One of the more perplexing problems of democracy in developing countries has to do with their potential for breakdown. In retrospect, at least three dynamics appear relevant in any consideration of how most come to atrophy: first, flaws in the pattern of instauration, involving the design and setting up of the modalities of the régime; secondly, a political process that tends to exacerbate entrenched cleavages such as class, ethnicity, and religion, given their relationship to the distribution of scarce economic and political resources; and thirdly, the events, internal and external, that lead to the onset of an ‘unsolvable’ crisis.

Farmers and families in western Kenya have grown increasingly dependent on the pig industry as a primary resource for savings and income. The post-election crisis in 2008 had a serious impact on people living in western Kenya because the region was the stronghold of the opposition Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The pig industry was affected in a number of ways, including an increase in the price of food and farm inputs, sale of pigs to provide food and other essentials for the family, or because of forced migration, leading to a drastic decrease in numbers of pigs. This will have a negative effect on the long-term viability of the pig industry due to decreased availability of growing, breeding and market weight animals.

Algeria is important for its wealth, for its size and location, for the dynamism and austerity of its leadership, and for its pretensions to socialism and leadership of the Third World. Clearly, an imposing list. Yet the Algerian approach to development is little known and insufficiently understood, at least in the English-speaking world. In France, on the contrary, and throughout la francophonie, Algerian movements and events are closely watched and intensely debated. Much of the controversy has concentrated on the question as to whether or not Algeria deserves its self-proclaimed status as a socialist state; 1 the celebrated autogestion effort of the 1960s has been thoroughly and carefully analysed,2 and the nationalisations of foreign oil companies – as well as a few other salient economic enterprises – have received considerable attention.3 It should be noted that the extensive French literature on post-1962 Algeria has focused on events up to 1971, though a few materials on more recent developments are beginning to emerge,4 and that a small number of articles in English on major Algerian programmes, such as la révolution agraire, have recently been published.5

Ever since the signing of the Camp David accords and the Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty of March 1979, rumours and predictions have abounded of a diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and Black Africa. Israel's unique relationship with those states, which commenced immediately following their independence and ended with a dramatic rupture during the last months of 1973, has continued on a discreet and unofficial basis since then. This article seeks to provide a greater understanding of the present relationships between Israel and Black Africa, and its future possibilities, through an examination of the forces and trends which have determined its course during the past two decades.

Complaints are frequently heard that the African farmer, the small trader, the everyday person has no means of getting the funds needed to improve his farm, to expand his trade, or to pay his child's school fees. It is often alleged that the low-literacy peasants and workers in a partially-monetised economy have no desire to save, even if there was any surplus money, and that in any case there are no institutions in which to accumulate or to redistribute their savings. It is argued that the banks fail to meet their needs because it is so difficult to obtain loans, while the private money-lenders, often operating illegally, almost always charge exorbitant rates of interest that discourage all but the most desperate of borrowers.

When Zimbabweans went to the polls in June and July of 1985, they decisively returned the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) to formal power, provided regional support for the Patriotic Front–Zimbabwe African People's Union and, in the case of the white roll, endorsed Ian Smith's Conservative Alliance of Zimbabwe. Questions raised in the wake of the elections tended to focus on the changes that the Z.A.N.U.(P.F.) Government could institute in the next three to five years – a one-party system, a complete abrogation of the Lancaster House privileges for whites, a vigorous turn towards Marxism.

Throughout Ghana many commercial passenger vehicles bear mottos and names, boldly written on their bodies, usually at the front. The widespread nature of these inscriptions would seem to suggest that they are a part of the occupational sub-culture, namely the distinctive pattern of behaviour, norms, and customs which serves to identify commercial transportation. A general theme running throughout the present study is that this sub-culture reflects not only the unique needs of the drivers, but also the socio-economic and cultural environment within which they operate.

This paper argues that when police reform in Sierra Leone was instituted to consolidate a state system after the country's civil war ended in 2002, it reproduced a hybrid order instead that is embodied by Sierra Leone's primary local leaders: paramount and lesser chiefs. In this sense, policing has a distinctly political quality to it because those who enforce order also define what order is and determine access to resources. The hybrid authority of Sierra Leone's chiefs emanates from multiple state-based and localised sources simultaneously and comes into play as policing takes place and police reform moves forward. This argument is substantiated by an ethnographic exploration of how and with what implications community policing has been introduced in Peyima, a small town in Kono District, and focuses on one of its primary institutional expressions, Local Policing Partnership Boards.

The endless debates about economic development, ends and means, often reach nightmare proportions for economists engaged in the art of manpower planning. One argument addresses itself to the question of whether or not education should be regarded, and treated in a policy sense, as an investment in human beings; economists support this approach, while educators tend to abhor it. Economists are also often attacked by non-educators for opposing the distribution of education to the maximum number of people as a welfare good.

The rapid demise of empires in Africa is paralled by the equally swift retreat of social anthropologists to the wings. While Diedrich Westermann in 1934 could deplore the administrators' rejection of proffered anthropological advice, by 1945, at least where Europeans had settled, one gathers that administrators were slavish devotees of the profession, almost painfully eager to stare with puzzlement at premier chief lists and kinship tables of organisation. A further development was suggested in the middle 1950's, with a report from the Rhodesias of a nationalist boast that Africans relied upon anthropologists for information from the enemy European camp. But, as new states ran up their flags and despatched envoys to the U.N., anthropologists began to speak of alienation. in the future there may be a rupture unless anthropologists become historians or sociologists.

This article examines the use of populist discourse in South African politics. We investigate speeches of leaders from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and opposition parties, the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF). We find that the EFF consistently employs populist appeals, while both the incumbent ANC and official opposition DA largely refrain. Our longitudinal analysis allows an examination of fluctuation across party leaders and electoral cycles, and illustrates that neither the ANC nor the DA have modified their political discourses in light of a rising populist challenger. However, there is some evidence that the two most dominant parties have reformed their programmatic offerings and behaviour in an attempt to compete with the EFF's popular appeal. The South African case offers important insights into the study of oppositional populism on the African continent, and a window into how major political parties may respond to emerging populist contenders.

The study of elections and parliamentary behaviour in Africa has become a neglected topic. Whilst the emergence of political élites during and after the colonial period has been examined carefully, little attention has been paid to the structure and functioning of the modern one-party state. Emphasis has tended to shift towards the analysis of political economy and of the nature of class relations, partly as a consequence of the close linkages between economic and political relations within developing states. However, studies of post-1969 politics in Kenya are now scarce, and basic knowledge of the operation of the political system is often absent. In order to help redress the balance, this article presents and analyses data about the socio-economic background of the Members of Parliament.

The growth of exploration for oil in Africa has been phenomenal. Until the late 1950s the continent was considered to be devoid of any large hydrocarbon deposits; indeed, in 1957 the total production of oil amounted to only 2·7 million metric tons, or 0·3 per cent of the entire world output. Since then, however, the rate of growth has been very rapid, and by 1976 had reached 279·5 million metric tons, accounting for 9·8 per cent of world production.

South Africa has neither a developed nor a typical underdeveloped economy. Too often it has been wrongly classified, along with, say, Australia and New Zealand, as one of the peripheral developed countries, because only a part of the economy and population have the characteristics we associate with that group. Yet its economy is distinctly different from others in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa falls squarely into the category which the World Bank classifies as ‘upper middle-income’ developing economies, with G.N.P. per capita in 1982 ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 and averaging $2,500, thereby including South Africa, with $2,700.1 (By contrast, Kenya's G.N.P. per capita was $400 and Britain's $10,000). The World Bank's group includes Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. South Africa shares many structural economic characteristics with these semi-industrialised countries.

Decolonisation is the great revolution of the twentieth century. Since the opening of the first U.N. General Assembly in 1946, over one billion people inhabiting 76 new states – nearly one-third of the human race – have attained political independence as of 1974. But until the final demise of external domination is achieved, the tasks of decolonisation are not yet complete. There remain the intractable problems of Southern Africa, as well as a variety of small territories still under alien rule. Given recent indications of the politicisation of blacks in the white redoubt, as well as the independence of Mozambique and Angola, it is a particularly appropriate time to take stock of the decolonisation movement.

Civil service reform is an important element of governance reforms, but has received limited attention in the literature pertaining to the Democratic Republic of Congo. This article examines Congo's aborted CSR process from 2003 to 2008. Through a detailed exploration of some of the project's components (the design phase, the census, and the workings of the structures charged with implementation), analysed through a framework attentive to the tensions between democratisation and liberalisation, the political logics that have pervaded and affected implementation outcomes are reconstituted. These logics, it is argued, are deeply embedded in the context of democratic transition/post-2006 elections, which donors have played no small part in shaping. The ambiguity of donors towards CSR, bemoaning the absence of governmental commitment but all too prone to tolerate administrative neglect, suggests that it may have been irrelevant for the disbursement of aid, and ultimately accommodating for the Congolese authorities.

The virtuousness of the intentions conveyed by David Newsom's homily is indeed difficult to reconcile with the staggering evidence to the contrary recently disclosed through senatorial investigations, press reports, and various other sources. In the context of the post-Watergate era – when Americans have been told of the massive and direct involvement of the C.I.A. in the Angolan civil war, of the assassination plans against the late Patrice Lumumba, and of clandestine activities in Gabon and Madagascar – the least that one can say of such a statement is that it strains credulity.

The family firm, DAL Group, is Sudan's largest and most diversified company. Its growth has concentrated on consumer goods, rather than on state concessions or exports. It has developed its own training programmes, construction units, transportation networks and market research departments to manage the unstable environment outside its business walls. This paper focuses on the company's recruitment policies, demonstrating how the firm relies on its own internal family structure and a transnational network of Sudanese professionals in order to grow and prosper. Such self-reliance contributes to growing political frustration among young unemployed people. Graduates from ‘marginal’ areas rely more heavily on public advertisements and on information obtained from state bodies, not the private channels of wasta (personal intermediation) that cut through contemporary business. The paper concludes by comparing DAL with similar business networks in Ethiopia and Rwanda, arguing that DAL is a unique and interesting form of ‘enclave economy’, shaped by a displaced transnational elite operating in a hostile political environment. Within the wider political context of Sudan, there is a limit to what similar businesses can achieve.

In 1985 the Zimbabwean national election presented voters with a drama of pretence. The Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front), known as Z.A.N.U. (P.F.), the party in power, issued a manifesto for ‘unity of the working people in the advance of a just Socialist Society’; meanwhile its candidates routinely cast aspersions on (working) people who supported the major rival party, the Patriotic Front–Zimbabwe African People's Union (P.F.-Z.A.P.U.). The latter defensively called for a unified effort to ensure that multi-party liberalism would prevail in Zimbabwe; it then implicitly endorsed most of the principles of social balance through growth with equity which its alleged ‘Marxist–Leninist’ opponents had instituted.

In most traditional African societies, the relationship of the individual to the community is clearly defined from birth. Each child soon comes to understand his special relationship to his extended family, and to the historical founders of his ethnic group. Hereditary lines trace ancestral origins, and names reflect ties to past generations as well as those yet to come. From the very beginning the child understands that he is not alone, and that he is an integral member of a distinct group with traditional responsibilities and expectations. He perceives himself not as a solitary individual who must discover his own meaning in life, but rather identifies with the legendary history and social values of his clan. These inherited ties to the past, present, and future prove to be of tremendous benefit to the individual, and provide a shared sense of order and security.