Colonial and neo-colonial situations are characterised by an absence of power-sharing, though those who have the political power may allow token participation by others. Tokenism exists in many aspects of life, though typically minority-group members enjoy greater economic and adminstrative rights than political and legislative rights. In the last analysis, the governmanet is not accountable to such minorities because they are not part of the electorate.

During 1984 the citizens of Botswana will return to the polls for their fifth national election, the fourth since independence in 1966. While not an unusual exercise in Botswana, this will be a significant occurrence in an independent Africa where elections themselves have become increasingly rare and problematic, and still more so within a multi-party system which amounted to more than simply rubber-stamping party decisions. While other states in Africa concern themselves with the establishment of one-party régimes or with the need return to civilian rule, Botswana has had a successful series of multiparty elections uninterrupted by military coups. This article explores Botswana's experience, with attention to parties, the electoral system, voting trends, and prospects for the future.

It has become something of a truism to assert that most African states are characterised by a high degree of social pluralism, a low level of national integration, and marked inequalities in the distribution of resources between regional and ethnic communities. In these circumstances, communal cleavages tend to be viewed as potential sources of tension and thus as threats to the stability of central administration. It is generally assumed that governments will, therefore, pursue policies designed to inhibit the political salience of the cleavages.

The distribution of land-use rights both defines and shapes African political economy. Control over land can be utilised in various ways to accumulate capital for either autonomous or comprador investments in the domestic economy. The acquisition of official titles to land concomitantly affords the holder opportunities to exploit those who do not possess this valuable resource. For these reasons, command over land offers the state a powerful means of regulating access to the dominant class. This study focuses on the ways in which allocations of statutory certificates of occupancy have affected the on-going process of class formation in two northern States of Nigeria: Kano and Bauchi. We are particularly interested in identifying, through information collected from a sample of application files, those elements of the population who were admitted and denied access to the dominant class through the land-allocation process during the late military-rule period, 1976–9.

In less-developed countries generally, and Africa in particular, centralised forms of political and economic organisation were until recently the norm. But over the past 15 years, this form of government has come under attack, and excessive centralisation is now viewed as a primary contributor to prevailing high levels of inefficiency and ineffectiveness. Various forms of decentralisation – the shifting of responsibilities and resources from central to sub-national units and actors – have been proposed as the necessary corrective mechanisms. Algeria, Kenya, the Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, and Zambia have been among the African countries which have implemented programmes aimed at strengthening the personnel, finances, and freedom of manoeuvre of non-central agencies and governments.

There is a cancer in the body politic of South Africa that may not be cured in the foreseeable future but cannot be ignored. The Prime Minister, Pieter Willem Botha, is currently attempting to again support for a modified form of apartheid or multinational development. More land and resources must be assigned to Blacks, and a great deal more capital and recurrent funds must be spent if the Homelands are to be built up and made viable and attractive. Meanwhile, some concessions to Indians and Coloureds are being made to get them to acquiesce to a modified system of government and administration. They have not, however, satisfied Blacks, who want nothing less than majority rule, and the constitutional changes are strongly opposed by the right-wing faction of the ruling National Party. This short article will review prevailing attitudes and recommendations concerning current developments in South Africa, and then offer a possible solution to the seemingly insolvable dilemma.

Much has been written and assumed about the impact of World War II on the political consciousness of African soldiers. It has been stated that as a result of their military service the veterans developed a new political awareness, and that consequently they played a singnificant rôle in the nascent nationalist movements of the post-war period. This argument has been presented more persuasively for East Africa, although some of the evidence produced to support the thesis appears at times rather thin. It has been strongly contested for West Africa.

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.

Contemporary women from technological cultures are often perceived as self- rather than family- or relationship-oriented. Whether true or false, this perception creates problems in communication between males and females in the United States, especially in communities where black women grounded in African-world views attempt to respond to conflicting western cultural orientations. Issues of marriage, child-care, economics, employment, career advancement, and race relations have often contributed to the nexus of confusion surrounding the education and work of black women in a highly industrialised society.

The virtual collapse of the agricultural sector in tropical Africa has been the subject of great concern over the last decade. An interesting overview of the search for solutions has recently been provided in this Journal by Michael F. Lofchie and Stephen K. Commins, ‘Food Deficits and Agricultural Policies in Tropical Africa’, 20, I, March 1982, pp. 1–25. My purpose here is to suggest an alternative account, based on a somewhat different classification of the relevant theories and the policy prescriptions which are based on them.