Research on power-sharing in Africa remains silent on the effects of national peace agreements on the sub-national level. Conversely, most armed conflicts originate and are fought in (or over) specific areas. A plausible hypothesis would be that for power-sharing to have the desired pacifying effect throughout the national territory, it needs to be extended to the local level. Based on fieldwork in six former hotspots in Liberia, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) we find that there is hardly any local content, including local power-sharing, in national agreements. However, contrary to our hypothesis, neither local content (inclusion of actors or interest) nor local-power-sharing (either introducing a local power balance or monopoly) are indispensable to effectively bring about local peace, at least in the short-term. On the contrary, it might even endanger the peace process. The importance of the sub-national level is overestimated in some cases and romanticised in others. However, the history of spatial-political links, centralised policies, and the establishment of local balances or monopolies of power ultimately play an important role.

In Zambia's first multi-party elections for two decades, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (M.M.D.) won a landslide victory over Kenneth Kaunda's United Independence Party (U.N.I.P) on 31 October 1991. Many observers believe that the sweeping 80 per cent majority gained by Frederick Chiluba and his M.M.D. in both urban and rural areas was to a large degree due to the increasing economic hardships most Zambians have been subjected to over the last years. The opposition's slogan ‘The Hour Has Come’ captured the mood of many who had lost patience with the gross economic mismanagement and wastefulness that characterised the Government.

In his Path to Nigerian Freedom – the blueprint for the nation-state he had envisioned – Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the man who later came to be one of the leading figures on the Nigerian political scene, stated categorically in 1947:

Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are ‘English’ or ‘Welsh’ or ‘French’. The word ‘Nigeria’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria from those who do not.

Without the overriding concern of Soviet domination, Americans are engaging in an introspective re-evaluation of their national interests, values, and priorities. Despite the heterogeneity of all the participants, including the key opinion-makers, a near-consensus has emerged that the United States should be pushing and supporting an external process that has come to be known as ‘democratisation’. This policy stems from widespread perceptions about the special nature of America's identity and rôle in the world. The thesis presented here is that the United States is primarily defined by a particular liberal philosophy and concept of modernity, and that the projection of ‘democracy’ abroad is not necessarily a ‘natural’ or universal evolution of human development. Africa's increasing marginalisation has allowed certain groups committed to spreading ‘American values’ an unprecedented ability to shape policy and turn the continent into a liberal socio-political experiment.

For some time, the general enthusiasm for viewing organisations as ‘open systems’ subject to a wide number of influences has had something of a hollow ring. This is shown by the way in which many scholars continue to concentrate their attention on certain selected parts of an organisation and its environment, and to ignore others.1 In 1970 this tendency was described as follows:

In October 1884, the major European colonial powers of the era were invited to a conference in Berlin by the German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck.1 The United States also attended the proceedings as an observer nation, and its representative, John A. Kasson, signed the Berlin Convention, one of the primary purposes of which was to regulate escalating imperial conflict by officially delineating the territorial boundaries of colonial possessions. Although warfare between colonial armies in Africa during World War I underscored the failure of negotiators to avoid yet another global military conflict, the Berlin conference none the less consecrated the creation of formal European empires and ‘spheres of interest’ throughout the continent. Except for the unique cases of Ethiopia and Liberia, independent Africa eventually ceased to exist.

This article aims to rekindle the debate on the politics of aid in the increasingly common – yet still under-studied – authoritarian and low-intensity conflict settings, detailing the case of Ethiopia in 2016, when a 50-year drought coincided with a wave of protests and a state of emergency. During four months of qualitative fieldwork in 2017, state, civil society, Ethiopian and international actors were approached – from humanitarian headquarters to communities in the Amhara, Oromiya and Somali regions. Research participants relayed stark discrepancies between the humanitarian theatre's ‘frontstage’, where disaster responders showcase an exemplary response, and its ‘backstage’, where they remove their frontstage masks and reflect on the information, the decision-making monopoly of the state and the intrusion of conflict dynamics into the humanitarian response. In humanitarian research and in policy, a collective conversation is necessary on where to draw the line between respect for governments’ sovereignty and the intrusion of humanitarian principles.

It has become increasingly apparent over the last decade that rural development is one of the most significant, complex, and intractable problems facing the newly-independent states of Africa. Colonialism left a legacy of unbalanced and vulnerable economies in which the impoverishment of the rural areas made rational planning for growth and self-sufficiency difficult if not impossible. Rural poverty also exacerbated the problems of urban migration and political hostility between the privileged towns and the deprived rural areas. Many African leaders recognised the seriousness of these problems, and most governments announced a commitment to rural development soon after achieving independence.

The Zambian general elections held on 18 November 1996 to elect a president and parliament are of more than merely national interest. Even before the elections took place, a vocal opposition already doubted their genuineness, and these claims have found considerable international sympathy. The Zambian government and those who voted them into power for a second term, however, consider these elections a hallmark of the success of the reintroduction of multi-partyism, which Zambia was one of the first, and one of the most successful, to reintroduce in Africa. These elections, therefore, provide a case in which to analyse a triangular interaction which is common in Africa: the interaction between an incumbent political group, an opposition which does not accept the victory of the former, and the international community. This article aims to offer a theoretical perspective on the way in which these three groups of actors intermesh; but, in order to ground these more theoretical concerns in an understanding of the empirical realities, an attempt is made first to capture the essence of the conflicts involved.

This article discusses the relationship of missionaries and anthropologists in South Africa. Due to such important factors as ethnicity, linguistic group membership, denominationalism, and party political affiliation, it is essential to present historical perspectives on these and related matters. The vocation of missionary is almost exclusively a white enterprise as is that of professional anthropologist. Blacks have however had significant influences in both realms and are today entering these vocations.

Both Eritreans and Ethiopians have been trying to sway international opinion about one of the most ticklish questions of modern nationalism which seems to defy rational analysis. This study attempts to present their contending views, and to find an interpretative framework for understanding this continuing conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Of the dozens of conflicts in the Third World which have occurred in the post-war era, few have been of greater duration and bloodshed or have attracted the attention of as many outside actors, including the superpowers, as Angola. It has only been since the mid-1980s that the conflict began moving towards eventual settlement, with the prospects for peace often seeming to depend largely on the attitudes of Cuba, South Africa, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Further affecting the overall environment was the state of East–West relations, the internal situation in Angola, and South Africa's occupation of Namibia. A short historical background will serve as prelude to an extensive examination of the dynamics which fuelled the war in Angola for such a long period of time.

In apartheid South African society, racial and ethnic identities were institutionally imposed. The end of apartheid has brought about the need for new identities to be created among South Africans, and for South Africans to forge a new relationship with their society and country. With this objective in mind, the national government is engaged in a process of nation-building. But in post-apartheid South African society, sub-national identities are also strongly coming to the fore. This is an empirical study of established and emerging identities in the Western Cape province, and the processes whereby these are constructed. The investigation shows two parallel flows of identity construction in the Western Cape: on the one hand, political leaders in the province attempt to foster an autonomous provincial identity; on the other, residents of the province show little evidence of strong political identities linked to the Western Cape. Instead, social identities are being constructed around residents’ local neighbourhoods and long-existing ethnic, class and racial identities. Rather than the social cohesion sought by the post-apartheid South African government, these identities point to persistent social polarisation.

The 3 August 2005 military coup was Mauritania's best opportunity to turn the page on decades of the deposed quasi-military regime's destructive politics. This article critically analyses relevant aspects of the transition that ensued in the context of the prevailing models of military withdrawal from politics in Africa. It also examines the challenges that Mauritania's short-lived Third Republic faced. It argues that the transition process did not escape the well-known African military junta leader's proclivity to manipulate transitions to fulfil suddenly awakened self-seeking political ambitions, in violation of solemn promises. While there was no old-fashioned ballot stuffing to decide electoral outcomes, Mauritania's junta leader and his lieutenants spared no effort to keep the military very much involved in politics, and to perpetuate a strong sense of entitlement to political power. Originally designed as an ingenious ‘delayed self-succession’ of sorts, in the end, another coup aborted Mauritania's democratisation process and threw its institutions in a tailspin. This only exacerbated the challenges that have saddled Mauritania's political system and society for decades – unhealthy civil-military relations, a dismal ‘human rights deficit’, terrorism, and a neo-patrimonial, disastrously mismanaged economy.

To understand the factors behind the formation of the Zikist Movement it is necessary to examine the political situation in Nigeria after World War II, which had stimulated national awakening to an unprecedented degree. Ideas of self-determination had taken root and various militant organisations had emerged—the trade unions, the ex-servicemen's unions, the Association of Market Women—each with its own grievances against the British colonial administration. These bodies, if properly organised and disciplined, could have become a powerful force in the struggle for freedom.

The causes of violence in Burundi are complex and go beyond the alleged ‘age-old’ animosities between the Hutu and the Tutsi. In the short run, it may be impossible to eradicate conflicts; but it is imperative to transform conflicts into non-violent ‘shocks of ideas’ between rival parties, which must refocus their energy at finding a negotiated settlement. This article posits that the solution to violence must revolve around political and economic liberalisation aimed at (1) eradicating the tradition of using the state for oppression and accumulation; (2) achieving egalitarian development; and (3) protecting the rights of all citizens.

Two conventions tend to shape appraisals of the Belgian Congo and the manner of its decolonisation. The first describes the colonial power structure as an alliance of state, church, and large corporations.1 This trinity was ‘not only… a virtually seamless web’, writes Crawford Young, ‘but each component, in its area of activity, was without peer in Africa in the magnitude of its impact’.2 The second convention typically portrays decolonisation as tumultuous, chaotic, bungled, or simply ‘gone awry’.3 Indeed, the mutiny and secession movements that followed hard upon the proclamation in June 1960 of the Republic of the Congo (renamed Zaïre in October 1971) resulted in the rapid internationalisation of responses to them, thereby demonstrating the fragility of domestic political arrangements.

Somali attitudes towards Pan-Africanism, and more particularly towards the federation of African states, have to be understood in relation to the very special conditions of the Horn of Africa. It will be necessary therefore to begin this survey with a few general remarks about the Somali Peninsula and the special characteristics of Somali nationalism.

Smallholders now grow most of Malawi's main export crop – burley tobacco. Based on nineteen months' fieldwork in the Central Region, this article offers a sociological interpretation of why some smallholder growers spend a proportion of burley income on conspicuous consumption in rural towns and trading centres. This practice can be seen as a form of inculcated behaviour whereby smallholders reproduce elements of one model of success in this region: that of the Malawian tobacco bwana (boss/master). The article discusses implications from this form of potlatch behaviour by describing the contrasting fortunes of two non-farm rural enterprises, examining data on how tobacco production and ‘cooling off’ is viewed by wives, and comparing the crop preferences of husbands and wives. It concludes by suggesting that the concept of conspicuous consumption may provide an alternative prism to the instrumental lens of neo-patrimonialism through which to view apparently unintelligible investment decisions in African economies.

It is now close to five years since a revolution spearheaded by the Ethiopian working class, students, and an assortment of petty-bourgeois elements, overthrew the monarchy of Emperor Haile Selassie I, Elect of God, King of Kings, and the Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah. With the Emperor has gone the archaic feudal land system which dominated nearly all aspects of the entire Ethiopian society. Gone too is the feudal aristocracy and the nascent national bourgeoisie which clung tenaciously to the imperial coat-tails with unusual political myopia to the very end.