The article examines two decades of Jerry Rawlings’ rule in Ghana. It seeks to explain why Rawlings’ revolutionary populism did not develop in the direction that he envisaged: a new kind of popular democracy. Instead, Rawlings oversaw the reintroduction of Ghana's popularly preferred political system: ‘Western-style’ multi-party democracy, despite his avowed intention of not doing so. To what extent was this outcome surprising or puzzling? The article explains that it was neither surprising nor puzzling as Rawlings’ regime, the PNDC, lacked the capacity to introduce a radical new political system, despite his desire to do so. His aim – to craft a new kind of popular democracy – was not achievable as both internal and external opposition forces were stronger in their desire for multi-party democracy and a neo-liberal economic system.

The first substantive point raised in the 1972 communiqué issued by Premier Chou En-Lai and President Richard Nixon at the conclusion of their meetings in Peking, was that ‘extensive, earnest and frank discussions were held… on the normalisation of relations' between their two countries.1 In other words, after more than 20 years of non-recognition and hostility, it was agreed to accept areas of disagreement, and to move towards co-operation in matters of mutual interest. There was an implicit acknowledgement of the futility of efforts, either to initiate instant revolution, or to prevent basic changes inside the nation-state system, and of the inevitable need to work within the realities of international power.

MOST economists agree that industrialisation should help to increase agricultural productivity and raise the living standards of rural producers. In the 1970s, however, manufacturing in sub-Saharan Africa, even including South Africa, grew at a slower rate than in any other region except South-East Asia. Furthermore, far from promoting the anticipated outcome, industrialisation in Southern Africa undermined peasant farm cultivation and contributed to the present crisis in African agriculture.

One of the most important issues of political development and nation building in Africa is national integration. One major political institution which the new nations have employed in the pursuit of this goal is the political party. Ironically and unfortunately, political parties stand for division and cleavages. Thus as Seymour Lipset and Stein Rokkan have noted, in Cleavage Structures, Party Systems, and Voter Alignment: an introduction (Glencoe, 1967), ‘“Party” throughout the history of western government stood for division [my italics], conflict, opposition within a body polity. “Party” is etymologically derived from “part” and since it first appeared in political discourse in the late Middle Ages has always retained this reference to one set of elements in competition or in controversy with another set of elements within some unified whole’ (p. 3). These indeed have been the main characteristics of political parties in most parts of Africa. That is, most of them are fragmentary, and thus contribute to national disintegration rather than fostering national integration. In other words, many political parties in most African nations have not functioned efficiently for the good of their respective countries.

For a long time, women's work has not been valued very highly, mainly because of the belief in many cultures that whatever is undertaken in the house is a natural duty and/or act of love for the husband and the family. Indeed, in many parts of subsistence Africa, the heavy duties performed by women in preparing, planting, weeding, and harvesting crops are regarded as ‘domestic’ commitments and hence not serious labour. This situation can hardly be said to be characteristic of only ‘non-developed’ societies, in which patriarchal attitudes are still dominant, since according to a 1985 study, although women make up more than half of the world's population and do two-thirds of the world's working hours, they receive only one-hundredth of the worl'ds property. This state of affairs, however, is now changing, because as women everywhere unite in order to achieve legal, social, and economic equality, the value attached to their work naturally increases.

Before 1960 there was little general interest in the Belgian Congo, and the published material available on any aspect of its development was extremely limited. The accession of the Congo to independence in July 1960 and the prolonged crisis which followed has, however, completely altered this situation, and in the last three years more books and articles have been published on the Congo than on any other country in Africa. The purpose of this article is to list and evaluate at least some of this material and to suggest the main sources which exist for a study of the various aspects of the Congo crisis.

All the new states in Africa have drafted economic and social development plans, for varying periods. Everywhere one sees political leaders and party functionaries singing the popular song of nation-building while crowds respond with enthusiasm. Thus national planning is increasingly becoming synonymous with nation-building throughout the developing nations of Africa. A common problem facing the leaders of the new nations is not how to draft a brilliant plan or organisational charts; this any state can do by seeking the assistance of planning experts and artists. The problem centres on plan management and implementation. This article raises some of the questions and critical problems implicit in plan execution which have arisen during Tanzania's brief experience of nationhood.

Does Zimbabwe provide the model for the likely transformation of white minority rule in the industrial heart of Southern Africa? With their morale boosted, the expectations of many black South Africans have been raised. Likewise many outside commentators predict the inevitable downfall of the white bastion along similar lines of escalating military confrontation after the last buffer state but Namibia has gone. Even Nationalist newspapers draw the lessons by admonishing the Government to pay attention to the ‘real leaders’ of the subordinates instead of unrepresentative collaborators. The Afrikaner political leadership uses the Rhodesian example to drum home its message of ‘adapt or die’ to a bewildered electorate.

For many years ‘there has been a widespread sense of expectancy’ in Zaïre, a premonition of ‘fin de reégime’. Yet as Crawford Young went on to explain as early as 1979, although a ‘dissolution of the current fabric of power is an ever-present possibility… the surprising survival capacity of the régime makes risky any assertion of the inevitability of such a change.’1 During the last two decades there have been repeated reports that the political life of Zaïre' authoritatrian and absolute Head of State has been in grave danger for a whole variety of reasons, including the alleged loss of support from some powerful army general or ‘baron’, or the ruined credibility of his régime among international financial organisations, etcetera. The fact that Mobutu Sese Seko continues to remain in power as President means that we need to question our understanding of the situation in Zaïre. Before addressing ourselves to the issue of political succession and of possible scenarios in the future, I shall try to explain the main reasons for the ‘survival capacity’ of the power structure.

In a recent study of 90 developing countries by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation, 52 of them were found to have more than 15 per cent of their populations undernourished. This figure was determined using the F.A.O. minimum intake of 1,600 calories per day, only about half of that of the average diet of citizens in the ‘First World’. In Black Africa, 29 of the 33 independent nations included in the F.A.O. study fall into the category of undernourished. Contributions of aid in the form of food and food-production technology are therefore extremely important to this region. Obtaining an adequate supply of food for their people must be high on the priority list for governments in sub-Saharan Africa, and is the focus of this article.

After nearly 30 years of civil war, Angola gained peace in 2002. The country's diamond and oil wealth affords the national government the means to pursue economic reconstruction and urban development. However, in the diamond-producing region of Lunda Sul, where intense fighting between MPLA and UNITA forces was waged, the legacy of war lingers on in the form of livelihood uncertainty and uneven access to the benefits of the state's urban development programmes. There are three main interactive agents of urban change: the Angolan state, the mining corporations, and not least urban residents. The period has been one of shifting alignments of responsibility for urban housing, livelihoods and welfare provisioning. Beyond the pressures of post-war adjustment, the wider context of global capital investment and labour market restructuring has introduced a new surge of corporate mining investment and differentiated patterns of prosperity and precarity in Lunda Sul.

Why are some diverse communities in sub-Saharan Africa able to achieve mutually beneficial collective action while others remain trapped in social dilemmas? This paper argues that inter-group trust plays an important role in explaining when and where communities succeed in collective endeavours. It develops an argument that illustrates how demographic contextual variables structure patterns of inter-group trust and prospects for local goods provision in diverse communities. It then assesses the argument by analysing community policing in two heterogeneous neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa. The paper demonstrates how crosscutting cleavage structures in one Cape Town suburb bolstered the development of inter-group trust across the community, thus helping the community garner participation in community policing. It also documents how reinforcing cleavage structures in another Cape Town suburb has helped to suppress the development of inter-group trust, making the resolution of collective action problems more difficult.

Within two decades, Sierra Leone's ‘cliques’ have transformed from peripheral social clubs to warring Crips, Bloods, and Black street gangs at the heart of criminal and political violence. Nevertheless, they remain severely under-studied, with scholarship on Sierra Leonean youth marginality heavily focused on ex-combatants. Drawing on extended fieldwork with Freetown's cliques as they played the ‘game’ – the daily hustle to survive and resist the ‘system’ – this article offers two main contributions. First, it addresses the knowledge gap by charting the origins, evolution and contemporary organisation of these new urban players. Second, it argues that although this history reveals continuity in perennial forms of youth marginalisation, it also shows that the game itself has changed. Cycles of escalating violence and growth are hardwired into this new game. Exacerbated by a political system that sustains and exploits them, cliques present a far greater challenge to everyday peace than has hitherto been recognised.

Is food aid an effective means of assisting the needy, or a cynical response to inefficient agricultural policies in the rich countries? The second view is increasingly being heard, particularly in the main donor countries;2 yet the World Food Council, on which the developing countries are strongly represented, has called for even greater efforts so that at least 10 million tons of grain are available for food aid each year. This brief article outlines the scope and major conclusions of an O.D.I. research project that has studied the impact of food aid in four African countries in order to answer the question posed in the title.3

One characteristic which all countries presently hold in common — whatever their level of income — is the tendency for a growing proportion of the population to be employed in the ‘service sector’ of their economies rather than in ‘secondary’ or industrial activities. The purpose of this short article is to suggest that a consideration of certain features of the expanding employment in services in low-income countries may help to evaluate two commonly identified situations. First, in regard to manufacturing activities there has been a persistent tendency towards increasing capital intensity, despite the frequent assertion that resort should be made to more labour intensive technology in order to ‘spread’ jobs more widely. Secondly, the pace of urbanisation has continued to accelerate, despite widespread concern over high rates of urban unemployment and under-employment that seem a consequence of excessive migration to the cities.

‘Europeans are living in a fool's paradise. To base one's entire security on one old man is folly. Hero worship is an advanced form of pathology’. This is the view of a white farmer who lives in the Trans Nzoia District in the northwestern corner of the former ‘White Highlands’ and who has made Kenya his home since: 945. His opinions are not typical of the several score Europeans whom I interviewed in: 968, but they are incisive and essentially accurate.

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.