Black politics in South Africa changed dramatically after 1976. It spread far and fast, with black organisations multiplying at all kinds of levels. The African National Congress (A.N.C.) returned and the United Democratic Front (U.D.F.) emerged. The trade unions strengthened considerably and black youths demonstrated their power. Ideologies changed and evolved. Yet at the same time as the movement broadened and deepened its hold on black people, internal divisions grew more intense. Organisational, ideological, and strategic differences became more bitter, and leaders continued to accuse each other of betraying the struggle.

A common claim, in public discourses and in post-colonial theory, is that colonialism, and more recently the aid industry and the media, have created global hegemonic norms, which have been enforced on non-Western societies. While this may be true in some respects, this article takes a different stance on the debate. It scrutinises perceptions of Western-influenced social change in Uganda, and differentiates between discourses on Westernisation and discourses on neo-colonialism. Both are analysed as forms of social critique – one internally and the other externally oriented. The largely elitist discourse on neo-colonialism is explicitly critical of the West and its interventions in Uganda. But it is not representative of the more ambiguous perceptions of Westernisation among ‘ordinary’ people, who use references to the West to comment on contemporary Ugandan society. The article is based on empirical research in Northern Uganda. It focuses on discourses on gender, kinship and sexuality, and the recent debate on homosexuality.

This article attempts to explain the rural–urban voting patterns in the 1992 Ghanaian presidential election. In this election, rural voters voted overwhelmingly for the incumbent and urban voters did the opposite. It is argued that Ghana's Structural Adjustment Programme (1983–92) was distributionally favourable to rural households and unfavourable to urban households. A link is therefore drawn between the distributional impacts of the Structural Adjustment Programme and the voting patterns of rural and urban households.

The relationship between the state of the economy and the fortunes of political parties at the polls is one which has generated a lot of debate. This debate has largely taken place within the confines of Western democracies, not least because of the absence of Western-style democracy in many developing countries. We are, however, seeing a movement towards ‘democracy’ in many developing countries, with pressures for economic liberalisation going hand in glove with those for political liberalisation. The increasing democratisation by many African countries undertaking Structural Adjustment Programmes provides us with an opportunity to investigate the relationships between the welfare implications of these programmes and the voting behaviour of the electorate. Is voting behaviour in Africa any different from that in Western democracies?

Gambian irregular migration is a phenomenon that is well known and discussed within this small African nation, yet little is understood of the deep personal and socio-cultural motives to embark on the perilous journey across the Sahara towards Europe. This paper explores the ambitions and capabilities of Gambians who embark on irregular migration, or the so-called ‘backway’.

Community forest management is often advanced as a remedy for failing top-down approaches to nature conservation. Contingent on the property rights theory, it assumes that local participation in natural resource management results in sustainable structures. There is, however, insufficient empirical evidence on the intra-community dynamics – especially when households have unequal access to the local institutions managing the natural resource. This paper looks at the socio-cultural, economic and institutional situation of households with and without access to management institutions in communities around the Kilum-Ijim Mountain Forest in Cameroon and analyses whether livelihood differences are associated with variations in management patterns. The analysis reveals differences by household type and a mixed picture of the evolution of species in the community forests over time, questioning the role of the community in natural resource conservation. Furthermore, the paper discusses the potentials of wildlife domestication for livelihoods and conservation in forest communities. The results are important in the light of ongoing conservation efforts in natural resource hot-spots in sub-Saharan Africa.

In this article, I trace the emergence of Pentecostal FBOs in the South African city of Cape Town. By focusing on their involvements in HIV/AIDS programmes, including practices such as health education, counselling and material support, I analyse the organisational dynamics and consequences ensuing from their activities. Pentecostal involvements in development work engender complex connections between two distinct processes: On the one hand, they offer Pentecostal communities new social spaces for promoting their faith and moral agendas. On the other hand, development work urges Pentecostal communities to recast their activities in the logic of formal organisation and accountability (proposals–grants–projects). On the ground, these logics are constantly subverted as beneficiaries construe FBOs as patrons and deploy Pentecostal identities for mediating access to FBOs and the resources they command. My argument is that Pentecostal faith works to mediate the entire set of social relationships, expectations, imageries and practices that structure FBO work on the ground. More than belief and ritual, it is Pentecostal belonging that links organisations, people, opportunities and resources.

Much has been written and assumed about the impact of World War II on the political consciousness of African soldiers. It has been stated that as a result of their military service the veterans developed a new political awareness, and that consequently they played a singnificant rôle in the nascent nationalist movements of the post-war period. This argument has been presented more persuasively for East Africa, although some of the evidence produced to support the thesis appears at times rather thin. It has been strongly contested for West Africa.

Since 1950, the rise of African national movements and the attainment of independence has been paralleled by an equally rapid growth in the number and scope of national development plans. Such a plan is viewed by almost all African states as one of the standard attributes of sovereignty.1

True, economic planning preceded independence. Indeed Ghana (then the Gold Coast) had its first, 10-year economic plan in 1919, and the British adoption of colonial economic development planning as a desired standard policy dates back to 1939–40. However, the rapid postwar surge of colonial public expenditure plans was closely related to attempts first to counter the popularity of the nationalist movements and later to strengthen the economic infrastructure during the terminal colonial phrase prior to independence.2

This study focuses on the relationship between political symbols and the legitimation of national leadership in Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, and Sierra Leone. We are particularly interested in ways in which their leaders have used myths and symbols in an attempt to foster or enhance the legitimacy of their régimes in the face of severe economic and political crises.

A COMMON premise in the study of central–local relations in new states is the belief that governments attempt to extend their authority into most areas of socio–economic and political life. By exerting influence within a variety of distinct spheres of activity throughout the national territory, central authorities are supposed to create connections between national institutions and potential arenas for the exercise of central power. These ‘structures’, such as local administration, political parties, schools, and programmes as diverse as agricultural extension and family planning, are intended to be the orgartisational skeleton of the new state. Their success in relating central authority to specific localities, political movements, and development problems is supposed to indicate the degree of institutionalisation of a regime and its level of development.1 Observers of this process examine the ‘penetration’ of public policy into local areas, the expansion of the influence of central authority on traditional political and administrative arrangements, and the gradual incorporation of the ‘periphery’ into the process of decision-making at the ‘centre’. While differing in form and content across national boundaries, the ‘crisis of penetration’ is understood to be a common experience in the political development of new states.2

In December 2015, the African Union (AU) took the unprecedented step of threatening to use military force against the government of Burundi's wishes in order to protect civilians caught up in the country's intensifying domestic crisis. This article traces the background to this decision and analyses the effectiveness and credibility of the AU's use of coercive diplomacy as a tool of conflict management. After its usual range of conflict management tools failed to stem the Burundian crisis, the AU Commission and Peace and Security Council tried a new type of military compellence by invoking Article 4(h) of the Union's Constitutive Act. We argue that the threatened intervention never materialised because of (1) the Burundian government's astute diplomacy and (2) several African autocrats’ resistance to setting a precedent for future interventions where concerns about civilian protection might override state sovereignty.

Pan-Africanism has been described as ‘essentially a movement of emotions and ideas’,1 and this description is equally applicable to négritude, which is its cultural parallel. Indeed, no better phrase could be found to sum up its double nature, first as a psychological response to the social and cultural conditions of the ‘colonial situation’,2 and secondly as a fervent quest for a new and original orientation.

In the former respect, the imaginative writings of the French-speaking Negro intellectuals offer a precious testimony to the human problems and inner conflicts of the colonial situation; in the latter respect, their propaganda writing and other activities represent an effort to transcend the immediate conditions of this situation by a process of reflection. Négritude is thus at the same time a literary and an ideological movement.

The South African elections of 1994 constituted one of those rare historical moments when humankind made a significant step forward. The peaceful culmination of a liberation struggle, which for years many had feared would end in a bloodbath, registered not only a triumph for the democratic ideal but the resounding defeat of racism as an organising principle of government. If its more recent reference point was the collapse of dictatorial régimes throughout Eastern Europe during 1989–90, it can more distantly be identified as following in the grand tradition of 1789, confirming and extending and elaborating the ‘rights of man’. Yet historical ‘progress’ rarely unfolds in an uncomplicated way, and — however momentous and however much the external world may be willing it to succeed — South Africa's new democracy, by fairly general agreement, faces daunting tasks.

In April 1992, after nearly 11 years of military rule in Ghana, a draft democratic constitution of the Fourth Republic was overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum.1 The ban on multi-party politics was lifted by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Government in the following month. An independent interim National Electoral Commission was established, and a hotly contested presidential election in 200 constituencies monitored by teams of international observers was held in November 1992. After multi-party parliamentary elections to the National Assembly, boycotted unfortunately by opposition groups, the democratically elected Government of Ghana's Fourth Republic was inaugurated in January 1993.2

The official result of Lesotho's general election of 1998, which saw a 79 out of 80 seat victory for the ruling Lesotho Congress of Democrats (LCD), was repudiated by the opposition, notably the former ruling Basotho National Party (BNP) and the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP). These latter parties were historic enemies but forged an alliance of convenience to contest the outcome of the election. By mobilising their supporters to occupy Maseru they successfully paralysed the capacity of the LCD to govern. After diplomatic preliminaries, this led to military intervention by South Africa and Botswana in September 1998 and their brokering of an agreement which restored the LCD to power, on the condition that a new election would be held within eighteen months, with the rules for that contest being discussed between the parties in the interim. That election has now been scheduled for April 2000.

The article reviews the conduct and result of the general election of 1998. It concludes that the opposition's objections were largely spurious, but notes that the unbalanced nature of the LCD's victory – a product of the first-past-the-post electoral system – was a major cause of the wider crisis. It therefore proposes that any lasting settlement of political differences in Lesotho is going to require a new electoral system which will allow for a more inclusive outcome.

The landslide victory by the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in the 2002 elections was due not to any ideological or policy differences with opposition parties, but to the perception among a plurality of voters that the party delivered on its promise to end the war and therefore deserved re-election. The elections were in effect a referendum on the incumbent president and his ruling SLPP, with voters overwhelmingly concluding that Ahmad Tejan Kabba, the SLPP leader, was preferable to the legion of certified scoundrels seeking to replace him. Signs of the All Peoples Congress (APC), the party that was in power from 1968–92, making a political comeback galvanised otherwise unenthusiastic voters into supporting Kabba and the SLPP. In contrast to the APC, against whom the rebel war was launched, or the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP), which initiated and prosecuted the insurgency, or the People's Liberation Party (PLP), whose earlier incarnation prolonged the war by colluding with rebels, Kabba and the SLPP claimed to have ended a war that was caused, launched and sustained by assorted elements of the political opposition. The SLPP, however, can ill-afford to bask in electoral triumph or ignore the festering problems of rampant official corruption and mass poverty that led to armed conflict in the 1990s. Tackling the problem of corruption and mass deprivation may hold the key to democratic consolidation, but it is doubtful whether the SLPP, as presently constituted, is capable of leading the fight against these scourges. The SLPP may be reaching out to become a national party but it still remains an unreconstructed patronage outfit that is unresponsive to popular currents and mass aspirations.

The end of the cold war has coincided with, and in some cases fuelled, the politicisation of ethnically based nationalism, particularly in Eastern Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. The international political environment had previously been characterised by ideological competition and conflict between the United States on the one hand and the Soviet Union and Communist China on the other. Both of these ideological camps stressed the cohesion and viability of multi-ethnic nation-states, and as a matter of policy discouraged the representation of groups based upon a distinctive ethnic identity,1 a tendency reinforced in social science scholarship, which often focused on what was described as the process of national political integration. To the extent that it existed and was relevant, scholars generally agreed that ethnic solidarity was different from nationalism in that it did not require the creation of an ethnically pure nation-state. Today, however, the notion of the inviolability of certain internationally recognised entities is being seriously called into question as ethnic groups assert their right to self-determination up to, and including, separation from the multi-ethnic state.

Switzerland is usually not looked upon as a substantial economic actor in Africa. Taking Zambian copper as a case study, we show how important Swiss companies have become in the global commodities trade and the services it depends on. While big Swiss trading firms such as Glencore and Trafigura have generated increasing scholarly and public interest, a multitude of Swiss companies is involved in logistics and transport of Zambian copper. Swiss extractivism, we argue, is a model case for trends in today's global capitalism. We highlight that servicification, a crucial element of African mining regimes today, creates new and more flexible opportunities for international companies to capture value in global production networks. These opportunities partly rely on business-friendly regulation and tax regimes in Northern countries, a fact which makes companies potentially vulnerable to reputation risks and offers opportunities to civil society actors criticising their role. New and different Swiss–Zambian connections emerge from civil society networks organising around companies’ economic activities.

The ruling National Party (N.P.) asked white voters during the 1989 election campaign for a mandate to negotiate with all concerned about a new constitution, an undivided South Africa, one citizenship, equal votes, protection of minorities, and the removal of stumbling blocks such as discrimination against people of colour.1 Although the N.P. achieved a cleat majority – 93 seats against 39 for the Conservative Party (C.P.) and 33 for the Democratic Party (D.P.) – the right-wing opposition made destinct progress by gaining 17 seats. After the C.P had captured a further three from the N.P. in by-elections, including Potchefstroom in February 1992, President F. W. de Klerk announced in Parliament that whites would be asked the following month to vote in a referendum in order to remove any doubts about his mandate. The carefully worded question which the electorate had to answer was as follows: Do you support continuation of the reform process which the State President began on February 2, 1990 and which is aimed at a new constitution through negotiation?

A sparse literature examines African legislatures, generally thought to be weak and unimportant. Unlike many African countries that reintroduced multiparty politics in the 1990s, Senegal did so in the 1970s. In 2000, it joined the select group of African countries to experience democratic alternance. What role does the National Assembly play in light of these important steps in democratic consolidation? This article describes the operation of the National Assembly, with attention to its role in legislation, appropriations, executive oversight, constituent service and representation. The article concludes that despite Senegal's democratic advances, the operation of the National Assembly echoes much earlier studies of other African legislatures. These studies found that the legislatures did not play strong roles in legislation, appropriations or executive oversight, but instead played less formal roles such as constituent service and lobbying the administration for spending in their districts.