, for example, even before formal independence, whereas those with Mozambique were fraught with difficulties until the 1980s, and can still occasionally give way to mistrust and hostility. But, given the legacy of the wars of liberation and a world recession which developed simultaneously with the new relationships, the achievements have been considerable.
State Intervention and Agricultural Development in Africa: a Cross-National Study
Authors: Vengroff Richard , Farah Ali
Published: November 2008

Growing food deficits and declining agricultural productivity per capita in Africa have become the central concern of an increasing number of studies.
Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?: the Case of Nkrumah's National Security Service
Authors: Baynham Simon
Published: November 2008

From the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta to twentiethcentury Bolivia and Zaïre, from theories of development and underdevelopment to models of civil-military relations, one is struck by the enormous literature on armed intervention in the domestic political arena. In recent years, a veritable rash of material on the subject of military politics has appeared – as much from newspaper correspondents reporting pre-dawn coups from third-world capitals as from the more rarefied towers of academe. Yet looking at the subject from the perspective of how régimes mobilise resources and mechanisms to protect themselves from their own security forces, one is struck by the paucity of empirically-based evidence on the subject.1
Re-thinking ‘Law and Development’
Authors: Martin Robert
Published: November 2008

Any writing that purports to address African reality today must take as its starting point the international economy. Small states, which are both economically and politically weak, have very little room for manoeuvre within the global system, even at the best of times. The present international depression has circumscribed their freedom of action even further. Still, African states must do something. They must seek to address existing conditions. If the last two decades have made anything clear, it must be that the rest of the world is not going to rescue Africa from its plight. Only Africa itself can do that. However limited they may be, there are always choices to be made.
Africa's Nuclear Capability
Authors: Ogunbadejo Oye
Published: November 2008

Theimpact of nuclear weapons on the present and future trends in international relations continues to attract wide scholarship. While the literature on the subject has been growing apace, nuclear technology is becoming increasingly sophisticated, and the dangers posed to the survival of mankind are becoming much more acute than hitherto. In broad terms, the fears expressed about these weapons tend to centre around the implications of three major issues: the emergence of greater first-strike inclinations in the two super-power nuclear forces; the possibility of a perceived strategic imbalance favouring either the United States or the Soviet Union; and the dangers of nuclear proliferation.
The Settlement of Land Disputes in Kenya — an Historical Perspective
Authors: Coldham Simon
Published: November 2008

The nature of the boides responsible for administering justice to Africans, and for settling disputes between them, was the subject of continual and sometimes heated debate in colonial Kenya, and indeed elsewhere in British Africa. Nor have the old controversies completely lost their relevance in contemporary independent African states, as recent moves to reform the system of courts in Zimbabwe have clearly shown. Nevertheless, the debate has a rather timeworn air about it today, the arguments a tired familiarity which obviates the need to rehearse them in detail. They tend to centre on certain key issues: the composition, procedure, and administration of the courts, and the appellate system.
The Sharia Debate and the Origins of Nigeria's Second Republic
Authors: Laitin David D.
Published: November 2008

From 1977 to 1979, Nigeria prepared itself for the coming Second Republic. Most important on the agenda was the writing of a new Constitution. The Supreme Military Council (S.M.C.) appointed a Constitutional Drafting Committee, and its Draft was debated by the Constituent Assembly, which included elected members from all 19 States, as well as a number nominated by the S.M.C. The Draft, along with the changes proposed by the Constituent Assembly, were presented in September 1978 to the S.M.C. which made further alterations. That Constitution provided the basis for the subsequent elections of July and August 1979, and the formal inauguration of the Second Republic took place in October.
World War I and the Rise of African Nationalism: Nigerian Veterans as Catalysts of Change
Authors: Matthews James K.
Published: November 2008

The enlistment and conscription of combatants and non-combatants in Nigeria during World War I represented an unprecedented mobilisation of the country's labour force. In September 1914, the Nigeria Regiment supplied shock troops for the Cameroons Expeditionary Force, and in December 1917 the Nigeria Overseas Contingent entered the campaign in Tanganyika. By September 1919, when Nigeria's military recruitment drive ended, 17,000 combatants, 2,000 enlisted carriers, and some 35,000 non-enlisted carriers had participated in the Southern Caméroons and German East Africa campaigns. In addition, the British recruited thousands of Nigerians for military service along Nigeria's northern and eastern borders, and for related duties inside the country.
The African Publius
Authors: Agyeman Opoku
Published: November 2008

The title of this article betrays its comparative character: an attempt to outline in broad strokes the political experiences of the United States and Africa spanning 1787 and 1966. The first date marks the year of the Philadelphia Convention whose concern, as it developed, was to draw up an entirely new constitutional framework that was ‘adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union’, in place of the ‘weak, deficient and inadequate’ Articles of Confederacy.
Djibouti's unusual resource curse
Authors: Brass Jennifer N.
Published: November 2008

An extensive literature on the ‘resource curse’ posits that abundant natural resources ‘curse’ countries possessing them with negative economic, social and political externalities. Usually, scholars identify tangible resources like oil, diamonds or timber, rarely questioning whether other kinds of resources might have the same impact, and under what conditions. This paper examines how little-studied Djibouti's non-tangible resources – geo-strategic location and aid-inspiring poverty – have produced ‘curse’ effects; with an economy dominated by US and French military spending (and concomitant aid) and rents on trade passing to and from Ethiopia, tiny Djibouti suffers from this curse. It draws four conclusions. First, resource curse effects can derive from non-traditional sources. Second, leaders' policy decisions matter at least as much as the presence or absence of resources. Third, advanced countries' spending patterns in their less-developed allies often produce unintended consequences. Finally, even tiny countries can provide scholars and policy makers with new insights.
Prenuptial pregnancy in a rural area of Devonshire in the mid-nineteenth century: Colyton 1851–1881
Authors: Robin Jean
Published: November 2008

The popularly held belief that in Victorian times a rigid code of sexual behaviour was in operation throughout the country, and that transgression of the code resulted in loss of respectability, has been under attack for some time now. One of the weapons used in the assault has been the extent of prenuptial pregnancy during the period compared with earlier centuries. In the first of his two papers on prenuptial pregnancy in England, published in 1966, P. E. H. Hair demonstrated that the phenomenon was of long duration. Roughly one-third of his sample of 1,855 brides traced to a maternity between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries had been pregnant at marriage, and he considered that this was an under-estimate of the true proportion. Data from a number of reconstitution studies published in a recent work edited by Laslett, Oosterveen and Smith show that prenuptial pregnancies, measured in 50-year periods from 1550–1849, peaked in the second half of the sixteenth century at 31 per cent of all marriages traced to the birth of a child, only to decline over the next hundred years through the heyday of Puritanism and beyond to their nadir of 16 per cent by the end of the seventeenth century. From the early eighteenth century onwards, however, the proportion of such pregnancies increased, at first slowly and then gathering pace until by 1800 the previous peak at the end of the sixteenth century had been passed, the proportion of prenuptial pregnancies standing at 33 per cent. The rate continued to rise through the early years of the nineteenth century into the Victorian era, reaching 37 per cent for the 50 years ending in 1849.
A haven in a heartless world? Living with parents in Sweden and the United States, 1880–1982
Authors: Sundström Gerdt
Published: November 2008

Cette étude corrobore l'idée que le rythme du processus de l'abandon de la maison paternelle est plus rapide aujourd'hui qu'auparavant. La co-résidence avec des parents est maintenant plus fréquente avant I'âge de vingt ans, et mois fréquente par la suite. Néanmoins, les modèles de co-résidence avec des parents varient beaucoup selon les sociétés. A des âges plus avancés, la co-résidence est à peu prés aussi rare aujourd'hui qu'auparavant. La plus grande baisse de co-résidence affectait les gens mariés, mais constamment la plupart des co-résidents étaient mâles et célibataires. La fluidité entre ceux qui vivent en régime indépendant et ceux qui vivent chez leurs parents – plus commune aux Etats-Unis – est souvent due au divorce ou au veuvage chez la jeune génération. Historiquement, la co-résidence était rare lorsque les deux générations étaient prolétariennes et incluaient des adultes handicapés. De nos jours, la plupart des parents peuvent plus facilement accueillir une progéniture adulte et handicapée, et celle-ci se rencontre plus couramment parmi les co-résidents que dans la population en général.
Lone-parent families and the Welfare State: past and present
Authors: Snell K. D. M. , Millar J.
Published: November 2008

Cet article examine l'incidence des families à parent unique au cours des trois derniers siècles, etablissant un rapport entre les découvertes historiques et la croissance rapide et récente, et compare les allocations versées à ces families au début du dix-neuviéme siécle avec celles d'aujourd'hui. On constate que l'incidence historique des ces families était généralement plus élevée que ce n'est le cas aujourd'hui. De plus, il ressort que la valeur relative de la sécurité sociale ou des prestations d'indigence versées à ce groupe a considérablement diminué au cours des années par rapport a la moyenne des revenus des travailleurs manuels. Vu cela, la discussion est centrée sur l'augmentation de l'ancienne Loi d'Indigence et certaines suppositions sur ‘l'essor de l'état providence’ au vingtiéme siècle sont remises en question.
Social ageing in the Macmillan era
Authors: Harris C. C.
Published: November 2008

Cet article fournit une discussion approfondie de la notion de vieillissement social, par opposition au vieillissement chronologique, physiologique et psychologique et la methodologie requise pour étudier ce vieillissement social. Il rapporte ensuite les résultats d'une étude effectuée sur la population adulte de Swansea en 1960 (avec des données spécifiques sur les personnes en âge de la retraite), résultats analysés pour tenter de mettre en lumière les changements apparaissant dans le processus du vieillissement. Cette analyse comprend une comparaison de quatre groupes de classe et de genre par rapport au nombre de parents existants, leur proximité, la forme du cycle de vie et la relation entre les cycles de rôle des conjoints. Elle en conclut que le vieillissement avait entraîné une perte des contacts de parenté et des occupations domestiques et rémunérées, provoquant un renversement des rôles parent-enfant et que ces phénomemes étaient les plus marques et les plus fréquents parmi les femmes de la classe ouvriére. Il est argumenté qu'une telle privation devrait être compensée par un regroupement entre pairs; des données ethnographiques et des résultats d'enquêtes sont présentés pour soutenir l'hypothèse que le regroupement des gens par âge s'accroît vers la fin du cours de la vie.
Service and the coming of age of young men in seventeenth-century England
Authors: Ben-Amos Ilana Krausman
Published: November 2008

L'auteur étudie comment on accède à la majorité en Angleterre au dix-septième siècle. II démontre que l'entrée en service est essentielle pour les jeunes hommes afin d'acquérir la maturité sociale. Grâce a une analyse des autobiographies et d'autres données concernant les apprentis de la ville de Bristol, il relève la liberté de choix qui leur est accordée lorsqu'ils quittent le foyer familial d'une part et lorsqu'ils sont confrontés à de nombreuses difficultés après avoir quitté le service d'autre part. II souligne la vulnérabilité de l'apprenti devant les fréquentes interruptions des stages d'apprentissage. A la fin de l'article l'auteur démontre que le fait de vivre en service est intimement lié au processus de la formation familiale et à l'entrée dans la vie adulte.
From stem family to nuclear family: changes in the coresident domestic group in Haute Provence between the end of the eighteenth and the middle of the nineteenth centuries
Authors: Collomp Alain , Wall Richard
Published: November 2008

Pendant les deux derniers siècles de l'Ancien Régime, et jusqu'à la fin du XVIIIesiècle, en Haute-Provence orientale, comme dans beaucoup d'autres régions de la France méridionale, le système familial adopté par les populations rurales est celui de la famille-souche. L'heritier unique choisi pour succéder à ses parents est un garçon, le plus souvent aîné. Le père garde la direction de la maison jusqu'à sa mort. De ce système familial résulte l'existence de groupes résidentiels complexes, au moins aux phases d'expansion du cycle vital de développement, comme le démontre l'examen à la fois des recensements et des contrats notariaux de mariage.

Dans les années 1830, ce système de famille-souche laisse la place à un système plus égalitaire avec disparition des ménages complexes. Les raisons de cette transformation sont multiples: économiques, juridiques et démographiques.
Single people in the nineteenth-century city: a comparative perspective on occupations and living situations
Authors: Litchfield R. Burr
Published: November 2008

Une analyse des recensements du milieu du dix-neuvième siècle pour les villes de Pisa, tant urbaine que rurale, d'Amiens, de Stockport et de Providence fournit des données sur les proportions de personnes restant célibataires dans les différents groupes d'âge. Les éléments concernant les emplois et le lieu de résidence des célibataires sont ensuite comparés à ceux des personnes mariées du mêmê âge. On note que pour Pisa la plupart des célibataires sont en service plutôt que d'être employés dans l'industrie. Plus tard dans la vie, ils resident auprés de personnes sans liens familiaux avec eux, comme domestiques ou comme locataires. On constate également l'emploi séparé chez les gens de maison et dans certaines professions pour les célibataires à Amiens, bien qu'il y ait plus d'hommes et de femmes restés célibataires y vivant en solitaire qu'à Pisa. A Stockport et à Providence il y a moins d'adultes non mariés car les possibilités d'emploi dans l'industrie permettent à davantage de gens de se marier et la concentration des célibataires dans le secteur de service y est moin important.
Support and redeem: charity and poor relief in Italian cities from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century
Authors: Pullan Brian
Published: November 2008

Dans les quatre grandes villes italiennes de Florence, Gênes, Rome et Venise, le développement de la charité officielle et organisée au cours de la période du quatorzième au dix-septième siècles s'explique mieux en termes de quatre traditions, commençant à différents moments qui se sont entremêlées les unes les autres et ont contribué à la création d'un système complexe destiné à résoudre le problème de la pauvreté. Au seizième siècle, il n'y avait pas, comme dans les sociétés protestantes, de rupture déclarée avec les principes et la structure institutionnelle du récent passé médiéval. Mais le rôle de la charité s'est étendu de telle façon à se pencher de plus en plus sur le secours des pêcheurs et des ignorants, pas simplement pour subvenir aux gens respectables, aux innocents et aux saints.
Illness among the poor in an early modern English town: the Norwich census of 1570
Authors: Pelling Margaret
Published: November 2008

Les écrivains anglais et les autorités municipales du seizième siècle étaient tout à fait conscients des coûts économiques et sociaux de las maladie chez les pauvres. Certains recensements des pauvres, tels que celui effectué à Norwich, enregistraient systématiquement les cas de maladie. Les contraintes historiques des estimations faites pour le début de l'ère moderne trouvent un équivalent dans celles d'aujourd'hui. La mortalité facilite l'évaluation quantitative, mais en obtenant au moins un minimum de morbidité, l'historien se rapproche de l'expérience de privation autant que de crise et obtient une image plus précose des premières politiques sociales.
Widowhood and poverty in late medieval Florence
Authors: Chabot Isabelle
Published: November 2008

Dans la conception de la pauvreté au Moyen-Age et au début de l'èrè moderne, ainsi que les pratiques de secours public et de charité privée, les veuves étaient en général considérées comme pauvres à cause essentiellement de leur infériorité légale. L'objectif de cet article est de suggérer certains des facteurs socioéconomiques qui, dans le contexte de la société florentine de la fin du Moyen-Age faisaient des femmes des victimes potentielles ou réelles du processus d'appauvrissement après le décès de leur mari. En interprétant le terme ‘pauvreté’ dans un sens large comme étant une variété de risques encourus par les femmes de toutes les catégories sociales, il est possible de se concentrer sur deux points: d'une part, le déclin de leur statut social lié aux insuffisances du système de la dot; d'autre part, une détérioration du niveau de vie des femmes dans les classes inférieures.
Welfare, mortality, and gender. Continuity and change in explanations for male/female mortality differences over three centuries
Authors: Johansson S. Ryan
Published: November 2008

L'espérance de vie à la naissance est souvent employée comme index de la prospérité relative de différentes populatoins. Mais dans ce cadre les écarts entre la longévité féminine/masculine sont anormaux. Les femmes ont été et sont encore moins privilégiées que les hommes, pourtant elles vivent plus longtemps. Cette situation a fait croître l'idée que les femmes ont d'immenses avantages biologiques sur les hommes. Mais des données historiques peuvent être utilisées pour démontrer que dans la tranche d'âge de 3 à 55 ans des entrecroisements très prononcés de déces ont eu lieu quant aux taux de mortalité féminine/masculine aux âges spécifiques. Pour justifier cette variabilité historique il faut les remplacer par d'autres plus complexes, qui examinent comment des types de comportement influencés par la culture et propres au sexe, exposés à différents milieux de maladie, se traduisent biologiquement par des taux de mortalité propres à l'age. Lorsqu'on rend justice à la complexité biologique et culturelle, on peut expliquer comment des niveaux inférieurs de bien-être relatif peuvent produire des taux de mortalité inférieurs pour des populations désavantagées dans certains climats de maladie.
Life-cycle service and the family unit in early modern Rye
Authors: Mayhew Graham
Published: November 2008

Cet article remet en question les suppositions largement acceptées concernant l'uniformité du service à vie en Angleterre au début de l'ère moderne. Basée sur une analyse des registres d'enrôlement de Rye pour le début du 17è siècle et du rôle de taxation de 1660, qui fournit la liste du personnel et de la progéniture résidant à la suite du chef de famille, cette étude laisse supposer que pas moins de neuf dixièmes des enfants âgés de plus de 16 ans, qui vivaient à Rye et dont le père était encore en vie, habitaient auprés de leurs parents. Après l'analyse très fouillée des emplois de générations successives de families de Rye, à l'aide de la reconstitution des families en combinaison avec une grande série d'archives livrant des détails sur les professions, il apparait qu'il y a de bonnes raisons économiques pour cela. En effet, c'est un bon moyen pour transmettre les connaissances professionnelles de père en fils. Les emplois de domestiques et d'apprentis étaient principalement déstinés à entretenir les orphelins et les pauvres ou encore à d'autres fils, le plus souvent les cadets, une alternative de travail hors de l'exploitation familiale.
Women and violence in the later Middle Ages: the evidence of the officiality of Cerisy
Authors: Finch Andrew
Published: November 2008

La registre de l'officialité de Cerisy contient une immense quantité de données concernant les crimes violents. La principale utilité de ce matériel se situe dans l'aire des agressions. Dans ce domaine des descriptions détaillées permettent de reconstituer le ‘profil’ de la violence mâle ou femelle. Elles démontrent que les femmes étaient capables des mêmes actes de violence envers les hommes, mais que leur exposition à violence était plus limitée ou, en fait, différente. Les femmes étaient particulièrement exposées aux violences sexuelles et ménagères: les suspicions d'avortement et d'infanticide leurs sont invariablement imputées. Les témoignages ne fournissent néanmoins pas un lien évident (et prévu) entre la femme et la violence verbale.
Kinship beyond the household in a nineteenth-century Italian town
Authors: Kertzer David I. , Hogan Dennis P. , Karweit Nancy
Published: November 2008

L'étude empirique des liens de parenté au-delà du ménage pour l'Europe du passé reste vraiment sous-développée. Cette étude se concentre sur une population qui vécut à Casalecchio di Reno, près de Bologne en Italie, ville en voie d'industrialisation et habitée par des métayers. La nature et l'impact de leurs liens de parenté avec d'autres ménages et communautés sont étudiés pour les années 1865 à 1921. Les auteurs font des recherches sur le rapport entre la complexité des ménages et l'étendue sur laquelle les parents sont disponibles ailleurs dans la communauté. Us se concentrent sur la relation des enfants avec leurs grandsparents, des jeunes adultes avec leurs parents, et des veuves et veufs avec leurs enfants adultes, avec la parenté et les beaux-parents.
Family continuity and female independence in Jamaica, 1665–1734
Authors: Burnard Trevor
Published: November 2008

A l'encontre de Chesapeake, région coloniale, où de graves crises démographiques au 17ème siècle conduirent à une amélioration du statut de la femme, une étude de formes d'héritage dans le Jamaiïque primitive dénote que les blanches ne sont pas avantagées de la même façon. Au contraire, les dispositions testamentaires sont modelées de façon à avantager les hommes. Les intérêts des filles en bas âge sont rarement sauvegardés et le genre de legs pour elles, notamment régié en espéces plutot qu'en terres ou en esclaves comme dans les autres sociétés britanniques de planteurs, facilite largement l'emploi (abusif) des biens qui appartiennent aux femmes. Ces constatations ont des conséquences considérables pour notre comprehénsion non seulement du manque de considération des blanches dans la Jamaïque primitive mais éegalement pour notre connaissance de l'economie des plantations et de la nature du système d'esclavage dans les Caraïbes.