In this short article I suggest that the current styles of most African leaders relate to a number of significant changes in the political environment as regards (i) their rôles and the structures within which they are imbedded, (ii) their audiences/followerships and expectations, and (iii) the salience and valence of important symbols. My analysis will also involve making comparisons between political styles adopted before and after independence, as well as examining the meaning of leadership rôle-images projected during both periods.

There are various explanatory analyses of the instability and persistent underdevelopment in Africa. The general presumption points to a case of arrested development to begin with – the product of slavery and colonialism – a retardation that constitutes the inauspicious legacy on which newly independent African states have to build. It is argued that this ill-augury of colonial inheritance exerts a momentum of its own, intensifying in the post-independence era the cancerous growth of ethnic fissures, constitutional disequilibrations, economic disasters, and fresh dominations.

This article has pointed out the increasing importance of the arms trade in the contemporary international system, and has reviewed critically the essential scholarly works devoted to this topic. Arguing that most of the existing literature is either descriptive or only very partially explanatory, I have suggested a set of five requirements for a satisfactory understanding. Following an analysis of the relationships between these ideal criteria and segments of the theoretically oriented literature, I have outlined an original, though preliminary, model for a systematic analysis of arms supply as an international political phenomenon

With respect to investment in education, two important questions need to be examined. The first is concerned with the amount to be invested in primary and secondary schools, and the institutions of higher learning, and the second relates to the distribution of total costs among the state, private institutions, and those who receive education.

This short article first evaluates the existing formal educational system in Sierra Leone with the help of the cost-benefit technique. In order to obtain guidelines for future investment policies the internal social rates of return are computed for the various levels of education. Then the supply and demand of trained personnel are estimated for the period 1975–9 on the basis of the following classification: (i) high level (those with university education), (ii) middle level (those with some secondary education and technical/vocational training), and (iii) primary- and secondary-school teachers. The projections show that shortages will occur in all three groups during the next five years, above all at the middle level where a 70 per cent increase in the expected supply will be necessary to meet the requirements.

Political culture may be defined as the attitudes, beliefs, and values held by a population and directed towards the political system of which it is a part,1 and includes what people know about that system and their evaluation of its work.

The concept is of importance for two main reasons. First, the attitudes that people have will help determine their behaviour. If the view is held that development must involve popular participation, then it is important to look at those factors which might affect whether or not people will participate. The second, and related, reason is that political culture tells us something about the degree to which people accept as legitimate and useful the political system under which they live. This is important to know when considering questions, for example, that have to do with the potential for political instability.

In the first full-scale fighting between white forces on African territory, the Boer War, Africans had been cast by the opponents in the rôle of an animated geographical background.3. When, however, the European struggle of 1914–18 was projected onto the continent, Africans were enrolled by both sides into the dramatis personae of the conflict. World War I resulted in a European mobilisation of African manpower on a scale unknown until that time,4 with the possible exception of the South African mines. The Nigerian Administration alone recruited 13,980 troops,5 and supplied approximately 10,000 carriers,6 so that the British armed forces in this period even outpaced the tin mines and railways as an employer of Nigerian manpower.7 Indeed, given the relative size of the population and degree of British administrative control it is arguable that the effect of this scale of recruitment was equivalent in its local impact to the later military mobilisation of 10,000 Nigerians during World War 11.8

Recent events in Southern Africa have focused attention on the hundreds of thousands of migrant workers in that region, and this short article recalls the role of those from Malawi – before that country became independent – in the strike which held up the construction of the Kariba dam in 1959. As is well known, there had been previous strikes in this area,1 but the Kariba walk-out coincided with an outbreak of opposition to colonial rule in Nyasaland, and prompted the declaration of a state of emergency, perhaps the first unmistakeable sign that the Central African Federation was doomed.

One of the most important developments in the last decade has been the movement by Africans to recover control of their own economy. A recent article in this Journal, XVI, 3, September 1976, gave a factual account of the extent to which foreign-owned industry in black Africa has been nationalised and indigenised, and discussed the inability of international law to provide guidelines for the settlement of this ongoing struggle between alien owners and host countries. Predictably, it was written by a lawyer because this field has been captured by lawyers almost to the exclusion of all others. But there is much that economists, sociologists, and political scientists could contribute concerning nationalisation, particularly in analysing its causes and effects, although up to now they have had little to say.1 This note makes a start on the question of the impact of nationalisation upon Africa and Africans, in the hope that the tentative conclusions reached here will lead to treatment of the subject by those with the tools for a deeper appraisal.

Patrick McGowan has recently attempted to examine the relationship between ‘Economic Dependence and Economic Performance in Black Africa’ in this Journal, Vol. xiv, No. I, March 1976, pp. 25–40. His article reemphasised the need for concrete analysis since the generalities of ‘dependence’ have been more extensively studied than their concrete expressions. However, a fundamental problem of his analysis is that the criteria for verifying the theory of dependence are unrelated to the theory itself: the ‘test’ devised is a series of correlations between measures of dependence and indicators of economic performance, since ‘the theory [of dependence] predicts that dependence is negatively associated with indicators of economic growth and development’ (p. 27). Part of the problem is that McGowan does not really define ‘dependence’, but in addition it is not at all clear why this is expected to be negatively associated with indicators of economic growth.

The Setting

The rumble of military jeeps throughout the continent has obscured the fact that there are still a few places where lively elections are held from time to time. Before the rash of coups, and even in several countries with a dominant party, there were local opportunities for intensive competition. Where electoral politics still exist today, groups which might not carry much national weight have the chance to win a slice of the political system at the local level. Such a case was the 1975 election of the chief or seyfo for the Lower Saloum District which is part of the McCarthy Island Division on the north bank of the Gambia River. The three largest ethnic groups here are the Olof, the Mandinka, and the Fula.

An increasing tendency in recent years has been to encourage small-scale industries as an important part of development programmes in the Third World. There has been a general emphasis on the rural sector, and a specific concern with job creation and income distribution, from which stem, for instance, the recent I.L.O. reports on the employment problems of various countries.1 In the case of Kenya and the Philippines, the promotion of small scale and rural industries has been elevated to the status of a component in a new ‘strategy’ for development. A great many countries adopted such programmes some time ago, mainly because they satisfy several of the obvious criteria for industry choice, such as labour intensity, use of local materials, and geographical dispersability, but it cannot be said that they have so far met with a great deal of success. An evaluation of Kenya's experience to date has recently been carried out by the author.2

Complaints are frequently heard that the African farmer, the small trader, the everyday person has no means of getting the funds needed to improve his farm, to expand his trade, or to pay his child's school fees. It is often alleged that the low-literacy peasants and workers in a partially-monetised economy have no desire to save, even if there was any surplus money, and that in any case there are no institutions in which to accumulate or to redistribute their savings. It is argued that the banks fail to meet their needs because it is so difficult to obtain loans, while the private money-lenders, often operating illegally, almost always charge exorbitant rates of interest that discourage all but the most desperate of borrowers.

An underdeveloped country wishing to establish a fertiliser industry ought surely to begin by examining the locally available raw materials. In Tanzania, for example, a report in 1961 drew attention to an anhydrite deposit at Kilwa which could have been used to produce cement, gypsum, and sulphuric acid.2 The latter if combined with ammonia from the oil refinery would have given ammonium sulphate, the fertiliser most commonly used in Tanzania. The report also noted three deposits from which phosphatic fertiliser could have been made. However, the development of these local resources was rejected on the ground that for plants of an efficient size the local market would not be able to absorb all the fertilisers.

The Somalis, who almost exclusively inhabit the Horn of Africa, form one of the most uniformly homogeneous populations of the continent. They speak one language, adhere to a single faith, and share a common cultural heritage which is an integral part of their nomadic way of life. The very name So maal, when spoken in the imperative, means ‘Go and milk a beast for yourself’, welcome words of hospitality in a wandering stranger's ears. The Somali's self-conception is inseparable from his flocks and his historical grazing lands. Yet, the Somalis have watched helplessly for the past generation or two as their pasturelands were dismembered by colonising European powers and neighbouring potentates.

Although the political significance of geographic factors has always been acknowledged within the context of political philosophy, the locational aspects of most political problems have historically been perceived as of less than primary importance. There are several areas, however, in which a locational analysis would not only be beneficial in arriving at a full comprehension of the political situation involved, but indeed should serve as the major focus of the study. Ethiopia, and the civil strife it has undergone in connection with the Eritrean secessionist movement, provides an appropriate illustration of two of the most important of these areas.

A number of recent studies have challenged the concept of an ethnic grou as an absolute category and emphasised that ethnic identity is influenced by the context of the social situation in which the behaviour occurs.2 Analyst of migrant communities in both West Africa and the Copperbelt have documented the existence of situational ethnicity as a phenomenon in which individual or group identity is defined in terms of categories which vary in their level of inclusiveness. Situational factors have increasingly come to be viewed as influencing the individual's definition of his rôle as a member of more inclusive groups which allows him to relate to a more culturally heterogeneous community in terms of common elements of identity.3 Studies concentrating upon the political significance of ethnic identity in public interactions have also stressed that situational factors may play a more important role than cultural similarity in developing more inclusive identity groupings.4 Finally, analysts dealing with the problems of multiple ethnic loyalties have stressed that individuals and groups have an array of alternate identities from which to choose. They will adopt — or be perceived by others as maintaining — different ethnic identities in different situations.