The Government of Zimbabwe has only recently begun to implement the commitment of the liberation movements to give land to poor ‘communal’ farmers, especially those dispossessed by the whiteminority régime after Rhodesia's unilateral declaration of independence in 1965. It needs to be recalled that by virtue of the Land Tenure Act of 1969 almost half of the country's agricultural land was allocated to Europeans, who had ‘greater access to the regions considered suited to intensive crop and livestock production’, and that ‘On average, each of the nearly 7,000 European farms was roughly 100 times the size of any of the 700,000 or so holdings in the Tribal Trust Lands’. The fact that much of this land was under-utilised only served to increase African resentment.

The modern, albeit fragmentary, elements of a social security structure exist in each independent nation of the tropical African sub-region, and largely constitute a legacy from a departed metropolitan power. The legacy has become expensive, expansive, complex, even controversial; it is an administratively burdensome method to alleviate human suffering arising out of the realisation of selected risks to economic security. Thus, social security, since its introduction in three stages in Bismarkian Germany between 1883 and 1889, has spread throughout the world, but its continued growth in tropical Africa – even before the pre-conditions of industrialisation have obtained – is meeting many obstacles: financial, political, philosophical, administrative, and otherwise.

Tunisia A has long been regarded as a model of political development and stability in the Third World. There is no doubt that the charismatic Habib Bourguiba, the aging (71) yet indefatigable leader of an effective nation-wide party apparatus, has helped ensure Tunisia's development from the period of the pre-independence struggle until today. It is not unnatural, therefore, given the critical role of Bourguiba in the operation of the political system, to question the degree of institutionalisation, stability, modernity, and democracy that Tunisia could retain after the passing of its dynamic leader.

Since the 1979 oil shock and in the course of the subsequent world recession, many African governments have dramatically altered the orientation of their economic policies. States previously committed to various brands of ‘African socialism’ have been ending subsidies, reducing de facto taxes on agricultural producers, ‘privatising’ previously state-run activities, adopting more liberal exchange-rate policies, and implementing numerous other ‘market-oriented’ reforms.

The successful conclusion to South Africa's first all-race elections in April 1994 marked a turning point for political and economic relations throughout the whole of Southern Africa, not least since the regional ‘superpower’ which the sub-continent had previously tried to isolate was invited to participate in regional organisations. However, the ending of apartheid, unquestioningly the single most important factor determining the nature and evolution of future integrative efforts, has to be examined alongside other significant changes affecting Southern Africa throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Most importantly, the structural adjustment programmes instigated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), together with the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), resulted in a greater emphasis on economic liberalisation and political democratisation. Consequently, Southern Africa's most important regional arrangements (as shown in Figure 1) are all in a state of transformation as they endeavour to respond to the new environment. The Southern African Customs Union (SACU), the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA) have already changed, or are in the process of renegotiating, their treaties and constitutions.

Lesotho has long had the distinction of being one of the more anomalous states not only in Southern Africa, but in the world. It is entirely surrounded by another country, the Republic of South Africa. It is ethnically and linguistically very homogeneous. It is a monarchy. Physically, the lowest point in Lesotho is higher, in vertical distance above sea level, that that in any other country. Its economy is marked by some extraordinary paradoxes, such as agriculture being the main economic activity of the bulk of the labour force albeit the origin of a small fraction of total income, imports enomously exceeding exports and being larger than domestic output, and fewer citizens working for cash inside the country than outside.

The rapidly deteriorating social and economic situation in sub-Saharan Africa, and the need for large-scale action to reverse that ominous trend, are captured well in the following paragraph:

It is becoming evident that Africa is in a state of breathtaking and grievous crisis whose… likes may not have been seen anywhere in the West since the 14th century Plague. Twenty-nine of the world's 36 poorest nations are to be found south of the Sahara desert… and 24 of them are now appealing for emergency aid to ward off famine… The percentage of Africans living in absolute poverty rose from 82 percent to 91 percent through the 1970s. In 1983 per capita food production was down by 14 percent from 1981. Five million Africans are currently refugees. Five million African children died this year; another five million were crippled by malnutrition and disease.

There are few objectives considered more compelling by developing countries than the need to attain their economic freedom. Throughout the Third World, from Bolivia and Botswana to Burma, few themes arouse such mass enthusiasm as the clarion call to economic independence. However, despite its potency in shaping many national goals and policies, very little intellectual effort has been expended in analysing the concept and exploring its ramifications in the realms of politics, economics, or sociology.

France continues to wield considerable power and influence in Africa three decades after her former colonies achieved their independence. Based on a variety of socio-economic, political, and cultural interests, many of her actions in Africa are essentially neo-colonial in so far as they are designed to perpetuate the prevailing pattern of dominance.1 Yet, France also suffers from an almost excessive dependence on African sources for the supply of cheap minerals essential to her economy and national defence.

This article applies a regime cycle framework to understand patterns of change and continuity in African competitive autocracies. We observe that regime change in African autocracies is rarely the result of actions carried out by rebels, opposition leaders or popular masses substantially altering the structure of power. Instead, they are more frequently carried out by senior regime cadres, resulting in controlled reshuffles of power. We argue that such regime shifts are best explained through a cyclical logic of elite collective action consisting of accommodation and consolidation, and ultimately leading to fragmentation and crisis. These dynamics indicate the stage of leader-elite relationships at a given time, and suggest when regimes may likely expand, contract, purge and fracture. We argue that, by acknowledging in which stage of the cycle a regime and its senior elites are dominant, we can gauge the likelihood as well as the potential success of a regime change. Our framework is finally applied to understand recent regime shifts in competitive autocracies across Africa.

Research from a community study in rural Malawi speaks directly to contemporary debates about civil society. Investigating the role of local churches in empowering citizens, the study found that the local Catholic church was more effectively fostering a nascent sense of political efficacy among women than were local Presbyterian churches. Explaining this finding, the article presents two issues that expose problems in the liberal understanding of civil society, and underscore important themes raised in the critical discourse. First, the study reveals that organisations characterised by decentralised authority structures and internal democracy may fail to contribute to the empowerment of marginalised citizens. Such organisations are prone to reproduce and exacerbate local inequalities and conflicts within their structures. Second, corroborating critical views, the study highlights the importance of recognising how power relations affect the character and operation of civil society organisations. The adjusting of power relations within organisations may be a prerequisite to their serving an empowering role with marginalised citizens.

The failure of the African state, capitalist or socialist, to induce successful economic transformation has led to attempts by neo-liberal institutions and scholars to jettison it out of the business of economic development except in the form of ‘night watchman’.1 The minimalist strategy which is at the heart of such efforts ignores the historical evidence that sustained accumulation and development anywhere has been the product of either a capitalist class, conscious of its interest, pushing the state to foster capitalist development, or a state leading the way where such a conscious class did not exist. Successful capitalist development in either of these scenarios entailed the protection of the common class interest against the narrow schemes of individual members, or the demand and needs of other classes.

The overthrow of Haile Selassie in Ethiopia in 1974, and the independence of Angola and Mozambique in 1975, as well as Zimbabwe in 1980, seem to have strengthened the case for classifying African régimes on the basis of their ideology.

In a collection of mainly country-studies of socialism in sub-Saharan Africa edited by Carl Rosberg and Thomas Callaghy in 1978, various explanations were advanced about why the so-called ‘first wave’ of radicals failed to transform African societies successfully, and a common theme was the major rô played by ideology in differentiating ‘African’ from ‘scientific’ socialist régimes.1 In 1981 David and Marina Ottaway contrasted the ‘African socialism’ of Guinea, Zambia, and Tanzania with the ‘Afrocommunism’ of Angola, Mozambique, and Ethiopia, and contended that ideology was the best indicator of the clear differences that existed in both their institutions and policy choices.2 In 1982 Crawford Young placed African régimes in three ideological categories: ‘Populist socialist’, and ‘African capitalist’.3

Contested territories and challenges to state sovereignty have become almost the norm in post-colonial Africa. The nexus of many of these conflicts resides in a status quo which gives primacy to territorial integrity over the right of peoples to self-determination. The comparative advantage thus accorded to sovereign states has resulted in a disequilibrium that legitimated the violation of both regionally and internationally sanctioned rules enshrined in the Organisation of African Unity (O.A.U.) and the United Nations (U.N.). Thus a normative bias in favour of the imperative of stability and order was justified by reference to the fragility of the newly independent régimes. In the process, the right of self-determination was narrowly interpreted to refer solely to those African peoples waging liberation struggles against European colonialism or white rule.

This article discusses the political situation in the Sudan in the aftermath of the 1985 popular uprising which reinstated parliamentary democracy, and focuses on the major challenges which confronted the civilian leaders before their downfall, notably the economic crisis, the issue of Sharia law, the agonising war in the South, and the corrupt and inefficient party system.

Whatever the origin of a federation, whether aggregation or devolution, its establishment at once raises three problems: how to allocate functions rationally; how to allocate taxing powers; and how to share revenue between the governments of that federation. It is for the constitution-makers to settle the first problem, leaving the remaining two to federal financial experts.

This paper draws attention to some assumptions implicit in HIV/AIDS communication or prevention campaigns which use popular culture media, in this instance comics. Theoretically the analysis is placed in a framework of popular culture as the arena of negotiations about claims over hegemonic discourses. Methodologically the internal logics of a local Swahili comic from the magazine Kingo and of a comic from the Sara Initiative in Swahili (UNICEF-ESARO) are explored through a comparative textual analysis, focusing on differences and convergences in the use of dramaturgy and characterisation of the protagonists. The transformations of locally known comic characters and the differences in dramaturgical strategies are made visible in the comparison, exposing the communicative, historical and social underpinnings of both comics. It is argued that as long as these preconditions of the international campaigns, as well as of local popular culture production are not thoroughly explored, hegemonic Western claims of knowledge of HIV/AIDS will be rejected by African people (and why not?). The paper recommends that prevention design allow for ‘moments of freedom’ understood ‘as the potential to transform one's thoughts, emotions and experience into creations that can be communicated and shared’ (Fabian 1998).

In August 2010, Kenya's citizens adopted a new Constitution. Intended to rein in an imperial presidency, the Constitution initiated one of the most ambitious governance reforms seen in Sub-Saharan Africa. ‘Devolution’ establishes 47 counties with extensive powers led by a directly elected governor and legislative assembly. The transition has exposed fault lines as actors struggle over the delineation of power. This paper presents the fight between the National Land Commission and the Ministry of Lands over the right to manage public land in the period 2013–2016. The paper argues that the difficulties associated with land reform arise because of the centrality of land allocation to the maintenance of power in the country. NLC's potential to transform land relations – by addressing land grabbing, effecting land redistribution, and ensuring land access by marginalised groups – is limited. This is due to the paucity of unallocated public land and the continued strength of Kenya's statist land tenure regime.

The 1977–8 war in the Horn of Africa and its traumatic aftermath has brought Somalia to a critical junction. The expulsion of the Soviets in November 1977, following their overtures to Ethiopia, and the subsequent rout of the Somali army, along with Ogadeni guerrillas, by a combined Cuban–Ethiopian–Yemini force led by Russian generals, has left this nation demoralised, isolated, and ideologically sundered. A fluid and somewhat confused socio-economic and political situation, only made less chaotic by President Mohamed Siad Barre's powerful personality and will to survive, characterises this post-war Somalia.

Tanzania and Uganda are among the most cited countries employing reserved-seat quotas. They adopted these quotas in 1985 and 1989, respectively. However, the two countries use different mechanisms to recruit reserved-seat members of parliament (MPs). Drawing on interview data from Tanzania and Uganda, this study compares the two models in terms of their effectiveness in facilitating the transfer of female MPs to non-quota seats in subsequent elections, thereby furthering women's sustainable representation. We find that the Tanzanian model is superior because it compartmentalises quota MPs in reserved seats less than the Ugandan model. The Ugandan model creates a gendered perception that constituency seats are for males and quota seats are for females – as if each sex has a distinct category of parliamentary seats. This perception affects each step of the switch to a non-quota seat, from the decision to switch to party nominations to voters’ decisions at the polls.