The rise of wealth and power within the cattle-owning economy of Botswana has been accompanied by the creation of poverty and weakness. The impoverishment of the San and ‘destitutes’ was a structured, comprehensive, and long-term process, caused less by phenomena such as periodic drought than by an elite of economic and political power, and the exploitation which they practised. The growth economy of recent decades has not ameliorated the situation, but has strengthened the wealthy while neglecting or worsening the plight of the San. The state possesses the financial resources and developmental capacities to alleviate poverty, but its controllers continue to prioritise other matters.

This article seeks to examine the status of the medical profession in Tanzania, in the context of political and economic developments since independence. It demonstrates that doctors have maintained a relatively privileged position within the health care system and in the wider society from the colonial period, through the early years of indpendence, to the present. This has been achieved by a variety of means. During the 1970s and early 1980s the profession was closely associated with the developmentalist project of the state. Because of economic restructuring since then it has had to adopt the rhetoric and techniques of accountability, to distance itself from the state and position itself in the notional realm of civil society. Recent cases of the Medical Council are used to demonstrate this trend. Renewed legitimation is most significant as a means of maintaining the profession's links with its international counterparts, and with foreign donors who support the health care system in Tanzania.

Any adequate account of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda must acknowledge manipulation by external forces, domestic pressures and psychological factors. Even so, the nature of the Rwandan state must be seen as absolutely central. The genocide took place under the aegis of the state, and Rwandans were the main actors involved. Both precolonial legacies and colonial policies contributed to the formation of this state, whose increasingly autocratic and unpopular government was, by the early 1990s, facing serious threats to its hold on state power, for which genocide represented a last-ditch attempt at survival. Many of the mechanisms through which genocide was prepared, implemented and justified in Rwanda bore striking resemblances to those used during the twentieth century's other major genocide, the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews.

A comparative literature on democratic transitions in Africa has sought out points of similarity across the continent in order to yield generalisations about the prospects for democratic consolidation. The underlying contention of this article is that history needs to be taken seriously in any such exercise, not least because politicians and voters alike are guided by their readings of the past. These, in turn, have a bearing on democratic prospects. The first part of this article demonstrates how, in the run-up to the 1996 Ghanaian elections, the opposition parties were guided by an assessment of their historic strengths. The parties which belonged to one or other of the great traditions – Nkrumahism and the Busia/Danquah tradition – regarded themselves as the natural rulers and treated the bearers of the rival standard as the principal threat under normal conditions. The ruling National Democratic Congress, which was regarded by each of them as a mere usurper of the natural order, exhibited a much more ambiguous attitude towards history. The second half of the article scrutinises the election results and seeks to establish the underlying patterns. Particular attention is paid to rural/urban and ethnic/regional voting patterns. The article concludes that while the opposition improved on its 1992 performance, its inroads were actually fairly limited. It further posits that the opposition parties of both traditions fundamentally misread the historical evidence and hence misjudged the scale of the task confronting them. It concludes by raising the possibility that the misfit between perceptions and electoral realities could prove destabilising to Ghana's fledgling democracy.

The lowland Ethiopian regions of Gambella and Benishangul, bordering Sudan, form a classic frontier zone. ‘Modern’ politics dates from the 1974 Ethiopian revolution, and has been shaped by developments on either side of the frontier, as well as by the complex relations among indigenous peoples, and between them and immigrants and officials from highland areas of Ethiopia. The implementation of the post-1991 Ethiopian government's programme of ethnic regionalism has intensified local rivalries, and regional governments remain weak, being highly dependent on professionals from highland Ethiopia. Education, transport links, and other indicators of development remain poor. None the less, local political power, in sharp contrast to earlier periods, has to an appreciable extent passed into the hands of indigenous leaders.