The debate over the language of African literature has continued to generate significant interest ever since the emergence of African literary writing in European languages. Discussions of this debate have in the past often highlighted the inherently normative character of the idea of an African literature in African languages. By tracing the history of the debate, this paper seeks to distinguish between the actual role played by African languages in the emergence of a literature identified as African by its practitioners, and the ideological function of the debate for Africans who write in European languages. From this perspective, appeals for a literature in indigenous languages appear to serve the purpose of ethnic signification on behalf of a tradition of writing that continues to rely on European languages at the levels of both creative practice and theoretical formulation.

This article explores the complexity of managing refugee issues, particularly refugee repatriations, taking the Horn of Africa as a case. I argue that refugee repatriation endeavours are complex because their success depends on at least four actors, each with different – indeed often conflicting – interests. I examine the proposition that as the number of actors involved in a given issue area increases so does the likelihood of less-than-successful outcomes. This is particularly true if resource-poor actors are included in the decision-making process, and, because of the need to extract maximum benefits and/or minimise maximum losses, usually operate under the assumption of zero-sum situations. This assumption narrows their range of responses and hampers their ability to engage in mutually beneficial exchange relationships. As a result, repatriations, which are necessarily consensus-based, become more difficult to accomplish successfully as evidenced in the Horn of Africa.

Aid donors' support for democratisation in sub-Saharan Africa in the 1990s has been tempered by their desire to achieve other objectives. In Uganda, a high level of donor support for the Museveni government has been compatible with the Ugandan government's reluctance to introduce multiparty democracy. Donors have opted for ‘dialogue’ rather than coercive methods. This may be ascribed to a number of factors, including the destruction from which Uganda was recovering, the need to present Uganda as a success story for economic liberalisation, and donors' need to maintain good relations with Uganda in order to pursue their foreign policy goals. The resulting donor–recipient relationship has however created dangers for the maintenance of long-term sustainable democracy in Uganda, by condoning divisive policies, and neglecting the need for coalition-building and conflict resolution.

This paper explores the dynamics of regime change in South Africa and Zimbabwe through an examination of civil society's role, but more particularly mainline Christian religious associations, in democratising and consolidating democracy. After surveying state–civil society debates, an analysis of the nature and purpose of civil society in these two countries is undertaken. In both countries, a vibrant, diverse civil society exists that builds or strengthens democratic possibilities; however, Zimbabwean civil society is weaker for reasons that include regime type, the particularities of the liberation struggle, and constitutional limitations. The paper concludes with prescriptions for strengthening civil society in South Africa based on lessons learned from Zimbabwe.

The official result of Lesotho's general election of 1998, which saw a 79 out of 80 seat victory for the ruling Lesotho Congress of Democrats (LCD), was repudiated by the opposition, notably the former ruling Basotho National Party (BNP) and the Basutoland Congress Party (BCP). These latter parties were historic enemies but forged an alliance of convenience to contest the outcome of the election. By mobilising their supporters to occupy Maseru they successfully paralysed the capacity of the LCD to govern. After diplomatic preliminaries, this led to military intervention by South Africa and Botswana in September 1998 and their brokering of an agreement which restored the LCD to power, on the condition that a new election would be held within eighteen months, with the rules for that contest being discussed between the parties in the interim. That election has now been scheduled for April 2000.

The article reviews the conduct and result of the general election of 1998. It concludes that the opposition's objections were largely spurious, but notes that the unbalanced nature of the LCD's victory – a product of the first-past-the-post electoral system – was a major cause of the wider crisis. It therefore proposes that any lasting settlement of political differences in Lesotho is going to require a new electoral system which will allow for a more inclusive outcome.

Mozambique has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years. The government concluded a 17-year-old civil war in 1992 and held democratic elections in 1994. Following the adoption of structural adjustment policies after 1987, the government eliminated subsidies on food and consumer items, pledged its support for emerging markets, and has now sold most state companies to private investors. These changes have generated much interest among researchers and policymakers, particularly with regard to their impact on the countryside, where the majority of Mozambicans live and work. Recent studies have focused on the most appropriate rural development strategy for Mozambique now that the war has ended, or examined ways to alleviate the widespread poverty that still exists in rural areas. Other work has analysed the structure of agrarian relations or how to ensure food security. Additional research has criticised the government's on-going policy of encouraging and granting land concessions to private investors. It claims that the policy lacks transparency and fails to consider the rights of local communities.

Pitcher's rejoinder to our paper (Cramer & Pontara 1998), is a useful contribution to the policy and analytical debate on poverty and rural relations in Mozambique. Some of her points are well taken, in particular her careful attention to empirical imprecision in much of the literature. Indeed, she points out that we used a figure for how much land the government had conceded to private owners that turns out to be mistaken. We accept this useful clarification graciously, though slightly less graciously would point out that Pitcher earlier cited the same (erroneous) figure herself.

Overall, her complaint about our paper seems to boil down to the following: that we are incomplete in our coverage of the literature; that we fail to notice that the government may say it favours smallholders but is in fact leaving them high and dry by allocating resources to large-scale commercial investors; and that we present an exclusive choice between the land and the labour market as the solution to poverty in Mozambique. On the first point, our coverage was indeed less than complete, though the implications of this are not as Pitcher implies. On the second, we think the picture is more complex than she suggests, and if our paper did not make this adequately clear we shall try to make it more so here. On the third part of her complaint, Pitcher is plainly wrong: in fact, the most interesting thing about her comment on our paper is that she appears entirely to have missed the point that we were making and does not engage with our core argument at all. She is at pains to agree with our discussion of the socioeconomic differentiation that has a long-term and more recent history in rural Mozambique, and to present the lives of the poor as highly insecure. Nonetheless, she makes little effort to consider the implications of this beyond making the fairly obvious point that people hang onto their land when they can and pursue multiple and ‘redundant’ (whatever this is supposed to mean) strategies.