Think tanks in competitive authoritarian regimes are implicitly if not explicitly oppositional, producing and disseminating research critical of government policies and elite behaviour. Existing literature asks how and why such think tanks emerge and survive, and if they exercise real influence. This paper asks if anyone actually reads their critical research. Focusing on two cases in Mozambique – the Instituto de Estudos Sociais e Económicos (IESE) and the Centro de Integridade Pública (CIP) – three original data sets are examined: (1) citations in the bibliographies of end-of-programme theses of undergraduates in the political science, public administration, economics, and/or sociology departments of two of Mozambique's most important universities; (2) websites and Facebook activities – visits, downloads, etc.; and (3) citations in academic journals that publish on Africa. Findings show evolving demand for these think tanks’ research, suggesting their growing status within Mozambique and, by implication, within civil societies of similar competitive authoritarian regimes.

The conflict in the Horn of Africa and its internationalisation since 1977 has stimulated many arguments in Amercian policy-making circles on whether the costs of expanded involvement in the region are coming to outweigh the strategic and other benefits. The most intense phase of this controversy has followed the post-1978 realignment of forces in the region, which transformed Somalia into an ally of the United States, and Ethiopia, long a close friend, into a Soviet ally.

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.

This article analyses how the state in Senegal has managed the hajj since the liberalisation era in the early 2000s. Although the essence of the hajj is religious, it is also deeply political and requires that the state manages complex relations with pilgrims, religious leaders, private travel agencies, politicians and Saudi authorities. This article argues that three inter-related imperatives structure the conduct of the Senegalese state: a security imperative, a legitimation imperative, and a clientelistic imperative. Security concerns lead the state to monitor and control pilgrims travelling to Mecca. Legitimation is seen in the collaborative relations with Sûfi orders and in the framing of the hajj organisation as a ‘public service’. Finally, given the magnitude of financial and symbolic resources attached to the hajj, clientelistic relations are constitutive of state officials’ actions. Overall, despite the post-2000 liberalisation of the hajj, the state has maintained its role as a gatekeeper, regulator and supervisor.

During World War II, some 65,000 Ghanaians were under the command of British officers in the Royal West African Frontier Force, and since India was the transit and refuelling station for those en route to Burma, the 30,000 who served there briefly experienced life in both countries. There has been much conjecture about the impact of the war on participating African soldiers,1 and this article focuses on the nature and socio-economic implications of their experience as later revealed by the veterans themselves in two rather overlooked sources of information: oral interviews and locally published materials.

Adewale Maja-Pearce is an iconoclastic Nigerian critic who has dethroned a number of literary reputations, and his 1992 book, on Nigerian fiction of the 1980s, is only a few pages old when some venerated literary figures come into the sights of his polemic. Chief among these are Chinua Achebe and Elechi Amadi, whose early novels are seen to construct nostalgic traditional world-views on discredited superstitions and ‘degraded fetishism’. Maja-Pearce's real target in A Mask Dancing, however, is not the first wave of anglophone Nigerian novelists of the 1950s and early 1960s, but the writers of his own generation, and his concern is as much with the manner as with the matter of the writing.

This note attempts to evaluate the more significant studies on migratory labour in Africa,1 and to suggest some of the information needed not only to advance knowledge but also to provide a basis for governmental policy.

There are two important elements of migratory labour as discussed in this note: the impermanent attachment to the labour force, and the absence from home. An increasing proportion of ‘wanderers who travel in search of wage labor’ (Carter Goodrich, ‘Migratory Labor’, in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York, Macmillan, 1933) become, at least during their individual working lives, permanent members of the wage labour force.2 Petty traders, as well as the still frequently expatriate high-level manpower, who manifest some of the characteristics of migrant labour, are excluded from any discussion in this note.

Jobs and their location provide the key to an understanding of the contemporary thrust of South Africa's ‘separate development’ policy. Within the country's present space economy, dominated by the four metropolitan complexes of the Southern Transvaal, Cape Town, Durban, and Port Elizabeth, this policy seeks to mould a new geography of employment opportunity for the blacks of South Arica. In this process, public policy-makers are attempting to decentralise some economic activities, particularly in the manufacturing sector, away from the nation's metropolitan hubs, and concomitantly to promote new work centres in, or on the borders of, the designated ‘Bantu Homelands’. The current emphasis in the Republic is upon the generation of industrial employment for Africans at selected sites in these Homelands. This short note explores the immediate problems and long-term prospects of this policy with reference to the Bophutatswana growth point of Babelegi.

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.

It is supposed that most readers of The Journal of Modern African Studies know something of A.M.S.A.C., its origins, and the programmatic implementation of its purposes; if not, then certainly of its existence. Accordingly, only a summary recapitulation of the Society's history of origin will be made here.

In fact, What became Ake started out with me wanting to write a biography of an uncle, a very remarkable uncle of mine, who is mentioned here, Daodu, Rev Kuti. I think some of you have heard of Fela, the Nigerian musician. Daodu was his father and a very remarkable individual.

Wole Soyinka in Jo Gulledge (ed.), ‘Seminar on Ake with Wole Soyinka’, in The Southern Review (Baton Rouge), 23, 3, July 1987, p. 513.

The publication of Ake: the years of childhood (London, 1981) won Wole Soyinka admirers among those who had never read his poetry, novels, newspaper articles, or criticism, never seen his films or plays. In a seminar on Ake which he gave in Louisiana during March 1987, Soyinka said that the autobiography had started from a desire to write a biography. He went on to say that he had ‘received letters about the book from the strangest parts of the world’.1 The autobiography was widely and favourably reviewed, it was awarded prizes and contributed to the elevation of Soyinka's reputation throughout the world—including Sweden, where he was subsequently presented with the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Culture is a central concept in the social sciences. It is also difficult to examine rigorously. I study the oldest university in East Africa and a cradle of political elites, Makerere University, where halls of residence developed distinct cultures in the 1970s such that some hall cultures are activist (e.g. Lumumba Hall) while others are respectful to authorities (e.g. Livingstone Hall) even though assignment to halls has been random since 1970. I leverage this unique setting to understand how culture forms and affects the values and behaviours of young adults. Participant observation, interviews and archives suggest that cultural differences arose from critical junctures that biased group (hall) composition and from intergroup (inter-hall) competition. Hall governments promote cultural and institutional persistence through the intergenerational transmission of norms and practices, thereby highlighting the role of political hierarchy in reproducing culture.

THE Federal Republic of Germany is one of the major pillars of the group of western industrialised capitalist countries, and this largely determines its rôle in international financial institutions, and its attitudes to the global economic system and market structures. The F.R.G. is second in the world, behind the United States, expressed by its share of the monetary volume of total international trade, but the proportion of exports relative to G.N.P. is much higher than in America and slightly more than in Japan.

Rather than examining what constitutes urban life in a particular city, this paper draws attention to how cities are ‘placed’ along individuals’ life trajectories. The outcome of 15 months of ethnographic research among 102 residents of Lagos's Gowon Estate neighbourhood suggests that Lagos is better understood relationally, through subjective narratives of city life. Given its scale and position among Nigerian cities, the meanings of Lagos to different individuals must be illuminated via an examination of how they ‘place’ those urban places that are important to them – Lagos, hometowns and regional centres – both conceptually and practically within their lived experiences and current livelihoods. In short, this paper exemplifies and advocates a methodology that does not treat cities as a central analytical unit, but instead interprets the meanings of living in cities based on individual inhabitants’ narratives, networks and other aspects of their lived experiences in Lagos and elsewhere.

At the October 1985 meeting in Seoul of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, African delegates insisted that ‘the economic situation is the worst in recent history’.Indeed, it is now widely accepted that the states and peoples of sub-Saharan Africa are in the midst of a crisis of unprecedented magnitude that has been caused by both short-term and long-range factors. Domestic food production has been declining, whilst food imports have increased, and this has exacerbated the televised disasters of drought and famine. The recession in western countries has led to a decline in the external demand for African primary products. Export volumes and values have decreased overall, producing significant fiscal problems, and the resulting foreign-exchange shortages have meant industrial stoppages, an inability to replace infrastructures, and a decline in the gross domestic product.

When Henry Kissinger became Secretary of State in September 1973 he instructed all American embassy personnel to monitor human rights in the countries in which they were serving. President Jimmy Carter was not responsible for America's interest in human rights, only for the policy of affirmative action. When his Assistant Secretary for Human Rights commenced work she found only two members of the State Department permanently assigned to the task, and her sole guideline was the manual for setting up her office.

In this article, I map out spaces of social encounters and elaborate upon the once openly exposed but now hidden nightlife of Butembo, in eastern Congo. I explore what moves the people of Butembo, where they go to have fun, and what ‘fun’ means in a war-torn place. The main focus lies on the city's countless cabarets, as these seemed the places where people mostly met. A cabaret is a private dwelling where a single woman offers home-brewed alcohol and sexual services alike. Usually, a cabaret bears no signage at all, so from the outside, it is hard to discern from an ordinary house. Yet, their sheer invisibility stands in sharp contrast to their major importance. As I proceed through the article, it becomes clear that these obscure cabarets are spaces of sociability with an undeniable importance that contribute to the functioning of the city in many respects.