An ideological orientation on the part of a government is an important impetus to social change in many of the countries of the under-developed world. As Clifford Geertz has pointed out, an ideology is a model for the ideal arrangement of all aspects of life, and the active propagation of such a view of the world by those in positions of power and authority in a society is bound to have an effect on the normal processes of social change.1 In so far as this model is successfully turned into an effective programme for directed social change, we may observe the exciting spectacle of a people carrying out changes which they are convinced are necessary, and modernising themselves in an atmosphere of enthusiasm and progress. This process usually amounts to a social revolution. But there are many pitfalls, and it is easy for proposed programmes of social change to get bogged down in the intricate networks of political relations between leaders and people, or to founder on hard economic realities.

Political analysts often tend to focus upon periods of high-level diplomatic tension or ‘crises’ when examining and attempting to draw conclusions about foreign policy. Since these critical and highly visible episodes generally bring to the foreground the underlying combinations of geo-political, strategic, economic, ideological, and bureaucratic elements, as well as individual styles of leadership which affect interstate relations, this attraction to political drama is understandable. But in adopting a ‘crisis’ approach for determining when and what events merit serious exploration, consequential changes may be overlooked, or recognised belatedly, which have subtly crept into a particular government-to-government relationship during relatively uneventful times. The need for scholars to look to the past with more discerning eyes, as well as for foreign policy decision-makers to keep abreast with the day-to-day non-crisis international affairs of state, can be illustrated by the long-term impact of fundamental changes which occurred in the policy of the United States towards the Horn of Africa during the relative calm of the mid-1960s.

It is generally recognised that governments and methods of controlling them can exist without formal opposition parties—as in a one-party state.1 At the same time, the first flush of enthusiasm for one-party states in Africa is dying away and people are beginning to question whether a monolithic party structure is the best or the only way to achieve political stability and economic development, two driving forces behind much of African politics today. At this juncture, Tanzania presents a peculiarly apt case study, for here is a state which has moved through successive constitutional changes since independence from a Westminster model to a dejure one-party state—and in this, constitutional forms have reflected political reality—yet at the same time has endeavoured to ensure that opportunities for control and criticism have remained open.

Great-Power rivalry in Africa is among the legacies left by European statesmen who, a century ago in Berlin, carved up the continent and whole nations within it into tidy colonial compartments, several with frontiers still in dispute. Russians and Americans attended that inglorious conference but stayed out of the scramble for territories that followed. It is one of history's ironies that Moscow and Washington emerged, with proxies to help them, as leading contestants in the contemporary struggle for position, presence and power in Africa.

Does a leader's ethnicity affect the regional distribution of basic services such as education in Africa? Several influential studies have argued in the affirmative, by using educational attainment levels to show that children who share the ethnicity of the president during their school-aged years have higher attainment than their peers. In this paper we revisit this empirical evidence and show that it rests on problematic assumptions. Some models commonly used to test for favouritism do not take adequate account of educational convergence and once this is properly accounted for the results are found to be unstable. Using Kenya as a test case, we argue that there is no conclusive evidence of ethnic favouritism in primary or secondary education, but rather a process of educational convergence among the country's larger ethnic groups. This evidence matters, as it shapes how we understand the ethnic calculus of politicians.

How do some places with weak institutional capacity avoid being caught in the cycles of violence and criminality so often associated with African institutions in the ‘failed states’ literature? This paper exploits in-country variation in piracy incidence across different regions of Somalia to investigate how some territories with low state capacity can nonetheless deter piracy and provide relative order. We find that the usual explanation – state ‘failure’ in Somalia, compared with a reasonably functional government in Somaliland – does not withstand scrutiny. Somaliland's lack of piracy was not due to ‘strong’ state institutions, but can be attributed to the strength of a discourse that emphasises Somaliland's ‘inherent’ capacity for order against the disorder supposedly endemic to the rest of Somalia. The exploration of the discursive underpinnings of Somaliland's supposed ‘piratelessness’ has implications for understanding the relationship between state institutions, political order and violence, particularly where the state does not exercise a monopoly on force.

In the modern global economy, transnational corporations have become important sources of technology, market access and capital – all of which states seek in propelling economic growth. States themselves provide territory, and establish the ‘rules of the game’ by which corporations may operate within that territory. However, with the commodification and commercialisation of indigenous cultural and intellectual property, states are bypassed and negotiations emerge between corporations and sub-state actors who claim to represent population segments. May the bypassing of the state further weaken national or state identity among indigenous groups? Such is the case that may be emerging in Africa with groups who claim profits derived from the development and marketing of indigenous cultural and intellectual property. This paper explores the possibility that profit-sharing agreements between transnational corporations and sub-state groups may contribute to the widening of ethnic cleavages in African states by promoting inequalities between groups.

The article examines two decades of Jerry Rawlings’ rule in Ghana. It seeks to explain why Rawlings’ revolutionary populism did not develop in the direction that he envisaged: a new kind of popular democracy. Instead, Rawlings oversaw the reintroduction of Ghana's popularly preferred political system: ‘Western-style’ multi-party democracy, despite his avowed intention of not doing so. To what extent was this outcome surprising or puzzling? The article explains that it was neither surprising nor puzzling as Rawlings’ regime, the PNDC, lacked the capacity to introduce a radical new political system, despite his desire to do so. His aim – to craft a new kind of popular democracy – was not achievable as both internal and external opposition forces were stronger in their desire for multi-party democracy and a neo-liberal economic system.

It is a comparatively recent development that places housing not only as one of the main targets in the national plan, but also as a vital means of achieving other social and economic objectives.1 Admirable though this may be, a number of difficulties can arise in practice, particularly with regard to the question of new housing where many dwellings may be on unsuitable sites and require relocation or extensive redevelopment. The point is that remedial measures are likely to have only short-term effects, unless several underlying – and often conflicting – variables are taken into account. Four such variables have assumed importance in the planning for future housing needs in the Greater Manzini Area of Swaziland, and it is the purpose of this article to illustrate how policies relating to industrial location, urban growth, and housing, interact with the tenurial system in force.

In 1977 the member-states of the European Community (E.C.) adopted a collective strategy designed to and apartheid and to encourage the economic independence of South Africa's less-developed neigh-bours. The respective foreign-policy instruments used to achieve these goals were the Code of Conduct and the Lomé Convention, through which assistance was provided for the Frontline states. The scope of the Community's Southern African actions was enlarged in 1985 to include a range of sanctions against Pretoria similar to those adopted by other governments.

Marxist scholarship on South Africa's political economy was born as a meta-theoretical critique of liberalism in the 1960s and matured into a rich tradition of its own by the 1980s. As Marxists became more focused empirically and conceptually, they presented compelling evidence for their key analytical claims and generally bettered their liberal rivals—as they saw and portrayed them—in the debate over the complicity of capitalist development in the officially mandated racism of South Africa. Whereas liberals either ignored, minimised, or denied an association, Marxists argued that capitalism and its dominant classes systematically promoted and actively underwrote apartheid in particular, and white domination in general.

We appreciate the opportunity to engage with Nyssen et al.'s (2004, this issue) response to our earlier JMAS paper (Keeley & Scoones 2000). While they make a number of important points – many of which we agree with – we feel, however, that they fundamentally misrepresent our paper, and miss the central argument. This may be due to lack of clarity on our part, so, to kick off our response, it is perhaps worth reiterating the key points of the original piece.

A constitution enjoys a special place in the life of any nation, for it regulates not only the exercise of political power, but also the relationship between political entities and between the state and persons. Being the supreme law, it helps to shape the organisation and development of society both for the present and for future generations, and sets objective standards upon which the people and the international community can judge government performance, thus providing a measure of accountability and transparency in national and local affairs. Further, a constitution sets out the rights and duties of the citizens, and provides mechanisms to enable them to protect their interests. Overall a constitution can contribute to the development of a politically active civil society as well as promoting good governance, accountability and the rule of law.

Prior to the 1990s the history of constitutions and constitutionalism in Commonwealth Africa, as elsewhere on the continent, was bleak. The newly independent states started life with the Westminster export model constitution bestowed upon them by the British. There was little or no opportunity for public debate on the document, and the nationalist leaders themselves had no genuine choice as to its structure and contents. The futility of forcing the model on the newly independent states, in the words of Karugire ‘a triumph of hope over experience’, inevitably led to constitutional instability and a round of constitution-making and amendment wholly designed to enhance executive power, remove checks and balances, and undermine the enjoyment of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Cameroon's autocrat, Paul Biya, declared war on Boko Haram in 2014. Using a variety of ethnographic materials, this article examines the politics of rumours and conspiracy theories that have defined the popular response to this war in Cameroon. It underlines the mobilising force of these rumours on intra-elite struggles within the national context as well as on international relations, particularly on French–Cameroon relations. I argue that rumour-mongering is a central mode of production of suspicion in times of war and social crisis. Yet, the current rumours in the wake of the war against Boko Haram in Cameroon are inscribed within a historical framework of a state-directed politics of paranoia that seeks to define ‘enemies of destabilisation’. In the end, this politics of suspicion also works to bring otherwise disaffected Cameroonians to support the autocratic Paul Biya as a victim of foreign plots for regime change in Cameroon.

Niccolo Machiavelli and Frantz Fanon are in the tradition of political philosophy. Do they not address themselves to the notion of freedom, the concept of legitimacy, and the moral basis of political action? This article will further argue that there exists a notable correspondence of thought between them.

The political thought of Machiavelli enjoys ubiquitous fame. Its pristine vigour is attested to by the fact that, through the past four and a half centuries, dictators and democrats have embraced its values.1 Yet there is no patent contradiction in this if one realises that Machiavelli deals compellingly with what is while not rejecting what ultimately ought to be; his prince is a sort of political Everyman concerned with realising the kingdom of earth.

This article grew out of a more detailed study of all tried cases of homicide in Western Nigeria from 1966 to 1972. While reading more than I00 court transcripts and trial opinions, I was struck by what seemed an inordinately large number of accused with symptoms which westerners associate with mental or emotional illness. I was also conscious of judges being forced to apply an awkward, and at best difficult, standard for the determination of criminal insanity with sparse direct evidence and, in many cases, without the help of expert testimony.

It is still frequently asserted that the economic sluggishness plaguing most Third-World countries stems from a general lack of resources. The scarcity of capital in both the public and private sectors, it is claimed, prevents the investment needed to achieve development. On the other hand, a fewdeveloping countries with highly profitable exports – notably those that export oil – reap large financial surpluses, including foreign exchange, but do not invest them locally in productive activities. The problem here is supposed to be insufficient ‘absorptive capacity’ due to the absence of skilled personnel and inadequate physical and social infrastructure, restricting the translation of financial resources into real investment. The situation in Botswana provides a test for both these hypotheses, making possible a deeper understanding of the potential rôle of financial resources in the development process.

The Sudan is the largest country in Africa and ranks as one of the poorest, with an estimated income per capita of U.S.$400 in 1983.1 It is predominantly rural and sparsely inhabited, with an estimated total population in 1985 of 21.6 million, of whom as many as almost half are younger than 15 while only three per cent are aged 65 and over.2 The crude birth rate approaches 50 per thousand and the annual growth rate of the population is likely to be about three per cent.3 Harsh environmental and poor sanitation conditions contribute to a relatively high incidence of morbidity and infant mortality, with severe diarrhoeal diseases as a major cause of ill-health and child death. Life expectancy at birth is currently estimated to be only 48 years, while the infant mortality rate is put at 118 per thousand live births.4

Third-World governments have frequently professed the virtues of trade diversification, and they have voiced a number of legitimate concerns about what can happen if this is not achieved. First, the greater the geographical concentration of their export trade, the more vulnerable are they to fluctuations arising from changes in the level of imports, devaluations, or other developments in their principal markets.1 When, for instance, exports were directed predominantly towards the relatively slow-growing European Economic Community in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the exporting countries might have been better off if their outlets had been more diversified. Second, various pressures may be exerted to induce smaller countries to purchase most of their needed imports from the larger trading partner that has bought most of their exports.2 Those with geographically concentrated exports are particularly vulnerable in tariff disputes, or what J. A. Conybeare has termed ‘trade wars’.3 Finally, countries which are particularly dependent on individual export markets are vulnerable to ‘linkage’ pressures – attempts by their powerful partners to utilise economic leverage to force concessions on non-trade issues, often political in nature.4