The increase in crime and violence committed by young men known as lonetia in southern Karamoja, Uganda, has occurred in parallel to overall security improvements since the start of the 2006 disarmament campaign. This article examines the lonetia phenomenon from the perspective of the young men themselves. Panel data from four sets of interviews conducted in 2013 with approximately 400 young men provide details on the motivations of young men and the challenges they experience in the face of changing livelihood opportunities. We find that the lonetia category is highly fluid and that a set of behaviours and attributes correspond with the frequency of engagement in lonetia activity. Examination of seasonality highlights the contribution of hunger to lonetia frequency. We examine the perceptions of power and respect of young men in their communities as well as their propensity towards violence. The article concludes with thoughts on influencing lonetia involvement.

During the first decade of independence for the tropical African states, economic planning has moved through several stages. Before and at the time of independence the development literature still featured debates as to whether or not to plan, and what the role of the government should be in economic development. In Africa these debates were won, hands down, by the planners and by ‘African socialists’ of various types. Within a few years there appeared a host of plan documents responding to the perceived requirements, leading one analyst even to characterise Africa as ‘the continent of economic plans’1 articles on ‘comprehensive economic planning’ and simple econometric models were at that time in fashion. These plans were typically prepared by foreigners with relatively little experience of the countries concerned, and were based upon the scrappiest of data and analysis. While not as elaborate in their technique, or as far removed from reality, as many of their counterparts of the period in Asia and Latin America, these plans tended to be just as lacking in real content, political support, or potential for implementation. Their authors usually departed for home shortly afterwards, leaving the hardpressed decision-makers on the scene (many of whom were themselves expatriates newly arrived in the country) little the wiser.

African attitudes to income inequality have hardly been studied. As a result, we may have been missing a crucial part of the answer to the question why Africa is so unequal. This paper presents evidence that, across all self-identified class categories, African respondents in 16 African states, representative of all the regions of the continent, are on average considerably more tolerant of inequality than respondents from 43 comparable developing and transition countries. The aim of the paper is to try and explain these differences. It concludes that (a) a modified version of Albert Hirschman's notion of the ‘tunnel effect’ and (b) religious devotedness in the African context provide explanations for the observed variation between African respondents and their counterparts elsewhere. Experienced inequality, in contrast to overall income distribution, influences the tunnel effect more widely than economic growth. Religious belief shapes inequality tolerance in Africa more than the observance of religious practices.

Changes in the nature of federal financial relations were among the most striking features of the nearly 14 years of military rule in Nigeria. At the time of the January 1966 coup there was a great imbalance in the size of the four Regions, with a consequential built-in tendency for political instability. At the resumption of civilian rule in October there were 19 States of relatively balanced size, with an important rôle for the Federal Government as a mediator between them as well as an initiator of change.

Green-grabbing has recently been suggested as a label for describing processes of dispossessions undertaken in the name of conservation in sub-Saharan Africa. For the case examined here, the Dukuduku forest and the Mfolozi flats in northern KwaZulu-Natal, we will argue that the label obscures more than it helps illuminate the complex processes leading up to the present-day struggle over land rights. The land in question has been subjected to a number of different land uses in the past: hunting, conservation, commercial agriculture and small-scale agriculture. We show how contestation over desirable future land use options lies at the heart of the problems raised by an ongoing land claim to the forest.

The rôle of agriculture in the theory of economic development is equivocal. Not that anyone would dispute the need for expanding the supply of food in the course of economic development, especially during the early stages characterised by high income elasticities of demand. Quite the contrary, existing theories fully recognise this need, while noting, however, its frequent conflict with any programme of rapid capital accumulation in a situation of low savings rates.1 It therefore follows, so the argument runs, that the demand for food should be met as much as possible from domestic sources, while confining the export of scarce savings to the needs of industry: i.e. for importing manufacturing skills and techniques, with their higher productivities, linkages, and externalities.

Situated side by side on the west coast of Africa, of similar size, and having similar national incomes per capita and capacity for development at independence, Ghana and the Ivory Coast present marked contrasts in the development of both agriculture and industry.1 Ghanaian politicians led the African independence movement, with Ghana receiving independence in 1957. The Ivory Coast was granted independence in 1960 with little indigenous effort. In the early years of independence Ghana welcomed aid and technical assistance from both private and government sources in the west, but after 1961 turned more and more to the Communist world and a philosophy of socialisation of agriculture and industry.2 During the five-year period from 1961 until Nkrumah was overthrown in early 1966, the development emphasis was on state farms and factories: 125 of the former were established by the State Farms Corporation, 84 by the Workers' Brigade and Young Farmers' League, and 870 by the co-operatives.

The past two years, 1968–9, have seen the publication of a significant handful of economic textbooks, designed for first-year university students in Africa. Their specific aims, their precise range, and their technical quality naturally vary widely; but the important thing is that they have been published at all. This marks the culmination of a long, slow revolution, since the time when the then University College of the Gold Coast began to teach economics in 1949–50, following unmodified London syllabuses. There seemed to be no anxiety to work out any appropriate local substitute for papers in such topics as British industrial history, although this was possible under the regulations; and one of the lecturers told me, ‘There is no need for an African textbook— economic principles are the same all over the world.’

In his recent article in this Journal, X, I, May 1972, Dr Michael F. Lofchie catalogued what he considers to be the major factors contributing to the Uganda coup. In his analysis, Lofchie emphasises President Obote's ‘Move to the Left’ ideology for its threat to the privileged position of the military: ‘The coup of January 1971 was the army's political response to an increasingly socialist régime whose qualitariar, domestic policies posed more and more of a threat to the military's economic privileges.’

Although it has long been realised that ‘developing’ countries do not have to follow the example of ‘developed’ nations, the mere use of the terms ‘nation-building’ and ‘national integration’ implies a straight line of ‘progress’ from dispersed sub-national communities towards the integrated entity of the nation-state. Add the eagerness of political leaders in the Third World to exert effective control over the population in the absence of established institutions, if possible by becoming the focus of popular solidarity, and the reasons for this emphasis on the notion of national integration become more apparent.

A study of the Republic of Mali's readmission into L'Union monétaire ouest-africaine provides an illustration of some of the problems inherent in African economic integration as political concerns intrude on development issues. In a broader sense, this case-study displays the difficulties involved in achieving the goal expressed in the very name of the Organisation of African Unity. It also shows the dual pull felt by many post-independence states: a desire for greater autonomy, as well as the necessity of maintaining some important links with the erstwhile colonising power.

As towns, industries, agricultural developments, and the green revolution come to Africa, social theorists are beginning to write about the emergence of a peasant class. In addition, they are relating the concept of a peasantry to the growing patterns of capitalism and socialism which are to be found throughout the continent, albeit for the most part asserting that contemporary social systems are built on tribal rather than feudal foundations. What is remarkable from this perspective is that as Africanists turn their attention to these issues, and discuss rigorous conceptual problems regarding the terms ‘peasant’ and ‘feudal’, they continue to be almost unaware of Ethiopia.

The origins of African political consciousness in Southern Africa can be traced back to the first half of the nineteenth century, to the impact of the Christian missions and to the development of a non-racial constitution in the Cape. As the century progressed, mission-educated Africans came to exercise a limited but real influence within Cape politics, and the Native policy of that Colony was seen to contrast favourably with those policies developing in the Boer Republics and Natal. By the turn of the century a new African élite had emerged, committed to non-racial ideals gleaned from Christianity and supported by the theory, and to some extent the practice, of Cape politics.

Of the four current schemes for international economic integration in West Africa, the operation of the Communauté économique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest has been recently reviewed, the Economic Community of West African States continues to be widely discussed, while the agreement of the Presidents of Senegal and Gambia in Dakar on 17 December 1981 to establish a Senegambian Confederation, and to develop an economic and monetary union between the two countries, is as yet in its formative stages. This article examines the structure, progress, and potential of the Mano River Union (M.R.U.) about which little has been published.

Few of the new nations of Africa lack, as part of their colonial heritage, their potential Biafras—hence the reluctance of most African states to recognise the secessionist Eastern Region of Nigeria. This article is concerned with one of them, the Barotse Province of Zambia, and attempts to illuminate the historical background of the situation, the motives of the Lozi ruling class in demanding secession, and the methods by which successive colonial and independent governments have met this challenge.

The article addresses possibilities and barriers to economic activity and development in the Oshana region of Northern Namibia. The focus is on the role of local embeddedness of economic activities in attaining economic development. A network perspective, based on theories of value chains that are embedded both in social relations and spatially, is selected as the analytical framework. The value chains of local black entrepreneurs in the study area are short. Moreover, the analysis reveals that social obligations may impede economic development, but that such practices are diminishing. The economic dominance and competition from South Africa is the main impediment to economic development in Northern Namibia. Local political embeddedness is shallow and political measures have not significantly reduced the implications of this dominance.

Since the attainment of formal political independence in the early 1960s, African leaders have been grappling with the problem of how to manage domestic political conflicts in such a way that their resolution will facilitate, rather than undermine, the maintenance of incumbent régimes. This task, never easy in the best of circumstances, has become even more daunting in recent years as the ongoing economic crisis has deprived most African states of the resources necessary for the continued use of co-optation as the most effective technique for dealing with critics who have their own political aspirations. A further complication is that the ‘frustrations of independence’ have eroded the prestige and personal legitimacy that was once enjoyed by the generation of anti- colonial leaders partly as a result of what might be described as the ‘elder tradition’ in African political culture.1

Rising competition and conflict over land in rural sub-Saharan Africa continues to attract the attention of researchers. Recent work has especially focused on land governance, post-conflict restructuring of tenure relations, and large-scale land acquisitions. A less researched topic as of late, though one deserving of greater consideration, pertains to how social differentiation on the local-level shapes relations to land, and how these processes are rooted in specific historical developments. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Teso sub-region of eastern Uganda, this paper analyses three specific land conflicts and situates them within a broad historical trajectory. I show how each dispute illuminates changes in class relations in Teso since the early 1990s. I argue that this current period of socioeconomic transformation, which includes the formation of a more clearly defined sub-regional middle class and elite, constitutes the most prominent period of social differentiation in Teso since the early 20th century.

More than 20 years after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security, the international community is concerned with taking stock of its implementation in countries undergoing transitions from war to peace. This article contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics involved in implementing the Women, Peace and Security agenda through a focus on the frictional interactions that take place between different actors promoting women's participation in the peace process in Mali. Based on extensive fieldwork in Bamako between 2017 and 2019, it analyses interactions between different international and local actors in the Malian peace process through a discussion of vertical (between international and local actors) and horizontal (between local actors) friction. It finds that the way different actors respond to friction shapes relationships and impacts norm trajectories by triggering feedback loops, which in turn trigger new responses and outcomes.

There is no question about the seriousness of the AIDS epidemic in Africa. It has been clear for some years that problems associated with the epidemic are enormous. The depth of the problem has been documented repeatedly. Now that we have moved into what is described below as the ‘acceptance-response phase’, it is timely to look beyond present problems to the legacy that will remain once the epidemic has been confronted by medical science and endured by its millions of victims and their families, most especially in Africa. This article argues that as a result of many pre-existing conditions, having little to do with AIDS, aggressive responses to the epidemic, especially by the international community, are likely to undermine African autonomy and impede future development, particularly politically and psychologically. While AIDS is one of many deterrents to development, it has, in many affected countries contributed significantly to undermining their future prospects.

From several perspectives the AIDS epidemic can be seen to have levelled an enormous toll on Africa, especially in the eastern and southern regions. This article confines itself to the non-medical consequences of the epidemic where it has been most profound. Although the epidemic has possibly passed its peak, evidence of the toll of the disease, with its related health problems is now clear. In its wake are serious multidimensional problems: anthropological, sociological, economic and political. AIDS has greatly diminished prospects for increased autonomy in many countries, and dashed hopes for major improvements in their quality of life. These multisectoral dimensions of the AIDS impact are likely to affect African development negatively for many years to come. As an extreme example of the enormous difficulties, a recent report suggests an HIV rate of 50 per cent in seven armies in central Africa. Such reports highlight consequences that affect development prospects in general. These and related problems undermine the sense of nationalism and national identity so eagerly fought for in all parts of Africa during the independence era. This article focuses on these dimensions of the epidemic and suggests possible consequences in terms of national development in those countries most affected.