This article seeks to relate a biographical case-study to some ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ ways of thinking about ethnicity. The Kenyan political leader Tom Mboya, who was active in labour and political affairs from 1951 until his death in 1969, was widely regarded as genuinely non-tribalist in his politics. Yet he exercised successful leadership within a political system characterised very strongly, according to a great many observers and participants, by the play of ethnic forces. His would appear to be a strikingly deviant case, and hence may be seen as a useful point of departure for a reconsideration of ideas about ethnic factors in political leadership.

The classical school regards international trade as the main engine of growth. But modern empirical studies have failed to show any simple and generally consistent correlation between foreign trade statistics and macro-economic aggregates such as savings, investment, consumption, and growth. The more generally accepted view is that development through trade — where it occurred — was partly the consequence of favourable internal factors, and partly the result of a conducive external environment.

Of the rising tide of refugees in the world, the greatest number originate from Ethiopia. The largest continent consists of those from the Ogaden who have fled to Somalia, followed by Eritreans who have sought refuge in the Sudan. Out of a total of 520,000 refugees in the Sudan at the end of 1981, approximately 425,000 are Ethiopians or Eritreans, with the much larger number being Eritreans. The Eritreans have fled their homes to escape the prolonged warfare between the Ethiopian forces and the Eritrean liberation movements, a conflict which dates back to 1962.

The erudition of the late W. E. B. DuBois was never more prophetic than in 1903 when he issued his famous dictum that ‘The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line – the relation of the darker to the lighter race of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.’ The United States of America, for its remarkable technological achievement and democratic example, despite decades of difficulty in race relations; and the Republic of South Africa, for its unique violation of human rights: each represents in its own special way both the best and the worst in human history, and are fitting testaments to DuBois's clairvoyance.

The distribution of personal incomes in contemporary African societies is powerfully influenced by public-sector salary and wage structures. Even where capitalist and hence pro private-enterprise development strategies have been openly pursued, as in Kenya, the public service accounts for over 40 per cent of total employment in the modern sector. Where more statist, quasi-socialist strategies have been abopted, as in Ghana and Tanzania, this percentage rises to over 70. Clearly, then, any discussion of income distribution and the potential rôle of incomes policy hinges on an adequate understanding of the processes that determine remuneration in the public sector. And this in turn requires a comprehensive historical analysis of the political economy of each society – in particular, the process of class formation and the rôle of the state.

The pastoral Nilotic-speaking peoples of the Southern Sudan have been observed by missionaries, merchants, and casual travellers for more than a century. Significant advances in social theory have been formulated on the basis of Nilotic ethnography. In the light of the voluminous literature recorded by these and other authorities, it may now be of value to draw into clearer relief the nature of the status and authority of the women in these ‘traditional’ societies, which are increasingly drawn into and irrevocably changed by exogenous sources.

Peaceful resolution of the international conflict over Namibia has been a significant preoccupation of the United States and its four partners in the western contact group since April 1977, but neither the efforts led by the Administration of Jimmy Carter nor the very different approach taken by Ronald Reagan has succeeded. To the contrary, prospects for peaceful change in Namibia are ebbing. The present stalemate in negotiations is unlikely to be resolved before the end of Reagan's first term in January 1985. In the meantime, the territory's political, economic, and social circumstances will continue to stagnate, and the low-level and intermittent fighting in the northern operational areas will probably expand in scope and costs.

In summary, six striking parallels have been found between the artist archetypes in Liberia and the United States, each of which appears to be rooted in some structural similarity between the two societies at the material and social levels. The structural factors which have been suggested as pivotal in determining the nature of the artist archetype have included: (1) the atypicality of the carver/artist/s labour process via-à-vis that of other workers; (2) the development of an alternate value profile congruent with that atypical process; (3) the need for itinerancy/migration to ensure a large enough market for self-support; (4) dependence on the élite class for patronage; (5) relative economic insecurity; and (6) a definition of the product which necessitates solitary labour. These factors combine to create in the general public the image of the artist described earlier.

Some carvers and artists may appear to exhibit the traits imputed to them, and even ‘play into’ their expected image; but this phenomenon can be explained without invoking some innate ‘artistic temperament’ or transcultural ‘artist's rôle’. Rather, we can conclude that carvers and artists, like other human beings, are subject to specific material and social constraints that shape their own consciousness and that of their public. Though individuals make art, it is as true of art as of history, that ‘they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past’.

The enlistment and conscription of combatants and non-combatants in Nigeria during World War I represented an unprecedented mobilisation of the country's labour force. In September 1914, the Nigeria Regiment supplied shock troops for the Cameroons Expeditionary Force, and in December 1917 the Nigeria Overseas Contingent entered the campaign in Tanganyika. By September 1919, when Nigeria's military recruitment drive ended, 17,000 combatants, 2,000 enlisted carriers, and some 35,000 non-enlisted carriers had participated in the Southern Caméroons and German East Africa campaigns. In addition, the British recruited thousands of Nigerians for military service along Nigeria's northern and eastern borders, and for related duties inside the country.

Although it has been estimated that women produce more than 60 per cent of the food crops in many African countries, less than one in five has found employment in wage-earning occupations as development has occurred. Why has this happened? Our hypothesis is that there are two primary constraints on their improved economic status in addition to tradition and culture, namely: lack of access to education and to capital. Access to land and to information may be important handicaps in some areas, but are assumed to be of less general significance.

The rise of the feminist movement in the West has served to stimulate serious research on sex rôles and inequalities, and the recent growth in the number of African and female researchers has had an invigorating effect on various arguments about the status of women in Africa. So far, however, the controversy has generated more heat than light, as a result of both the relative paucity of sound research findings and the combined effects of the sex, race, and ideology of researchers.

The Reagan Administration's approach to the economic development of the continent stems from a virtually unquestioned reliance on the African private sector, bolstered by multinational capital. This strategy has been outlined in the Department of State's Current Policy Memorandum, No. 348, based on an address made by Chester A. Crocker, Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, to the United States Council on Foreign Relations on 19 November 1981, when he reminded his audience that the President had stressed the following two points at the Cancun Summit the previous month: freedom to choose, to own property, to work at a job of one's choice, and to invest in a dream for the future is an ingredient vital to economic success;…and individual farmers, laborers, owners, traders and managers are the heart and soul of development.

The Africana section of The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. XIX, No. 4, December 1980, pp. 685–91, features a ‘cautionary tale’ written by John M. Cohen that is devoted to a critique of published treatments of the Ethiopian revolution. In particular, Cohen purports to show that important data on post-coup food production had neither been consulted nor considered in a previously published study of the impact on the nation's agricultural sector of the radical legal and policy measures introduced by the Derg. He further introduces estimates of food-grain production based on Ethiopian Government and U.N. F.A.O. sources which he finds ‘probably more reliable’ than those cited in the earlier article. On the basis of these official statistics, Cohen then disputes the conclusion that the Derg carried out sweeping land reforms without inducing a short-run decline in domestic harvests. He concludes with a call for ‘more thorough research in government and donor archives’.