During the 1970s, African arms imports rose faster than in any other region of the world. Indeed, military spending doubled between 1970 and 1977, albeit falling since that peak by about one-quarter by 1982,1 as may be seen in Figure 1. The expansion by developing countries of their armed forces during the 1970s, which was certainly not confined to Africa, stimulated interest among economists regarding its impact on economic growth. Our article attempts a quantitative assessment of some of the moew important factors which influence levels of military expenditures in developing countries, first in general and then in Africa specifically, by means of cross-country multiple regression analysis for the average of the years 1978–80. Although military spending is often an end in itself, providing a living for the soldiers and their suppliers, it is also justified on the grounds that it deters armed conflict or domestic unrest, despite being responsible for so many coups d'état.

Praetorianism has been authoritatively defined as a situation in which ‘the military class of a given society exercises independent political power within it by virtue of an actual or threatened use of military force’.1 A praetorian state, by elaboration, is one in which the military tends to intervene and potentially could dominate the political system. The political processes of this state favor the development of the military as the core group and the growth of its expectations as a ruling class; its political leadership (as distinguished from bureaucratic, administrative and managerial leadership) is chiefly recruited from the military, or from groups sympathetic, or at least not antagonistic, to the military. Constitutional changes are effected and sustained by the militaty, and the army frequently intervenes in the government.2

Captain Thomas Sankara, Comrade President of Burkina Faso, was assassinated on 15 October 1987, allegedly in accordance with the wishes of Captain Blaise Compaoré, Major Jean-Baptiste Lingani, and Captain Henri Zongo. These three officers, said to have feared for their lives, had ordered the arrest of Sankara in order to avoid plunging their country into a blood-bath. The radio broadcast announcing the execution referred to Sankara as a ‘renegade’, a ‘traitor to the revolution’, ‘an autocratic mystic’, and a ‘paranoid misogynist’. It added that the ex-President's ‘high treason’ was illustrated by his trampling upon all organisational principles, his betrayal of the noble objectives of the democratic and popular revolution, his personalisation of power, and by his ambitious use of mysticism to solve the concrete problems of the masses. ‘This’, the broadcast concluded, ‘was inexorably leading us towards total chaos.’1 When he finally broke his silence, Compaoré, the alleged leader of the coup d'état, accused Sankara of ‘wanting to lead the world revolution’.

Explaining Swaziland's political position in the context of Southern Africa has been difficult and never in vogue. This small Kingdom with a population of less than 700,000 has often been neglected in African analyses, and where facts and figures have been presented, these have not been sufficient to give us any real understanding as regards what has happened in recent years, and why. What to some has defied objective explanation has been the Kingdom's non-conflictual relationship with South Africa which, in a regionally polarised situation, has come to be interpreted as a ready willingness to collaborate with the apartheid state.

South Africa has neither a developed nor a typical underdeveloped economy. Too often it has been wrongly classified, along with, say, Australia and New Zealand, as one of the peripheral developed countries, because only a part of the economy and population have the characteristics we associate with that group. Yet its economy is distinctly different from others in sub-Saharan Africa. South Africa falls squarely into the category which the World Bank classifies as ‘upper middle-income’ developing economies, with G.N.P. per capita in 1982 ranging from $2,000 to $7,000 and averaging $2,500, thereby including South Africa, with $2,700.1 (By contrast, Kenya's G.N.P. per capita was $400 and Britain's $10,000). The World Bank's group includes Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, South Korea, Venezuela, and Yugoslavia. South Africa shares many structural economic characteristics with these semi-industrialised countries.

The cultivation of food crops within the overall boundaries of towns and cities is not new, but has been forgotten or ignored in the last 20 years, while urbanisation has, it is thought, absorbed a disproportionate share of national resources. Can, however, an alternative form of urban development, less greedy of financial and natural assets, capable of satisfying the basic needs of the population and of reducing the vulnerability of the poorest, be envisaged, and is the food and energy system an appropriate starting point?1 The first stage in studying any neglected area is to review existing evidence and policy, in order to reveal gaps and suggest avenues for future enquiry, policy formulation, and experiment.2 In this article, the evidence presented will be from Zambia, and it will be the task of further research to assess the relevance of these findings to other towns and cities in the region.

In fact, What became Ake started out with me wanting to write a biography of an uncle, a very remarkable uncle of mine, who is mentioned here, Daodu, Rev Kuti. I think some of you have heard of Fela, the Nigerian musician. Daodu was his father and a very remarkable individual.

Wole Soyinka in Jo Gulledge (ed.), ‘Seminar on Ake with Wole Soyinka’, in The Southern Review (Baton Rouge), 23, 3, July 1987, p. 513.

The publication of Ake: the years of childhood (London, 1981) won Wole Soyinka admirers among those who had never read his poetry, novels, newspaper articles, or criticism, never seen his films or plays. In a seminar on Ake which he gave in Louisiana during March 1987, Soyinka said that the autobiography had started from a desire to write a biography. He went on to say that he had ‘received letters about the book from the strangest parts of the world’.1 The autobiography was widely and favourably reviewed, it was awarded prizes and contributed to the elevation of Soyinka's reputation throughout the world—including Sweden, where he was subsequently presented with the Nobel Prize for Literature.