Smallholders in developing countries can potentially benefit from access to local, regional, national and international markets as they intermediate between rural and urban demand for agricultural products and smallholder supply. This study investigates how smallholders in Meru, Tanzania make use of the various marketing channels that are available to them, and argues that the variety of potential marketing channels and easily accessible market information enables smallholders to weigh advantages and disadvantages with varying market opportunities and form rational decisions. It presents a case where producers, consumers and traders are the principal agents in building market institutions through what should be characterised as endogenous processes. As these market institutions correspond to smallholders' needs, they may be able to play an important role in the overall process of agricultural development in the area.

People of quite diverse social position and perspective have turned to economic growth as a source of political change in South Africa. Contained within the concept of growth, they maintain, are processes — capital accumulation and class formation, business enterprise and markets, changing skill and capital requirements – that, at the very least, allow some blacks a more secure and higher living standard, that may bring greater equality between the races, or more profoundly, confound traditional racial lines and privileges of quite diverse social position and perspective have turned to economic growth as a source of political change in South Africa. Contained within the concept of growth, they maintain, are processes — capital accumulation and class formation, business enterprise and markets, changing skill and capital requirements – that, at the very least, allow some blacks a more secure and higher living standard, that may bring greater equality between the races, or more profoundly, confound traditional racial lines and privileges. Indeed, some argue that growth undermines the foundations of the racial state. Many of those who posit a relationship between economics and politics, take the next logical step: supporting actions, including foreign investment, that foster economic growth and, presumably, political change in South Africa.

The years that Gandhi spent in South Africa have been admirably described by several scholars. This articles traces the development of a philosophy which became uniquely identified with Gandhi, and then looks at his legacy in South Africa, especially his influence in the social, religious, and political spheres. How is it possible that the shadow of so apparently frail a figure was cast so widely over events during most of this century?

Shortly after assuming office as Head of State in August 1985, President Ibrahim Babangida inaugurated a 17-member Political Bureau, headed by Professor Sylvanus Cookey, whose terms of reference included ‘The review of Nigeria's political history, identifying the basic problems which led to failure in the past and suggesting ways of resolving and coping with these problems’.1 One of the most controversial of the Bureau's proposals was that the number of political parties should be limited to two in order to ensure that Nigeria's future politics would be based on principles and not ethnicity.2 The Government accepted this recommendation as part of the programme for a return to civilian rule in 1992, and has decided that two parties will be registered in 1989.3

During the first decade of independence for the tropical African states, economic planning has moved through several stages. Before and at the time of independence the development literature still featured debates as to whether or not to plan, and what the role of the government should be in economic development. In Africa these debates were won, hands down, by the planners and by ‘African socialists’ of various types. Within a few years there appeared a host of plan documents responding to the perceived requirements, leading one analyst even to characterise Africa as ‘the continent of economic plans’1 articles on ‘comprehensive economic planning’ and simple econometric models were at that time in fashion. These plans were typically prepared by foreigners with relatively little experience of the countries concerned, and were based upon the scrappiest of data and analysis. While not as elaborate in their technique, or as far removed from reality, as many of their counterparts of the period in Asia and Latin America, these plans tended to be just as lacking in real content, political support, or potential for implementation. Their authors usually departed for home shortly afterwards, leaving the hardpressed decision-makers on the scene (many of whom were themselves expatriates newly arrived in the country) little the wiser.

SEVERAL years ago, Wilfred Whiteley, the linguist and Africanist, argued that ‘to some extent the nature of political action… may be related to people's conception of what constitutes politics’.1 Formulated in this way, Whiteley's argument seems to assume that all people have some conception of what constitutes politics—the only difference being what kind of conception. But can this be taken for granted? In 1952— to take an example almost at random—Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Nigerian leader, referred in a speech at Port Harcourt to ‘the growth of political consciousness’ in Nigeria. What did he mean? Had the Africans of Nigeria known no political activity until then? If they had, had they not been ‘conscious’ that the activity was ‘political’? Or was it a case of having no special name for this kind of activity as something distinct? If none of these hypotheses apply, what then was meant by this kind of reference to ‘political consciousness’ as if it was something new among Africans?2

A number of recent studies have challenged the concept of an ethnic grou as an absolute category and emphasised that ethnic identity is influenced by the context of the social situation in which the behaviour occurs.2 Analyst of migrant communities in both West Africa and the Copperbelt have documented the existence of situational ethnicity as a phenomenon in which individual or group identity is defined in terms of categories which vary in their level of inclusiveness. Situational factors have increasingly come to be viewed as influencing the individual's definition of his rôle as a member of more inclusive groups which allows him to relate to a more culturally heterogeneous community in terms of common elements of identity.3 Studies concentrating upon the political significance of ethnic identity in public interactions have also stressed that situational factors may play a more important role than cultural similarity in developing more inclusive identity groupings.4 Finally, analysts dealing with the problems of multiple ethnic loyalties have stressed that individuals and groups have an array of alternate identities from which to choose. They will adopt — or be perceived by others as maintaining — different ethnic identities in different situations.

This article looks at the railway workers of Ghana in the context of a struggle for domination between their own union and the Workers' Defence Committees created by the state after the coup d'etat of 31 December 1981, organised by Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. The conflict between what might be called ‘moderate’ and ‘militant’ workers mirrored the disputes at the national level during 1982 between the political pragmatists, including Rawlings, and such socialist-oriented individuals as Chris Atim.1

If my own experience is at all typical, probably most students concerned with the influence of Islam in the modern world occasionally experience total doubt about their approach to the subject. Can one still justify putting such emphasis on the role of Islam as a historical continuum? Rather, since the nineteenth century, the period of the intensive ‘impact of the west’, haven't there been so many institutional changes that we have reached a real watershed, a breaking point with past history and with past categories of thought designed to explain that history? Shouldn't we de-emphasise Islam as a vital factor in the equation of the modern Arab world and of North Africa? Isn't it a mistake to put so much emphasis on the Islamic heritage?

This article is based on the assumption that there are worldwide trends towards the more humane treatment of prisoners which have as their principal objective the reform of criminals. These trends are determined by the societies that have evolved them; they trends are not therefore characterised by African aims and they do not express themselves in African forms. So the possibilites of purely African innovation are limited.

The correct starting point in the analysis of any economic unit is to pose the following three questions: What are the needs of the people? What resources are available? How adequately are these resources being mobilised for these needs ?1

These questions are applicable to a continent or a country (or for that matter a county, a city, or a village); they can also be applied to the world as a whole. If they are, a picture emerges which, if it does not appal us, because it is so familiar and so easily taken for granted, would certainly astonish a visitor from another planet. The basic human needs for nourishment and for protection from the weather are not great, and the resources known to be available could, with current levels of technique, easily permit a comfortable living standard for everyone. Yet these resources are very largely unexploited or wasted, and miserable poverty is the typical human condition.

In examining the question of the unification of laws in East Africa, we must bear in mind that we are faced with two distinct problems: on the one hand, territorial unification of the different types of law prevailing within each territory; and on the other, inter-territorial unification as between the systems of law in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika.

The idea of a railway from the Zambian Copperbelt to the Indian Ocean via Tanzania had long been considered. But although the first serious report was published in 1952 by a consultant from the British Colonial Office, it was not until 1964, the year of independence, that further studies were commissioned, all of which eventually found such a railway uneconomic. The World Bank mission erred in tying the cost estimates to the trans-shipment of goods (due to gauge differences), and ignoring the option (actually taken) of constructing a direct line to Dar es Salaam. The U.N. team argued that the reasons for the project were too speculative, that the existing railways had spare capacity, and that the likely development benefits were invalid, unless an iron and steel complex emerged. In 1965 the authors of the Brookings Institution study felt that the project was an unnecessary duplication of existing facilities, and that transport matters in the region should be depoliticised, an idealistic proposal since there are external benefits and costs involved in the operation of railways.

Local and district councils as institutions of democratic representative government have enjoyed a brief and fragile life in Commonwealth Africa. Furthermore, throughout the period of their existence they have never been a priority concern for either colonial rulers, African leaders, or social scientists, and their very existence has been recently challenged. In a number of countries, particularly those which have experienced military take-overs, the councils have been abolished; where they remain in existence they have been transformed with few exceptions into bodies with even more limited powers and autonomy. Nevertheless, their activities, even if greatly curtailed, still offer a focal point for the study of certain questions of representation and administration in the context of political change in independent black Africa.

The investigation of African economies has been dominated by two perspectives. On the one hand, the neo-classical or diffusionist position views third-world nations as essentially repeating the same development path as occurred during the historical experience of the now-industrialised nations. This paradigm indicates that the barriers to the advance of these undeveloped economic systems are essentially internal, and that they include issues such as shortages of labour, limitations in infrastructure, and lack of capital savings. On the other hand, while recognising the constraining influences posed by such factors, the dependency or neo-Marxian perspective argues that the constraints posed by the peripheral position of these economies in a world system is of pre-eminent importance. Such contrasts, although greatly simplified, dominate the explanations of the economic difficulties facing African nations.

The literature pointing out that ethnic groups are a social construction has a particular salience in discussion of identity in both East and Central Africa. As numerous authors have noted, there are in fact few linguistic, phenotypical, or social differences between Hutu and Tutsi. Indeed, as all acknowledge, there has been substantial intermarriage, particularly in Rwanda. Nevertheless, as recent events in Rwanda and Burundi illustrate, the presumably ‘socially constructed’ differences between Hutu and Tutsi have become a legitimated reason for murdering one's neighbours. But although cited as the cause of the civil war by virtually every Rwandan, as well as the Western and Tanzanian press, I am also impressed by the fact that at different times and places being ‘Tutsi’ means very different things. My own observations in the Benaco refugee camp for ‘Hutu’ illustrate how quickly and drastically such seemingly ‘fixed’ identities can change.

Although it has long been realised that ‘developing’ countries do not have to follow the example of ‘developed’ nations, the mere use of the terms ‘nation-building’ and ‘national integration’ implies a straight line of ‘progress’ from dispersed sub-national communities towards the integrated entity of the nation-state. Add the eagerness of political leaders in the Third World to exert effective control over the population in the absence of established institutions, if possible by becoming the focus of popular solidarity, and the reasons for this emphasis on the notion of national integration become more apparent.

The past two years, 1968–9, have seen the publication of a significant handful of economic textbooks, designed for first-year university students in Africa. Their specific aims, their precise range, and their technical quality naturally vary widely; but the important thing is that they have been published at all. This marks the culmination of a long, slow revolution, since the time when the then University College of the Gold Coast began to teach economics in 1949–50, following unmodified London syllabuses. There seemed to be no anxiety to work out any appropriate local substitute for papers in such topics as British industrial history, although this was possible under the regulations; and one of the lecturers told me, ‘There is no need for an African textbook— economic principles are the same all over the world.’

Existing literature argues that the tactics of Cameroon foreign policy have been conservative, weak and timid. This study refutes that perspective. Based on extensive and previously unused primary sources obtained from Cameroon's Ministry of External Relations and from the nation's archives in Buea and Yaoundé, this study argues that Cameroon's foreign policy was neither timid nor makeshift. Its strategy was one of pragmatism. By examining the nation's policy toward Nigeria in the reunification of Cameroon, the Nigerian civil war, the Bakassi Peninsula crisis and Boko Haram, the study maintains that, while the nation's policy was cautious, its leaders focused on the objectives and as a result scored major victories. The study concludes by suggesting that President Paul Biya invokes the same skills he used in foreign policy to address the ongoing Anglophone problem, a problem that threatens to unravel much of what the country has accomplished.

Since the attainment of formal political independence in the early 1960s, African leaders have been grappling with the problem of how to manage domestic political conflicts in such a way that their resolution will facilitate, rather than undermine, the maintenance of incumbent régimes. This task, never easy in the best of circumstances, has become even more daunting in recent years as the ongoing economic crisis has deprived most African states of the resources necessary for the continued use of co-optation as the most effective technique for dealing with critics who have their own political aspirations. A further complication is that the ‘frustrations of independence’ have eroded the prestige and personal legitimacy that was once enjoyed by the generation of anti- colonial leaders partly as a result of what might be described as the ‘elder tradition’ in African political culture.1