What is Japan's basic policy towards South Africa? According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo:

Japan, which firmly supports the self-determination of the African people and strongly opposes racial discrimination, has earnestly desired a solution to the problems in southern Africa.

Japan strongly condemns the continuation of racial discrimination in South Africa and has demanded that the Government of South Africa abolish such discrimination. From this standpoint, Japan maintains no diplomatic relations with South Africa and has prohibited such direct investment as the establishment of joint ventures by Japanese firms in that country. Furthermore it has imposed restrictions on cultural, educational and sport exchanges between Japanese and South Africans, respecting the relevant United Nations resolutions.

This article sets out to portray the mood, the aspirations, the determination, and the main problems of contemporary Africa. To some extent it is necessary to distinguish between colonial Africa and free Africa, although the differences between the two should not be exaggerated.

The transformation of Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev era was truly seismic in nature. Re-evaluations were effected in all areas of policy, resulting, most visibly, in the fundamental reordering of relations with the United States and fellow N.A.T.O. countries, and the demise of the Warsaw Pact and communist régimes in Eastern Europe. Equally sweeping were alterations in approach to the Third World and, more specifically, sub-saharan Africa, where changes in policy Soviet retreat.

The speeches and articles of Amílcar Cabral represent an attempt to think of imperialism and the colonial relationship in a new way. His published works sought to explain how a subsistence agricultural society was being transformed under the abnormal conditions attendant upon colonial domination. Superficially, Cabral does not present any new or particularly complex interpretation of colonialism. With the exception of a few rather brief essays, most of his work is a description of a guerrilla war fought against the last of the great colonial powers. Yet the appearance of the terms ‘mode of production’ and ‘productive forces’ indicates that his understanding of imperialism is founded on a new set of presuppositions. Cabral used these terms before they became common among the ranks of the ‘advanced left’, and at a time when the concept of the mode of production was essentially a possession of Soviet Marxism. In the early 1960s, Soviet visions of the ‘Asiatic Mode of Production’ were achieving much the same effect as modernisation theory in the West. That most of Cabral's important essays were written at this time only emphasises the innovativeness of his work.

If the study of the foreign policies of underdeveloped countries is underdeveloped, the systematic analysis of their foreign policy decisions is not. It is simply nonexistent. – Bahgat Korany, 1984 1

The first half of the 1980s has posed new challenges for African foreign policy in practice and analysis, symbolised by the Ethiopian drought and the conflict in Southern Africa, but generalised in the continental crisis of negative growth. The halcyon days of the 1960s – the innocence and optimism of early African nationalism – have long since disappeared, obliterated by the global and regional shocks of the 1970s. The first independence decade coincided with a period of gradual economic expansion – as it turned out, the continent's last. The years since the mid-1970s – the end of the post-war Bretton Woods era – have been characterised by slow growth at best, for a minority of states, and by none for the majority of countries and peoples. Thus the African agenda has shifted dramatically from nation-building to -salvaging, and from import-substitution to de-industrialisation. Somewhat fanciful notions of regional and continental integration have been replaced by pragmatic imperatives of food aid and debt relief.

The intellectual and social origins of those modern movements of political and cultural assertion which are allegedly centred on peculiar African circumstances or peculiar African principles of traditional culture—movements which may be conveniently summed up as ‘Africanism’1—are to be sought in a variety of directions. Factors in the historical and social traditions of the continent in distant centuries have been evoked by some inquirers; while others have listed external influences—emanating in the main from Europe or North America, affecting chiefly those few Africans who travelled overseas, and operating only since the middle decades of the last century—which have directly or indirectly encouraged expressions of Africanism within Africa.

The Foreign policy of Ethiopia, like that of other countries, is based on certain goals and values, and determinded by the dynamic interplay of domestic and external factors. Although its formulation has been clearly influenced by Marxist concepts about the nature of society and the alignment of forces in the world, there are elements of continuity as well as change, not least because Ethiopia has maintained its core values while playing an important rôle from time to time in the international arena long before the 1974 revolution. In other words, despite a shift in orientation, the central purpose of Ethiopia's foreign policy has remained the same, and a change in style has not brought forth a change in essence. Indeed, in some respects, the exigencies of a fast-changing international environment have been more significant than the replacement of the Emperor by the Dergue. It must be stressed that Ethiopian policy has been largely rigid, with adjustments being made only in response to certain fait accomplis that were outside the control of the decision-makers.

This article presents the hypothesis that there has developed in Africa in recent years a group of practices which constitutes a new pattern, to be called here ‘crude private neo-imperialism’. This term refers to unprincipled exploitation by some foreign firms of African governments that establish government-controlled, directly productive enterprises in an effort to accelerate economic development. The pattern referred to is ‘crude’ in that it involves outright dishonesty or hoodwinkery. It is ‘private’ in that the exploitative practices are carried on by private companies rather than by governments (although the latter have frequently given tacit and even explicit support). It is imperialism or ‘neo-imperialism’ in that the practices constitute not simply a series of similar incidents but a general phenomenon attributable to substantial contemporary causes.

The appalling experience of most African countries has led many observers to conclude that the continent has now reached a critical stage in its development, and that a political, social, and economic ‘nightmare’ by the turn of the century cannot be ruled out.1 One pessimistic scenario suggests that even with fundamental improvements in domestic economic management, up to four-fifths of Africa's population in 1995 will be below the poverty line compared with three-fifths today.2 This is the context in which African leaders enunciated new development priorities in their 1980 Lagos Plan of Action, notably greater self-reliance and industrialisation geared to domestic markets. Outside the continent, a growing concern with dismal African prospects has generated two action programmes by the World Bank,3 while new guidelines have recently been produced in the European Community for supporting African development.4 Without exception, all of these appraisals see a major role for regional co-operation and economic integration.

The great strength, durability, and versatility of steel has undoubtedly caused this engineering material to become, almost literally, an essential foundation of present-day civilisation.1 Indeed, it is sometimes used as one of the indices of measuring the economic advancement of nations because of its widespread direct and indirect application. The commercial importance and strategic significance of steel has been recognised in Nigeria for many years, and this has prompted successive Governments to initiate various plans designed to create a metallurgical industry. As the country continues to expand its manufacturing output, as well as to produce more oil and to refine more petroleum, so the demand for the precious metal will go on increasing tremendously.2 The creation of an iron-and-steel complex by means of a combined investment of over 5,000 million is clearly Nigeria's biggest industrial undertaking and emphasises its resolve to attain greater self-reliance.3

On the good foundation built by the University College of Dar es Salaam, which was a constituent part of the University of East Africa, we are now embarking upon our independent existence as a University. This is therefore an occasion for rejoicing. It is also an occasion which calls for re-dedication and renewed endeavour by all those involved. For it is now our responsibility to shape this institution so that it gives the maximum service to the people of Tanzania and their socialist objectives.

During the last few years, Mikhail Gorbachev's new thinking has stimulated a number of dramatic and largely unexpected shifts in Soviet foreign policy. In Southern Africa, its effects have been both immediate and quite profound. The two most publicised changes have been Moscow's growing support for negotiations as a method of resolving the region's conflicts, and the related reduction of its commitments to the régimes in Angola and Mozambique. In fact, there is evidence that the Kremlin has been putting pressure on both its allies to engage in a process of ‘national reconciliation’ with the armed movements trying to overthrow them. At the rhetorical level, at least, there has also been a marked decline in Moscow's enthusiasm for revolutionary upheavals in Southern Africa.

Cameroon like most formerly colonised countries in African has, since independence and re-unification, grappled with a Danaidean task in attempting to develop a modern legal system that takes account of its heritage and present conditions, as well as its socio-economic and political needs. If the history of African legal systems reflects the difficulties encountered in framing national laws derived from customary and foreign laws introduced during the colonial era, these are even more serious in Cameroon where, because of its complicated colonial past, two potentially divergent foreign legal systems have struggled for supremacy in determining the nature and content of its new uniformised laws. Now in its third decade of independence, and with the two former British and French parts united politically, the goal of legal unity seems to be regarded as a logical sequitur.

Since the cessation of conflict in 2002, Sierra Leone has experienced extraordinary levels of involvement from Western donors. Paradoxically, while relationships are often portrayed on the ground as strong with significant donor influence, our research shows considerable fluidity in individual and institutional relationships. The article disaggregates donor–government relations at various levels over a short but crucial period, 2010–16, asking in each case who occupies the driving seat. In so doing, the article interrogates the concept of ‘extraversion’, investigating to what extent government – and indeed donors – has space in which to manoeuvre and how and why government and donors act as they do in this space. The period 2010–16 is of particular interest due to extreme iron ore price volatility and the Ebola epidemic of 2014–15. The article adds much-needed critique and empirical evidence to the debate on donor influence and ‘extraversion’.

Academics and aid officials are increasingly turning their attention to two aspects of rural development: the structure of the local society, and the social impact of agricultural programmes. In part this reflects a pessimistic and moralistic reassessment of earlier attempts to promote development in the Third World. However, this analytical focus also represents the continuing evolution of research by those who are engaged in refining their theoretical perspectives on rural society.

The dynamics of world neutralism, either as an international doctrine or as a state policy,1 have witnessed variable responses from African states since the inception of the ideology known as peaceful coexistence. Between 1920, when Lenin talked of a ‘peaceful cohabitation with the peoples of all nations’, and 1961 when the Communist Party defined peaceful coexistence – by an official imprimatur – as ‘an objective necessity for the development of human society’, and denounced ‘war as a means of settling inter-national disputes’, the chrysalis of classical neutralism could be said to have spanned the decade between the close of World War II and the Bandung Conference of 1955.2

Much recent analysis of South Africa's outward-looking policy towards independent Africa has asserted that the implications of this are primarily economic in character: ‘South Africa is thrusting out into Africa for a number of reasons. She needs markets for her manufactured goods. She wants to export capital.’1 Indeed, many observers carry the argument further, and suggest that she is seeking an economic and political role in Africa analogous to that of the United States in Latin America. In the words of Sean Gervasi:

President Nkrumah, in opening this Congress in the Great Hall of the University of Ghana, called for the objective scientific study of Africa. He urged: ‘While some of us are engaged with the political unification of Africa, Africanists everywhere must also help in building the spiritual and cultural foundations of the unity of our continent.’ This appeal had in a sense already been answered by the arrival of scholars from nearly every State in Africa.