Solutions to old problems are sometimes found in new paradigms and models which provide alternative means of approach and analysis. It is suggested here that South Africa's socio-economic and political problems, stemming from the country's multi-ethnic structure, may be viewed within a conceptual framework that emphasises the spatial dimensions of the associated conflict. A model suitable for understanding this will stress the many disparities and tensions between the white core élites and those black counter-élites – including the leaders in the Homelands – who are emerging from the subdominant peripheral groups. Moreover, an analysis of the interaction between core and periphery will highlight the transformation necessary to reduce and resolve the conflict between whites and blacks in the South African spatial system and so promote their more equitable development?

With the demise of the Soviet Union and the fall of many authoritarian régimes, some observers suggest that we are in the midst of what can be called a worldwide democratic revolution. Although questions remain as to the durability of these changes, particularly in Africa, it is clear that we are at a cross-roads. Nations are considering what kinds of political institutions they want to replace those they are trying to dismantle. What, at this historical moment, is the special appeal of democracy in the non-Western world? Is it the promise of individual freedom? or popular elections designed to give all citizens a say in who governs? or the prospect of guaranteed individual and group rights?

The first third of the 1960's was marked by growing concern over the inadequacies of the international economic system and a series of ambitious initiatives for its reform. The Kennedy Round of negotiations conducted through G.A.T.T. (General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs) was launched with the avowed aim of ending protective tariffs and related obstacles to world trade. Almost all governments, central banks, and international monetary organisations supported—in one form or another—international liquidity reform in order to break the artificial dependence of trade expansion on gold mining and on United States and United Kingdom payments deficits, and to replace these variables by a managed system, based on an international reserve unit. Both the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (O.E.C.D.) argued the case for expanded, longer- period, development assistance on easier terms and with fewer ties to purchase the exports of lender or donor countries. Spokesmen not only of developing but also of industrial economies appeared to endorse this line of argument. Regional economic integration among developing economies moved out of the realm of academic speculation and vague speeches and into the category of political-economic programmes for early implementation.

This article has pointed out the increasing importance of the arms trade in the contemporary international system, and has reviewed critically the essential scholarly works devoted to this topic. Arguing that most of the existing literature is either descriptive or only very partially explanatory, I have suggested a set of five requirements for a satisfactory understanding. Following an analysis of the relationships between these ideal criteria and segments of the theoretically oriented literature, I have outlined an original, though preliminary, model for a systematic analysis of arms supply as an international political phenomenon

The wealth of ethno-linguistic units in Nigeria has been the object of anthropological, linguistic, historical, and political study since the country was first so named at the beginning of this century. But since independence in 1960, the federal motto of ‘Unity in Diversity’ has raised a central principle of language use which has been gradually articulated in successive constitutions and white papers on national policy in the educational and cultural spheres.

At their 1998 Saint-Malo summit, the UK and French governments promised to set aside a century of rivalry and cooperate more closely on Africa. They also signalled their intention to develop a continent-wide focus on Africa, which would include building up the capacity of regional organisations. They were helped in this latter goal by the winding up of the OAU and its replacement by the AU in 2002. This article therefore examines the extent and nature of Anglo-French cooperation vis-à-vis the AU. It sets out briefly the history of UK and French neglect of the OAU, reviews the key developments that pushed for a more coordinated stance on the AU, and then – drawing on extensive interviews in London, Paris, Brussels, Addis Ababa and Dakar – evaluates the extent of Anglo-French cooperation. It concludes by noting the uneven nature of Anglo-French cooperation vis-à-vis the AU and assesses the reasons for this.

For two decades African countries have experienced rising Soviet interest and involvement in their internal affairs. Recent events in Angola, Uganda, and Ethiopia have particularly alarmed many observers. Today the debate continues in the news media and in academic circles as to the nature of Soviet behaviour. Regrettably, as much misinformation as fact seems to confound the issue.

By the time most African countries achieved independence in the early 1960s, education had become a sacred cow for both the governments and the people. For the former, education represented a major tool for nation-building and development which, in those days, meant essentially rapid industrialisation; for the latter, education–especially at the post-primary levels–was the main vehicle for social mobility, primarily because it made possible the acquisition of a well-paid job in the modern sector. For a few years it looked as if there was no contradiction between the aspirations of the people and the goals of the governments, on the one hand, and the socio-economic realities, on the other. Soon the bubble burst, however: industrialisation turned out to be no panacea; the limits of Africanisation were rapidly reached in the civil service, but proved to be a protracted affair in the economy. As the ugly scourge of youth unemployment started to spread in Africa by the mid-1960s, attention was focused on educational systems which began to be perceived as ‘dysfunctional’–i.e. as incompatible with the social and economic realities which were largely agricultural and rural. But more ominously, schools came also under attack as serving mainly the interests of the emerging bourgeoisies.

Although Liberia is the oldest African republic, its economy is still young and growing. The road of independence has been uphill, lonely, and difficult. During Liberia's early decades of independence, the British and French were antagonistic towards what they considered a threat to their colonial ambitions as well as a refutation of the assumption that the black African was incapable of self-government. Across the Atlantic, Liberia's unofficial mother country, the United States, was still in the isolationist period of its history; its gestures of friendship were few and cautious. Nor did Liberia have easy-term foreign aid programmes to provide quick remedies for financial crises. Pleas for aid fell upon the cars of unsympathetic bankers. For the first 80 years or more, each of Liberia's several loans was used to repay the last. The battle was for survival, leaving little opportunity for development.

Cameroon like most formerly colonised countries in African has, since independence and re-unification, grappled with a Danaidean task in attempting to develop a modern legal system that takes account of its heritage and present conditions, as well as its socio-economic and political needs. If the history of African legal systems reflects the difficulties encountered in framing national laws derived from customary and foreign laws introduced during the colonial era, these are even more serious in Cameroon where, because of its complicated colonial past, two potentially divergent foreign legal systems have struggled for supremacy in determining the nature and content of its new uniformised laws. Now in its third decade of independence, and with the two former British and French parts united politically, the goal of legal unity seems to be regarded as a logical sequitur.

The article by Michael F. Lofchie on ‘Agrarian Crisis and Economic Liberalisation in Tanzania’, published in this Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 3, September 1978, pp. 451–75, has already aroused considerable comment and raises a number of points of substantial general interest. It is, however, to my mind, somewhat misleading in several respects. Few, I think, would now dissent from the very general proposition that agricultural policies in the period up to 1974–5 contributed both to a generally slow rate of growth of production and to the major shortfall in output of that year, and that this in turn contributed to changes in policy since then.

Since the cessation of conflict in 2002, Sierra Leone has experienced extraordinary levels of involvement from Western donors. Paradoxically, while relationships are often portrayed on the ground as strong with significant donor influence, our research shows considerable fluidity in individual and institutional relationships. The article disaggregates donor–government relations at various levels over a short but crucial period, 2010–16, asking in each case who occupies the driving seat. In so doing, the article interrogates the concept of ‘extraversion’, investigating to what extent government – and indeed donors – has space in which to manoeuvre and how and why government and donors act as they do in this space. The period 2010–16 is of particular interest due to extreme iron ore price volatility and the Ebola epidemic of 2014–15. The article adds much-needed critique and empirical evidence to the debate on donor influence and ‘extraversion’.

The Foreign policy of Ethiopia, like that of other countries, is based on certain goals and values, and determinded by the dynamic interplay of domestic and external factors. Although its formulation has been clearly influenced by Marxist concepts about the nature of society and the alignment of forces in the world, there are elements of continuity as well as change, not least because Ethiopia has maintained its core values while playing an important rôle from time to time in the international arena long before the 1974 revolution. In other words, despite a shift in orientation, the central purpose of Ethiopia's foreign policy has remained the same, and a change in style has not brought forth a change in essence. Indeed, in some respects, the exigencies of a fast-changing international environment have been more significant than the replacement of the Emperor by the Dergue. It must be stressed that Ethiopian policy has been largely rigid, with adjustments being made only in response to certain fait accomplis that were outside the control of the decision-makers.

The transformation of Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev era was truly seismic in nature. Re-evaluations were effected in all areas of policy, resulting, most visibly, in the fundamental reordering of relations with the United States and fellow N.A.T.O. countries, and the demise of the Warsaw Pact and communist régimes in Eastern Europe. Equally sweeping were alterations in approach to the Third World and, more specifically, sub-saharan Africa, where changes in policy Soviet retreat.

On the good foundation built by the University College of Dar es Salaam, which was a constituent part of the University of East Africa, we are now embarking upon our independent existence as a University. This is therefore an occasion for rejoicing. It is also an occasion which calls for re-dedication and renewed endeavour by all those involved. For it is now our responsibility to shape this institution so that it gives the maximum service to the people of Tanzania and their socialist objectives.

The intellectual and social origins of those modern movements of political and cultural assertion which are allegedly centred on peculiar African circumstances or peculiar African principles of traditional culture—movements which may be conveniently summed up as ‘Africanism’1—are to be sought in a variety of directions. Factors in the historical and social traditions of the continent in distant centuries have been evoked by some inquirers; while others have listed external influences—emanating in the main from Europe or North America, affecting chiefly those few Africans who travelled overseas, and operating only since the middle decades of the last century—which have directly or indirectly encouraged expressions of Africanism within Africa.

During the last few years, Mikhail Gorbachev's new thinking has stimulated a number of dramatic and largely unexpected shifts in Soviet foreign policy. In Southern Africa, its effects have been both immediate and quite profound. The two most publicised changes have been Moscow's growing support for negotiations as a method of resolving the region's conflicts, and the related reduction of its commitments to the régimes in Angola and Mozambique. In fact, there is evidence that the Kremlin has been putting pressure on both its allies to engage in a process of ‘national reconciliation’ with the armed movements trying to overthrow them. At the rhetorical level, at least, there has also been a marked decline in Moscow's enthusiasm for revolutionary upheavals in Southern Africa.

If the study of the foreign policies of underdeveloped countries is underdeveloped, the systematic analysis of their foreign policy decisions is not. It is simply nonexistent. – Bahgat Korany, 1984 1

The first half of the 1980s has posed new challenges for African foreign policy in practice and analysis, symbolised by the Ethiopian drought and the conflict in Southern Africa, but generalised in the continental crisis of negative growth. The halcyon days of the 1960s – the innocence and optimism of early African nationalism – have long since disappeared, obliterated by the global and regional shocks of the 1970s. The first independence decade coincided with a period of gradual economic expansion – as it turned out, the continent's last. The years since the mid-1970s – the end of the post-war Bretton Woods era – have been characterised by slow growth at best, for a minority of states, and by none for the majority of countries and peoples. Thus the African agenda has shifted dramatically from nation-building to -salvaging, and from import-substitution to de-industrialisation. Somewhat fanciful notions of regional and continental integration have been replaced by pragmatic imperatives of food aid and debt relief.

This article presents the hypothesis that there has developed in Africa in recent years a group of practices which constitutes a new pattern, to be called here ‘crude private neo-imperialism’. This term refers to unprincipled exploitation by some foreign firms of African governments that establish government-controlled, directly productive enterprises in an effort to accelerate economic development. The pattern referred to is ‘crude’ in that it involves outright dishonesty or hoodwinkery. It is ‘private’ in that the exploitative practices are carried on by private companies rather than by governments (although the latter have frequently given tacit and even explicit support). It is imperialism or ‘neo-imperialism’ in that the practices constitute not simply a series of similar incidents but a general phenomenon attributable to substantial contemporary causes.