The Journal of Modern African Studies deeply regrets to announce the death of the Book Reviews Editor, Dr John Wiseman, on 5 March 2000.

John Wiseman, Senior Lecturer in African Politics at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, died of cancer on 5 March 2000, at the tragically early age of 54. John was always proud to have been a product of the Department of Government at Manchester, where he took both his undergraduate degree and his Ph.D. with Bill Tordoff and Dennis Austin between 1968 and 1974, completing his Ph.D. under Bill's supervision on ‘The Organisation of Political Conflict in Botswana’. He then taught for three years at Ahmadu Bello University, before taking up what proved to be his lifetime post at Newcastle in 1977.

Sceptical of theory, and moved by a deep love of Africa, John always saw African politics as deriving from the needs, aspirations and struggles of individual Africans, rather than from grand global narratives. This was an approach that encouraged the empathetic and fieldwork-based study of individual African states, first in Botswana, but also in his second African home, The Gambia, while at the time of his death he was working on Malawi. It also led to an interest in leadership, expressed in his Political Leaders in Black Africa (1991), and to an abiding conviction that Africans were every bit as capable as anyone else in the world, given half a chance, of managing effective multi-party democracies. This conviction was expressed in his two major books, Democracy in Black Africa: Survival and Revival (1990), and The New Struggle for Democracy in Africa (1996), as well as an edited volume, Democracy and Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa (1995). Fittingly, the last publication before his death was ‘The Continuing Case for Demo-Optimism in Africa’, Democratization (1999).

A lifetime enthusiast, John made an enormous contribution to the study of Africa, as teacher, colleague and friend. His final-year undergraduate course on African politics at Newcastle regularly attracted more than seventy students a year. He was an active member of ASAUK, especially in organising conference panels and serving on its Executive Committee, and was Book Review Editor first of The Journal of Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, and from 1997 of The Journal of Modern African Studies. He will be deeply missed, both amongst the Africanist community in the United Kingdom, and in those parts of the continent that he knew and loved. A memorial fund has been established, and will be donated to projects in those parts of Africa with which John was most closely associated. Cheques should be made payable to the ‘University of Newcastle’, and sent to Mrs Joan Davison, Department of Politics, University of Newcastle, Newcastle- upon-Tyne, NE1 7RU.

Pending the appointment of a new Book Reviews Editor, all reviews and correspondence should be sent to the Editor, Christopher Clapham, at the University of Lancaster.

This paper analyses peacekeeping impartiality, i.e. the extent to which peacekeepers act in the interests of international peace and security, rather than the interests of specific states or other external actors. It reevaluates the question of impartiality through an analysis of the Congo operation of July–September 1960. This case study was selected because it was by far the most important instance of peacekeeping during the Cold War. Based upon primary source materials from US, British, and UN archives, as well as memoirs and secondary sources, it finds that the Congo peacekeeping force intervened to a considerable extent in the internal politics of the Congo; in doing so, the peacekeepers collaborated with US policymakers and, to some extent, advanced their strategic objectives. A comparison between the Congo operation and recent cases of peacekeeping in post-Cold War Africa indicates that impartiality is likely to remain an elusive goal.

This paper reviews empirical evidence concerning government errors of commission and omission in Africa. Seen in the context of international comparisons, how do African states measure up in the defensive functions of avoiding government excess? And how do they rate in the constructive functions of supplying public goods in response to demands from society? Regarding errors of commission, African states do not stand out as singularly prone to spend large shares of GNP, to employ high ratios of the population in bureaucratic jobs, or to own extensive state-owned enterprises. The data on errors of omission are more equivocal. African states do too little to prevent corruption, to protect civil and political rights, and to secure the legal environment for business. Yet, other developing regions display many of the same deficiencies. Overall, there is little empirical evidence of a sui generis African state.

The brutal nine-year conflict in Sierra Leone has defied both military solutions adopted by various governments and peace accords imposed by the international community and regional powers. The latest casualty is the controversial Lomé Accord, which gave power and amnesty to the rebels in a power-sharing government. This article offers explanations for the failures by focusing on the interplay between the policy choices of decision-makers and the country's governance institutions and social structure. The policies of decision-makers can have negative consequences on societies if they are grounded on institutions that are at variance with a country's social structure. The article develops three main arguments to support this conclusion. First, the country's bipolar ethnic structure and majoritarian presidential system of government act as serious constraints on policies that seek to forge a national coalition to end the war. Second, conventional armies in ethnically polarised settings are a poor instrument for fighting rebel groups that deliberately use mass abductions and terror as war strategies. Third, peacemakers do not understand the institutional contexts in which violence-prone rebel groups can be made to reclaim their humanity and observe peace agreements. The logic of the interconnections between territory, resources and civilisation suggests that Sierra Leone's rebels are unlikely to accept disarmament and honour the democratic road to peace.

This article shows the importance of understanding the pluralism of moral ideas in contemporary Africa. Although the discourse on human rights is only one aspect of that pluralism, it threatens to overshadow other ways of conceiving human dignity. The impact of the ‘human rights talk’ can be observed in Christian churches, and the article contrasts elite and lay practices in Catholic and pentecostal churches in Malawi. Drawing upon rural and urban fieldwork, the article reveals variation as much within as between these two forms of Christianity. Rather than documenting a wholesale rejection of the ‘human rights talk’, the article draws attention to the situational use of different moral ideas. In this regard, public debates on politics may be enriched by the insights gained during fieldwork among Catholic and pentecostal congregations.

This article provides an empirical test of a set of common theoretical assumptions concerning the relationship between political liberalisation, democratisation and ethnic conflict in Africa. The theory in question posits that liberalisation will result in short-term increases in ethnic conflict and that democratisation will be followed by a decrease in ethnic conflict. The article employs a cross-national and time sensitive data set to test this hypothesis in the context of contemporary sub-Saharan Africa. A compelling benefit of this methodology is that it allows for an explanation of variation in ethnic conflict both across states and over time.

The results indicate that the relationship between political liberalisation and ethnic conflict is the reverse of what the common assumptions would predict. Liberalisation has had an inverse relationship to ethnic conflict in sub-Saharan Africa between 1988 and 1997. Democratisation does not have the hypothesised effect even when lagged variables are employed. Structural variables as represented by GDP per capita and infant mortality rates are also systematically related to ethnic conflict. The author concludes that policy makers and analysts should continue to pursue both liberalisation and democratisation but should not neglect the central role of an adequate resource base in reducing ethnic conflict in Africa. Political liberalisation and democratic institutions, while providing some measure of relief, are by no means silver bullets for the difficult challenges posed by ethnic conflict in Africa.

The massacre of refugees during the 1996–7 war in Congo illustrates the gap between existing legal standards and their application, as the principle of sovereignty rationalises states' behaviour against helpless people. This paper assesses available information on the scale of the massacre, concluding that about 232,000 refugees were killed. It argues that firmness in demanding justice and protecting human rights does not require ignoring the objectives of stability and prosperity for any country, but rather that it is the best way of promoting those goals and strengthening state sovereignty within the international community. To implement international law related to refugees will require making states and non-state players responsible for their actions to the international community, since any outflow of refugees creates negative externalities or costs that are unequally borne by this community.

Transitions to multiparty politics occurred throughout Sub-Saharan Africa with remarkable speed in the early 1990s, linking the region to the broader ‘third wave of democratisation’ which, from 1974, progressively marked many areas of southern Europe, Latin America and post-communist Europe. Unlike most earlier cases of political reform, however, the changes in Sub-Saharan Africa demonstrated a strong external orientation. A unique combination of donor pressure, internal opposition and ‘snowballing’ led regimes to rapidly introduce multiparty politics regardless of whether ruling elites in fact supported democratisation. The particular constraints surrounding these transitions place much of Sub-Saharan Africa at high risk of civil violence. Drawing on the cases of Cameroon, Rwanda and Kenya, this article argues that, during transitional periods, the greater the conflict between ruling elites and opposition forces, and the greater the pressure which regimes face to proceed with reform, the greater the likelihood that states will sponsor ‘informal repression’, covert violations by third parties, to regain political control.

Privatisation has both an economic and a political face. In South Africa, this Janus-faced character is revealed by the juxtaposition of economic and political arguments for and against the process of privatisation initiated by the National Party, during the transition to majority rule. This paper argues that the NP set out to fundamentally reorganise the structure of South Africa's political economy as an exit strategy. Although it justified privatisation by employing economic arguments, this ostensible depoliticisation masked political motives. Ironically, the weak economic case reveals the political face of privatisation in South Africa. The timing and context of South Africa's privatisation process is difficult to defend on economic grounds, but it did make political sense.

South African women's success in moving from active participation in the liberation struggle to active participation in government has been exceptional on a world scale. Their achievement is based in the long history of women's struggles against apartheid and for gender equality in the African National Congress. The result has been a political representation that is grounded in the experience of a united women's movement in the transition to majority rule and a firm policy consensus towards gender equality within the ANC. This has enabled women politicians to entrench gender equality goals within government discourse. Yet, the success has come with the price of a women's movement that has lost its strong leaders to government, and women politicians who lack the support of a strong women's movement. Thus, in the moment of greatest victory South African women lack the mass movement that propelled them to success, suggesting that the struggle is not done with yet.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa is rapidly escalating, and its demographic and social impact is beginning to be felt. Although the damage to the macro-economy is projected to be slight, the consequences for affected households will be dire, and social indicators such as life expectancy will deteriorate dramatically. A large majority of South Africans are affiliated to Christian Churches, but this has not prevented the types of sexual behaviour that promote the epidemic. Based on research in a KwaZulu township, this article presents evidence on the level of extra- and pre-marital sex (EPMS) among members of different church types. It is argued that only Pentecostal churches significantly reduce EPMS among members; and that they achieve this by maintaining high levels of four crucial variables: indoctrination, religious experience, exclusion and socialisation.

Our aim in this article is to contribute to understanding the effects of firearms on the relationship between the state and pastoral communities in contemporary northeast Uganda. The Karamoja region has from early colonial times been a peripheral zone. Although successive post-colonial regimes have made episodic efforts to incorporate this zone more fully into Ugandan national space, relations between Karamoja and the centre remain distant and distrustful. The transformation of local modes of conflict by large-scale infusion of the AK-47 has had far-reaching effects both on relationships with the Ugandan state and its local representatives, and within Karamoja societies. The younger men who possess these weapons elude the authority of the elders, and entertain ambiguous relations with the state authorities, whom they may serve as auxiliaries or resist.

This paper analyses how macro-economic and agricultural policies, market fluctuations and demographic changes affected forests in the Humid Forest Zone of Cameroon in four periods between 1967 and 1997. For each period it examines how these variables influenced cocoa, coffee, food, and agroindustrial crop production and area, and logging. It concludes that government policies, market fluctuations and demographic changes all had a strong impact on forests. Pressure on forests increased after structural adjustment policies were initiated in the mid-1980s. Malthusian reasoning alone cannot explain the level of deforestation and forest degradation in Cameroon.

The African National Congress (ANC) government in South Africa, having made compromises in the transition of 1994, has been accused of resorting to undemocratic ways in dealing with the frustrations of government. The instability of political leadership at the provincial level appears to confirm pessimism. The central organs of the ANC have tried to bring wayward provinces into line, most recently (May 2000) by dissolving the local party executives in two provinces. But there have been successes in provincial leadership and the party has resolved a number of disputes flexibly and arguably effectively. Conventions of political management are solidifying and may help to pattern ideological conflict in democratic ways in the future.

The oil boom that lasted from the early 1970s until about 1983 spawned a phenomenal expansion of the Nigerian economy. Within a few years, oil revenues rose from 1·4 billion naira in 1973 to 12·86 billion naira by 1980. The oil boom led to the assigning of substantial sums of money to the cocoa industry of southwestern Nigeria. In spite of these investments, the cocoa industry stagnated during the oil boom years. Using oral interviews and archival documents, this paper examines structural change in the cocoa industry before the oil boom, and analyses the failure of government rehabilitation programmes during the oil boom years.

The causes of violence in Burundi are complex and go beyond the alleged ‘age-old’ animosities between the Hutu and the Tutsi. In the short run, it may be impossible to eradicate conflicts; but it is imperative to transform conflicts into non-violent ‘shocks of ideas’ between rival parties, which must refocus their energy at finding a negotiated settlement. This article posits that the solution to violence must revolve around political and economic liberalisation aimed at (1) eradicating the tradition of using the state for oppression and accumulation; (2) achieving egalitarian development; and (3) protecting the rights of all citizens.

Policy discourses urging environmental rehabilitation, and rapid agricultural intensification for food self-sufficiency are firmly entrenched in Ethiopia. This paper examines the actor-networks and key policy spaces associated with the establishment of these discourses, taking natural resource management policies, and institutionalisation of the SG-2000 extension programme as case studies. An emergent, and potentially challenging, participatory natural resource management discourse is also identified. Contrasting the regions of Tigray and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples' Region (SNNPR), the paper concludes by arguing that, with decentralisation, differences between regional administrative and political cultures are key to policy processes, affecting the degree to which central policies reflect local concerns.

This article examines reciprocal relations among Wolof small farmers in Senegal after the emergence of rural weekly markets (loumas) and the implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1980s. Contrary to the notion that markets are a force of social dissolution, new trading practices and free market policies have not weakened community relations among small farmer neighbours and kin. Rather, the spatial and temporal patterning of loumas has served to strengthen intra-community bonds. Farmers have, since the formation of loumas, limited their travel beyond their home zones. While at loumas they interact avidly with extralocal merchants, they have not allowed outsiders to settle permanently in local villages. Furthermore, because loumas occur only once a week, farmers continue to benefit from daily, multiplex interactions with one another. After analysing the spatial and temporal organisation of loumas, this article looks at specific examples of small farmers augmenting their economic security during a period of economic restructuration by innovating new modes of reciprocal exchange with one another.

This article examines the new norms in bilateral, regional and international relations that evolved in the wake of the emergence of the Eritrean state which had successfully challenged the hegemonic claims of both the imperial and Afro-Marxist Ethiopian state. The analysis proceeds from a retelling of the events in 1998 which precipitated the break between the Ethiopian and Eritrean partners of the old alliance against the Mengistu regime, then examines the structural anomalies in the alliance and their consequences. The evidence examined here suggests that two inter-related phenomena help to shed light on the structural, historical and philosophical underpinnings of the 1998–2000 Ethio–Eritrean conflict: (1) the asymmetry of vision between diasporic and hegemonic states, leading to a clash of interests; (2) the failure of both post-war regimes to formalise their ‘understandings’ into formal treaties based on international law.

As the two countries pursued different systems of economic and political governance, the cluster of informal understandings unravelled amidst conflicting interpretations of issues relating to sovereignty: territorial jurisdiction and citizenship. What emerges is a picture – seen from below rather than from above – of the norms and rules that govern the conduct of interstate relations between Africa's most recent and oldest sovereign states.

This article examines an aspect of Ghana's political economy in the 1990s, covering its transition to democracy from military dictatorship, and how this change process impacted on its attempt to implement a value added tax (VAT). It assesses the claim that political transition from autocracy to democracy improves policy-making and policy outcomes. Ghana's experience of implementing VAT typifies an inherent problem in African governance, that of lack of adequate capacity for improved policy-making and for the institutionalisation of inclusive politics and public accountability. The VAT case served in the end to impose a previously absent level of public accountability on the Ghanaian government.