After two decades of poor economic performance in most of the countries of the region, and with the recent political and prospective economic changes in Eastern Europe, as well as the European Community's forthcoming ‘single market’ in 1992, debates in African circles have intensified on political democracy, structural adjustment, and economic integration. The last of these topics is the concern of this article, which discusses the major factors behind the slow progress, and sometimes failure, of integration attempts in Africa, and then, inter alia, proposes ways in which the chances of success can be enhanced, and progress towards regional integration thereby accelerated.

The struggle against racial discrimination in South Africa, as many have argued, is theological as well as political. This is so, in the words of Ben Marais, because ‘Apartheid erodes the very basis of humanity’. It is also because the great majority of South Africans have some Christian identity and church affiliation, yet their faith commitments are heavily conditioned by class interests and particular ideologies. Consequently, prophetic Christianity, in relating biblical values to the analysis of society and the search for justice, has divided Christian communities by confronting the established churches as well as the state.

South African scholars writing about the end of apartheid have been unanimous in the contention that it is useless to seek parallels and learn lessons from what has happened elsewhere in the continent in the process of decolonisation. South Africa was not a colony but an independent country, they argued. No metropolitan power had the ultimate say concerning its future, let alone the ability to impose a settlement on the white minority that meant handing over power to a new black government. Rather than decolonisation, the end of apartheid meant a transition from authoritarianism to democracy like that experienced in Latin America during the 1980s.

Of the dozens of conflicts in the Third World which have occurred in the post-war era, few have been of greater duration and bloodshed or have attracted the attention of as many outside actors, including the superpowers, as Angola. It has only been since the mid-1980s that the conflict began moving towards eventual settlement, with the prospects for peace often seeming to depend largely on the attitudes of Cuba, South Africa, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Further affecting the overall environment was the state of East–West relations, the internal situation in Angola, and South Africa's occupation of Namibia. A short historical background will serve as prelude to an extensive examination of the dynamics which fuelled the war in Angola for such a long period of time.

There 15 increasing evidence that social movements constitute an important repository of Africa's political practice. Émile Durkheim reminds us that although social facts, expressed in thought, feeling, or action, are derived from an environment external to the individual, they impose on him a route that he is obliged to follow. He suggests, therefore, that we study the public law that codifies existing political values and the sanctions that oblige obedience. The problem, however, is that formal institutions are sometimes unable to penetrate and impose their logic on social movements.

This article looks at the railway workers of Ghana in the context of a struggle for domination between their own union and the Workers' Defence Committees created by the state after the coup d'etat of 31 December 1981, organised by Flight-Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings. The conflict between what might be called ‘moderate’ and ‘militant’ workers mirrored the disputes at the national level during 1982 between the political pragmatists, including Rawlings, and such socialist-oriented individuals as Chris Atim.1

Though the issues of the 1989 Senegal–Mauritania conflict were deep-rooted, the unexpected passions unleashed within the respective populations caught both Governments off-guard, leading to a total stand-off and the failure of all attempts at resolution. This occured among states which previously had experienced peaceful relations, were making progress in joint economic development efforts, and whose markets were intertwined through trade and labour migration.

The economic crisis of the 1970s in sub-Saharan Africa led to a critical evaluation of the rôle of government policies by international agencies, including two contrasting views of the problem by the Economic Commission for Africa/Organisation of African Unity and the World Bank. The E.C.A./O.A.U. largely placed the blame on the deteriorating external environment, emphasising the reduction of income inequality, poverty, and unemployment through a continuation of the state-led introverted development strategy of the previous decade. The World Bank responded in the opposite direction, mainly blaming the inappropriate state policies of the post-independence period, while encouraging a re-focus on economic growth through a structural reversal of the state-imposed impediments to the efficient operations of markets.