Does a leader's ethnicity affect the regional distribution of basic services such as education in Africa? Several influential studies have argued in the affirmative, by using educational attainment levels to show that children who share the ethnicity of the president during their school-aged years have higher attainment than their peers. In this paper we revisit this empirical evidence and show that it rests on problematic assumptions. Some models commonly used to test for favouritism do not take adequate account of educational convergence and once this is properly accounted for the results are found to be unstable. Using Kenya as a test case, we argue that there is no conclusive evidence of ethnic favouritism in primary or secondary education, but rather a process of educational convergence among the country's larger ethnic groups. This evidence matters, as it shapes how we understand the ethnic calculus of politicians.

An ideological orientation on the part of a government is an important impetus to social change in many of the countries of the under-developed world. As Clifford Geertz has pointed out, an ideology is a model for the ideal arrangement of all aspects of life, and the active propagation of such a view of the world by those in positions of power and authority in a society is bound to have an effect on the normal processes of social change.1 In so far as this model is successfully turned into an effective programme for directed social change, we may observe the exciting spectacle of a people carrying out changes which they are convinced are necessary, and modernising themselves in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and progress. This process usually amounts to a social revolution. But there are many pitfalls, and it is easy for proposed programmes of social change to get bogged down in the intricate networks of political relations between leaders and people, or to founder on hard economic realities.

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

The creation of an international secretariat is ‘the innovation that transforms a series of conferences into an organization’1 The signing of the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity by representatives of 30 independent states in the early hours of 26 May 1963 at Addis Ababa was certainly intended to transform a multiple series of international conferences—including rival meetings of the ‘Monrovia’ and ‘Casablanca’ states in particular—into a permanent regional organisation whose membership embraced all independent African states. To this end the O.A.U. Charter provided for a General Secretariat, to be directed by an Administrative Secretary-General and one or more Assistant Secretaries-General.

A constitution enjoys a special place in the life of any nation, for it regulates not only the exercise of political power, but also the relationship between political entities and between the state and persons. Being the supreme law, it helps to shape the organisation and development of society both for the present and for future generations, and sets objective standards upon which the people and the international community can judge government performance, thus providing a measure of accountability and transparency in national and local affairs. Further, a constitution sets out the rights and duties of the citizens, and provides mechanisms to enable them to protect their interests. Overall a constitution can contribute to the development of a politically active civil society as well as promoting good governance, accountability and the rule of law.

Prior to the 1990s the history of constitutions and constitutionalism in Commonwealth Africa, as elsewhere on the continent, was bleak. The newly independent states started life with the Westminster export model constitution bestowed upon them by the British. There was little or no opportunity for public debate on the document, and the nationalist leaders themselves had no genuine choice as to its structure and contents. The futility of forcing the model on the newly independent states, in the words of Karugire ‘a triumph of hope over experience’, inevitably led to constitutional instability and a round of constitution-making and amendment wholly designed to enhance executive power, remove checks and balances, and undermine the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms.

It is still frequently asserted that the economic sluggishness plaguing most Third-World countries stems from a general lack of resources. The scarcity of capital in both the public and private sectors, it is claimed, prevents the investment needed to achieve development. On the other hand, a fewdeveloping countries with highly profitable exports – notably those that export oil – reap large financial surpluses, including foreign exchange, but do not invest them locally in productive activities. The problem here is supposed to be insufficient ‘absorptive capacity’ due to the absence of skilled personnel and inadequate physical and social infrastructure, restricting the translation of financial resources into real investment. The situation in Botswana provides a test for both these hypotheses, making possible a deeper understanding of the potential rôle of financial resources in the development process.

An underdeveloped country wishing to establish a fertiliser industry ought surely to begin by examining the locally available raw materials. In Tanzania, for example, a report in 1961 drew attention to an anhydrite deposit at Kilwa which could have been used to produce cement, gypsum, and sulphuric acid.2 The latter if combined with ammonia from the oil refinery would have given ammonium sulphate, the fertiliser most commonly used in Tanzania. The report also noted three deposits from which phosphatic fertiliser could have been made. However, the development of these local resources was rejected on the ground that for plants of an efficient size the local market would not be able to absorb all the fertilisers.

Niccolo Machiavelli and Frantz Fanon are in the tradition of political philosophy. Do they not address themselves to the notion of freedom, the concept of legitimacy, and the moral basis of political action? This article will further argue that there exists a notable correspondence of thought between them.

The political thought of Machiavelli enjoys ubiquitous fame. Its pristine vigour is attested to by the fact that, through the past four and a half centuries, dictators and democrats have embraced its values.1 Yet there is no patent contradiction in this if one realises that Machiavelli deals compellingly with what is while not rejecting what ultimately ought to be; his prince is a sort of political Everyman concerned with realising the kingdom of earth.

In the early 1930S the then Southern and Northern Rhodesia were in the course of major programmes of building and construction, which required tremendous financial outlay, when the world depression broke out. The regions throughout southern Africa which were living primarily off the exports of their natural wealth were necessarily influenced by the depression, particularly as it was the prices of exported raw materials which suffered mostly from speculation on the world markets. During these years of depression—a period of surpluses of finished goods—the prices of raw materials, including those from colonial dependencies, were forced down.

We appreciate the opportunity to engage with Nyssen et al.'s (2004, this issue) response to our earlier JMAS paper (Keeley & Scoones 2000). While they make a number of important points – many of which we agree with – we feel, however, that they fundamentally misrepresent our paper, and miss the central argument. This may be due to lack of clarity on our part, so, to kick off our response, it is perhaps worth reiterating the key points of the original piece.

This article grew out of a more detailed study of all tried cases of homicide in Western Nigeria from 1966 to 1972. While reading more than I00 court transcripts and trial opinions, I was struck by what seemed an inordinately large number of accused with symptoms which westerners associate with mental or emotional illness. I was also conscious of judges being forced to apply an awkward, and at best difficult, standard for the determination of criminal insanity with sparse direct evidence and, in many cases, without the help of expert testimony.

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.

The racial cleavage has understandably dominated most studies of Rhodesian politics. Cohn Leys claimed in the late 1950s that the European community maintained ‘a type of one-party system’ that sustained itself by uniting on race against all foes, rather than splitting along class or social lines.1 The centrality of race has been challenged recently by Giovanni Arrighi, who argued that the policies of consecutive Rhodesian Governments could be explained by orthodox Marxism,2 and by David Murray, whose study of the 1923–53 period revealed a classically pluralist model of competing economic groups.3

It is a comparatively recent development that places housing not only as one of the main targets in the national plan, but also as a vital means of achieving other social and economic objectives.1 Admirable though this may be, a number of difficulties can arise in practice, particularly with regard to the question of new housing where many dwellings may be on unsuitable sites and require relocation or extensive redevelopment. The point is that remedial measures are likely to have only short-term effects, unless several underlying – and often conflicting – variables are taken into account. Four such variables have assumed importance in the planning for future housing needs in the Greater Manzini Area of Swaziland, and it is the purpose of this article to illustrate how policies relating to industrial location, urban growth, and housing, interact with the tenurial system in force.

Third-World governments have frequently professed the virtues of trade diversification, and they have voiced a number of legitimate concerns about what can happen if this is not achieved. First, the greater the geographical concentration of their export trade, the more vulnerable are they to fluctuations arising from changes in the level of imports, devaluations, or other developments in their principal markets.1 When, for instance, exports were directed predominantly towards the relatively slow-growing European Economic Community in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the exporting countries might have been better off if their outlets had been more diversified. Second, various pressures may be exerted to induce smaller countries to purchase most of their needed imports from the larger trading partner that has bought most of their exports.2 Those with geographically concentrated exports are particularly vulnerable in tariff disputes, or what J. A. Conybeare has termed ‘trade wars’.3 Finally, countries which are particularly dependent on individual export markets are vulnerable to ‘linkage’ pressures – attempts by their powerful partners to utilise economic leverage to force concessions on non-trade issues, often political in nature.4

Because it is easy to dramatise the stuff of politics, Pan-Africanism is usually discussed only in terms of its political implications. But its protagonists justify their confidence in its value by their belief that functional co-operation on a regional and continental basis offers the best—perhaps the only—way of meeting the social and economic challenges facing the nascent modern African societies. For them, therefore, the real test of Pan-Africanism's success lies not simply in whether the independent African states can succeed in maintaining a single political organisation such as the Organisation of African Unity, but whether it is capable of making an effective contribution towards improving and strengthening Africa's economies and societies. The O.A.U.'s specialised commissions are, therefore, of crucial importance in evaluating the achievements, or potentialities, of Pan-Africanism.

In 1977 the member-states of the European Community (E.C.) adopted a collective strategy designed to and apartheid and to encourage the economic independence of South Africa's less-developed neigh-bours. The respective foreign-policy instruments used to achieve these goals were the Code of Conduct and the Lomé Convention, through which assistance was provided for the Frontline states. The scope of the Community's Southern African actions was enlarged in 1985 to include a range of sanctions against Pretoria similar to those adopted by other governments.

In Kenya, the Kuria, Suba, Meru, and Abagusii are among the contemporary cultural groupings which continue to believe in the importance of female circumcision. The ceremonies may have been partly abrogated or modified, but operations to cut off the tip of the clitoris of young girls are still carried out, not least in the expectation that the needed spirit of endurance will shape their character into adulthood. Although the primary objective of clitoridectomy is to initiate female children into womanhood, it is also performed in many African countries to ensure virginity, to enhance fertility and fecundity, and to promote cleanliness.

Cameroon's autocrat, Paul Biya, declared war on Boko Haram in 2014. Using a variety of ethnographic materials, this article examines the politics of rumours and conspiracy theories that have defined the popular response to this war in Cameroon. It underlines the mobilising force of these rumours on intra-elite struggles within the national context as well as on international relations, particularly on French–Cameroon relations. I argue that rumour-mongering is a central mode of production of suspicion in times of war and social crisis. Yet, the current rumours in the wake of the war against Boko Haram in Cameroon are inscribed within a historical framework of a state-directed politics of paranoia that seeks to define ‘enemies of destabilisation’. In the end, this politics of suspicion also works to bring otherwise disaffected Cameroonians to support the autocratic Paul Biya as a victim of foreign plots for regime change in Cameroon.