Many scholars argue that the media can influence policymakers – determining the policy agenda, framing issues, prioritising issues and, on occasion, setting the policy as well. It could be, however, that skilled policymakers exploit the media, so that the media in fact reflects the issues that policymakers want debated. This then poses an important question of whether the media does indeed influence the public policy process. The topic of media influence is widely studied in consolidated democracies but there has been limited research in consolidating democracies. This paper addresses both of these gaps – through exploring the extent to which the media influences policymakers in Kenya, a country perceived to have a moderately free press and one in which a range of interest groups vie to influence government and thus with a media likely to carry a range of competing opinions.

For two hectic months in 1972 an I.L.O./U.N.D.P. mission gathered in Nairobi to deliberate on the employment problems facing Kenya. The report which was published before the end of the year received a good deal of publicity,1 much of it complimentary, and served as a blue print for subsequent I.L.O. employment missions to other developing countries.2 Six years later it seems opportune to review briefly those of its recommendations which were specifically aimed at the agricultural sector, and to assess the extent to which they have influenced the policies of the Government.

The impact of economic sanctions against countries engaging in objectionable behaviour tends to be minimised by seemingly dispassionate analysts but overrated by those committed to punishing the target. Governments often act to impose economic sanctions despite controversies regarding their utility, and this article will examine the variables that contribute to their success or failure, and their potential impact on South Africa, including a brief analysis of the various measures recently imposed by western industrialised nations.

Economic integration in East Africa has been discussed throughout the past 50 years or more, although—until recently—only in terms of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Almost as soon as Kenya and Uganda became established as political entities, close economic links were established between them, and when British administration was extended to Tanganyika after 1918 that country was brought into close relationship with its two northern neighbours. Thus a customs union between Kenya and Uganda was established in 1917, and Tanganyika was gradually incorporated within it between 1922 and 1927. The links were strengthened as economic development advanced, and were formalised under the East Africa High Commission from 1948 onwards: so they became an important part of the inheritance of the three states as they gained political independence in the years 1961–1963.1

This short article was written in June 1972 as an attempt to provide an eye-witness account of the Busia Government and its difficulties, and is published now as a contribution to the continuing discussion about the reasons for that régime's collapse. Professor Le Vine was Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Ghana, Legon, during 1969–71, and is the author of Political Corruption, the Ghana Case (Stanford, 1975), a study of the Nkrumah period.

‘Autopsy’ is, perhaps, too harsh a word; possibly ‘requiem’ would have been more appropriate. Unfortunately, however, save for the members of the Government displaced by the coup d'état of 13 January 1972, the régime of Dr Kofi A. Busia had few mourners in Ghana. Most Ghanaians appear to have shaken their heads, gone about their usual business, and awaited the future with cynical patience. As coups go, Colonel Ignatius Acheampong's exercise was a model of quiet efficiency – it met virtually no resistance, took no casyalties, and had almost no noticeable effect on the ordinary bustle of life and affairs in the capital cuty. The ensuing celebrations were perfunctory, and what dancing in the streets there was seemed to be half-hearted at best.

It is March 1970 and a quiet warm Sunday afternoon in the town of Yungay. Most of the children are attending a performance by the visiting circus in the stadium, while their parents are relaxing in anticipation of the busy week ahead. The market is crowded with peasants who are selling and tourists who are buying. This picturesque town of 4,500 inhabitants is festive, and from many a house the radio can be heard broadcasting the World Cup soccer match from Mexico City.

Since World War II anthropological research in the new nations has come under increasing criticism on both ideological and pragmatic grounds. To those who regard the creation of a modern life-style and cultural integration as urgent national goals, the concern with traditional institutions seems conservative, if not reactionary, and any interest in ethnicity seems divisive. To those responsible for planning rural development, the anthropologist's detailed report on a single community all too often seems unnecessarily obscured by professional quibbles, devoid of concrete policy recommendations, and of unknown representativeness.

Without political freedom there can be no cultural freedom; a programme of cultural emancipation is dependent, therefore, on national liberation, and one would like to believe that this ‘therefore’ influenced the determination by the American Society of African Culture to focus more sharply not only on cultural exchanges but on the political battle for the mind of southern Africa. This fourth international conference, held at Howard University under the title ‘Southern Africa in Transition’, was ‘aimed at focusing widespread attention on the complex and difficult problems being faced by those struggling for freedom in this troubled area’. It was attended by an impressive group of Afro-American, white American, and European Africanists, together with African leaders of countries from the Congo to the Cape.

Discussion of industrial activity in capitalist Third-World countries has usually centred on a series of dualistic frameworks, most recently the opposition between the so-called ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ sectors of an economy. Such dichotomies attempt to divide the activities of labour as cleanly as possible into two groups sharing common characteristics. The categories that emerge – modern/traditional, large/small-scale, formal/informal – overlap to a considerable degree because, in effect, they all attempt, with varying crudity, to compare the socio-economic characteristics of those dominant capitalist enterprises which are based on intensive capital, high-level technology, and a large scale of production, with those activities in the economy which are not based on such features. As such, the second category tends to have both negative and residual components.

The security services of every state are determined by two overlapping imperatives: a functional one flowing from actual or perceived threats to the country's safety, and a societal one stemming from the dominant ideologies, structures, and institutions prevailing within the state. Thus defence policy is not produced in a vacuum but in the context of a set of circumstances – historical and contemporary, external and domestic – which influence the policy-makers and their advisers. Decisions regarding the appropriate levels, patterns, and time-frame of security spending are not purely political, since they are also about the allocation of resources and about competing claims on public expenditure.

[Windhoek, 1977]…fellow-workers…the weak point we have [to remedy] in order to change the system is unity and co-operation. And we must not distinguish whether some workers are sleeping in a compound and some are staying in the single quarters and some in the so-called locations. All of us who are exploited, we blacks, we must know that we are all workers. We workers want to be in unity. We workers in Namibia, we want to unite. It doesn't matter what kind of work he is doing, each and every worker should come into that union. After such unity and co-operation have been established, it is only then that it will be possible to campaign for better working conditions, for higher wages and to embark on any other action which will change the working conditions.

This U.N.E.S.C.O conference proved to be a most valuable complement to the Addis Ababa conference of May 1961, which had dealt with African education in general. Delegations attended from 31 countries, as well as observers from 13 non-African states and from international organisations and private foundations. Interest was concentrated mainly upon university development.

Stephen Ellis's response can be divided into two parts. One concerns my interpretation of the violence of rebel movements in Africa; the other relates to my misunderstanding of his position. With respect to the former, Ellis raises four objections. I will start with these.