Widespread scepticism prevails that the proper conditions for negotiations do not as yet exist in South Africa. Yet, most major parties to the conflict (with the exception of the Pan-Africanist Congress) flaunt negotiations as the magic formula for settling a seemingly intractable dispute. From the western governments to the Soviet Union, from the African National Congress to the National Party, all advocate negotiations. In 1989 the N.P. fought a successful election campaign to receive a mandate for talks. The A.N.C. issued a lengthy policy document that aims at preparing its constituency and setting wellknown preconditions (lifting of the emergency, release of political prisoners and return of exiles, free political activity). Even the Conservative Party admits that it eventually will have to negotiate the boundaries of a Boerestaat when it ‘opts out’ of an increasingly integrated, undivided one-nation state.

The Recent resumption of popular protest signals a new phase in South Africa's internal opposition, characterised notably by the rising political engagement of black labour unions and their federations. Membership in these unions has reached over a million workers, reflecting the dramatic expansion of South Africa's industrial manufacturing sector in the last 20 years. With severe restrictions placed on the leading national and local political organisations since 1985, the unions have developed beyond their initially narrow concerns for their members into the forefront of opposition to established economic and political order. As a result, class consciousness and working-class organisation have increasingly been combined with, and taken precedence over, previous conceptions of opposition based on racial and national identity. This development has exacerbated both remaining ideological divisions and pressures for united action within the union movement.

Few Decisions exert a greater impact upon the polity and the pattern of public policy-making than those defining the nature of the political system itself. Transitions from military to civilian rule constitute a dramatic type of institutional change which is encountered with increasing frequency in the Third World. One type of ‘planned withdrawal’ initially involes little alteration in the distribution of power. This approach, which has been employed in Zaïre and Ethiopia, typically yields new nomenclature – for example, the military ruler assumes the title of civilian head of state – and a political structure dominated by a single individual and/or party, closely tied to the same ideology embraced by the military predecessors.

Daniel arap Moi's announcement in October 1982 that Kenya would henceforth allocate its resources for rural development on a decentralised basis, to be more responsive to the ‘needs and aspirations of wananchi’,1 is one of the clearest statements by an African President that the state must establish a better consultative relationship with the people it claims to serve.

There is increasing evidence in Ghana, as well as in other African countries, to suggest that the relationship between rural production and nation-state politics is more complex than has been realised. In the late 1970s, it appeared to some analysts that global market fluctuations, continuous rural extraction and exploitation by the state, disdain for traditional institutions, and ‘urban bias’ had so ravaged Ghanaian rural producers that they were continuing to distance themselves from the state and its vaunted political economy. This peasant behaviour, although symptomatic of deep economic and other socio-cultural problems, was viewed as creating a basis for political instability within which riots, coups, and social disorder occurred with great frequency.1 Political scientists generally downplayed these complex socio-cultural factors, and argued that it was lack of political integration which failed to correct the fragmentation and incoherence within the newly independent states, and which made political stability and national development impossible. Here seemed to be another example of the ‘chicken and egg’ phenomenon, in which politics and economic stability were so inextricably interwoven that it was not feasible to have one without the other.

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.

When Zambia introduced weekly foreign-exchange auctions in October 1985 in order to determine the value of the kwacha vis-à-vis the dollar, together with other measures aiming at liberalising external and internal trade and at restructuring the pattern of production, they were widely acclaimed as a model for reforms elsewhere in the continent. The Economist praised Zambia for ‘taking one of the bravest economic gambles that any African country has taken’,1 implying that even in the view of liberal commentators the Government ran a considerable risk in trying to implement this reform programme. The new measures enabled Zambia to reach a fresh stand-by agreement with the International Monetary Fund in early 1986, the previous one having broken down in 1985 because the authorities failed to meet the I.M.F.'s economic targets.

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