What is the precise nature of the relationship between the so-called Third World and the industrialised West? While a question of this sort was much more easily answered in the era of direct colonial control over vast non-European regions, there is much debate concerning the symmetry of economic and political relationships in the postindependence period. In fact, to a considerable number of observers, it is asymmetry which characterises the ties between the industrialised and ‘underdeveloped’ countries, based on a long historical process of incorporation into the western capitalist system. Political independence, these critics argue, has merely shifted a ‘colonial’ to a ‘neo-colonial’ relationship, leaving the unevenness basically intact.

A study of the Republic of Mali's readmission into L'Union monétaire ouest-africaine provides an illustration of some of the problems inherent in African economic integration as political concerns intrude on development issues. In a broader sense, this case-study displays the difficulties involved in achieving the goal expressed in the very name of the Organisation of African Unity. It also shows the dual pull felt by many post-independence states: a desire for greater autonomy, as well as the necessity of maintaining some important links with the erstwhile colonising power.

The universities often may seem remote from rural communities, but they continue to draw a proportion of their students from the villages and small towns and, increasingly, a concern for the welfare of the rural inhabitants informs and directs the teaching, applied research, and theoretical debates of many members of staff.

Interest in the real potential of small-scale enterprise dates from the early 1970s, when it was gradually realised that the industrialisation policies pursed by many developing countries would not be able to create enough employment. It was observed, moreover, that a large part of the active population was engaged in petty trade and crafts, particularly in urban centres. Thus, in addition to the modern, ‘formal’ type of economic activity, an ‘informal’ sector was identified with the following distinctive features: (1) The production processes are labour-intensive, based on simple technology. (2) The smallness of the various industries enables their owners to work as managers as well as producers, and to have direct contact with their employees, while some relationships may be based on non-economic considerations. (3) The enterprises often break the law — that is, they seldom adhere to legally fixed minimum wages, they frequently neglect to observe safety and other regulations, and they tend to evade registration and tax obligations.

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.

In the middle 1970s, scholars and politicians agree, the Soviet Union began a major effort to penetrate Africa. After a decade of relative indifference to African developments, Soviet arms and advisers, in support of Cuban troops, poured into Angola and Ethiopia. Involvement in these two countries was supplemented by further transfers of arms to a number of other African régimes, and this seemed to signal a dramatically heightened interest in the continent.

Since the last American troops withdrew from Vietnam during 1975, the strategic value of Africa to the United States has steadily risen. As a result of the renewal of cold-war hostilities between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. and an escalating series of crises for American foreign policy in the Third World, the African continent is now a principal battlefield for competition involving the United States, Western Europe (particularly France), Cuba, and the Soviet Union. After the end of the Vietnam war, direct American military intervention in Africa was precluded for a short time by legislative restraints – notably the ‘Clark Amendment’ of December 1975 that blocked involvement in Angola – and by the public's reluctance to become entangled in another military commitment overseas, a phenomenon often referred to in Washington as the ‘Vietnam syndrome’. Furthermore, the United States lacked the military capacity to engage in such adventures, having suffered such heavy losses in Indochina and being preoccupied with the creation of a new all-volunteer army. Over the past five years, however, two Administrations in Washington have worked assiduously to ‘cure’ the so-called ‘Vietnam syndrome’ and restore America's military position abroad.

As part of a broader study concerned with tribal–national relations in modern Zambia, the research reported here deals with a complex, indigenous state, the Barotse Kingdom, in which adjustments to post-colonial arrangements have been fraught with difficulties. Here I deal with the results obtained by analysis of interview schedules collected during 1966–7 among a sample of local élites in one of the Districts of the then Barotse Province (now called Western Province). Employing a conceptual framework which emphasises the distribution of information — what Theodore Schwartz calls a distributive model of culture — the analysis focuses on several factors considered crucial in understanding how local groups become incorporated into the nation-state. Finally, the influence of traditional attachments on this process is explored.

Maize is the third most important crop in the world after wheat and rice, being grown throughout the temperate, sub-tropical, and tropical zones wherever rainfall or irrigation is adequate. In Nigeria, it also takes third place, albeit behind sorghum and millet, and occupies more hectarage than any of the cereal crops in the humid forest zone.