My aim is to provide an exposition and a critical analysis of Mu'ammar al-Qadhafi's economic theory as derived from Part II of his Green Book, and since it is basically an essay of conclusions, sweeping generalisations, and ‘final’ or ‘ultimate’ solutions to man's political, economic, and social problems, my primary interest is to examine his intellectual sources.

A quarter-century after its inception, the diversity within ‘African socialism’ remains astonishing. This category now includes development strategies which range from traditional capitalism with limited sectoral planning to collective forms of national autarky. Although it is generally agreed that none of the forms of African socialism incorporates an ‘orthodox’ type of Marxism, the tremendous intellectual impact which Marx and Lenin have had on all aspects of social, economic, and political thought means that it is impossible to construct a theory of socialism which is totally outside their shadows. In effect, Marxist orthodoxy inevitably serves as a tool for the evaluation of socialist theory.

It has long been recognised that political money is a critical variable affecting the organisation of mass parties. These are dependent on the collection of dues for their survival and vitality, for the payment of their officials, and for the fulfilment of the r^les they aspire to play within their communities. Yet the relationship between political money and party organisation has not been widely studied. In Africa, with one or two provocative exceptions, the field has been barely touched. The reasons for this hiatus are fairly obvious. Parties — and, perhaps, particularly those in Africa — are notoriously secretive about their finances, and even when figures are released, scholars treat them with often-justified suspicion.

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.

During the last decade, the flow of oil revenue into Nigeria has expanded spectacularly, dwarfing other sectors of the economy. Its implications for development, for the growth of a commercial capitalism, and for the corresponding emergence of a more defined class structure are crucial issues about which much has been written. What we have heard less about, however, is how the ordinary people of Nigeria react to the floods of petro-naira which they themselves cannot reach. Fortunes are being made out of oil, but the living conditions of the rural and urban masses deteriorate as agriculture declines and the urban centres become overcrowded with the jobless and the impoverished. What are the attitudes of these people to the petro-naira? The answer to this question is no less important than an analysis of the hard economic data for our understanding of what is actually going on in Nigeria today.

Of the rising tide of refugees in the world, the greatest number originate from Ethiopia. The largest continent consists of those from the Ogaden who have fled to Somalia, followed by Eritreans who have sought refuge in the Sudan. Out of a total of 520,000 refugees in the Sudan at the end of 1981, approximately 425,000 are Ethiopians or Eritreans, with the much larger number being Eritreans. The Eritreans have fled their homes to escape the prolonged warfare between the Ethiopian forces and the Eritrean liberation movements, a conflict which dates back to 1962.

The pastoral Nilotic-speaking peoples of the Southern Sudan have been observed by missionaries, merchants, and casual travellers for more than a century. Significant advances in social theory have been formulated on the basis of Nilotic ethnography. In the light of the voluminous literature recorded by these and other authorities, it may now be of value to draw into clearer relief the nature of the status and authority of the women in these ‘traditional’ societies, which are increasingly drawn into and irrevocably changed by exogenous sources.

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 Reagan Administration's approach to the economic development of the continent stems from a virtually unquestioned reliance on the African private sector, bolstered by multinational capital. This strategy has been outlined in the Department of State's Current Policy Memorandum, No. 348, based on an address made by Chester A. Crocker, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, to the United States Council on Foreign Relations on 19 November 1981, when he reminded his audience that the President had stressed the following two points at the Cancun Summit the previous month: freedom to choose, to own property, to work at a job of one's choice, and to invest in a dream for the future is an ingredient vital to economic success;…and individual farmers, laborers, owners, traders and managers are the heart and soul of development.

The Africana section of The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. XIX, No. 4, December 1980, pp. 685–91, features a ‘cautionary tale’ written by John M. Cohen that is devoted to a critique of published treatments of the Ethiopian revolution. In particular, Cohen purports to show that important data on post-coup food production had neither been consulted nor considered in a previously published study of the impact on the nation's agricultural sector of the radical legal and policy measures introduced by the Derg. He further introduces estimates of food-grain production based on Ethiopian Government and U.N. F.A.O. sources which he finds ‘probably more reliable’ than those cited in the earlier article. On the basis of these official statistics, Cohen then disputes the conclusion that the Derg carried out sweeping land reforms without inducing a short-run decline in domestic harvests. He concludes with a call for ‘more thorough research in government and donor archives’.

The purpose of my December 1980 Africana note was to identify two major problems in the rapidly growing literature on the Ethiopian revolution: (1) the failure to honour the academic obligation to be exhaustive in the research enterprise; and (2) the tendency of students of the revolution to draw doubtful long-term conclustions on the basis of a brief time-horizon. To illustrate these points I used Peter Koehn's citations on food production and the conclusions he drew from them. Briefly, I noted that he had overlooked at least one important set of data and reached a conclusion that did not hold up over time. The references to new sources in both my note and the reply by Koehn and Brian D'Silva support my argument, for we have now located important, additional studies on production and rainfall, and Koehn has now altered and expanded his conclusions in the face of evidence from a longer time-perspective.