This article explores the prospects for co-ordinated co-operative economic advance in East Africa. Its frame of reference reaches wider than simply an analysis of the 1967 Treaty.1 This broader viewpoint is important for two major reasons. In the first place, there are a number of aspects of economic interdependence which are not covered at all in the Treaty; the implication is that these will be of no direct concern to the institutions of the new East African Community (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania). For example, the level of the external tariffs of the three countries is obviously crucial to the operation of the Common Market; among other reasons, this is because the maximum permissible transfer tax is defined in terms of the external tariff. Yet the committee responsible for setting external tariffs is not linked in any direct way with the institutional set-up in Arusha; it seems likely that decisions of the tariff committee will not be subject to discussion or appeal through these community institutions.

In the early 1930S the then Southern and Northern Rhodesia were in the course of major programmes of building and construction, which required tremendous financial outlay, when the world depression broke out. The regions throughout southern Africa which were living primarily off the exports of their natural wealth were necessarily influenced by the depression, particularly as it was the prices of exported raw materials which suffered mostly from speculation on the world markets. During these years of depression—a period of surpluses of finished goods—the prices of raw materials, including those from colonial dependencies, were forced down.

This article presents the hypothesis that there has developed in Africa in recent years a group of practices which constitutes a new pattern, to be called here ‘crude private neo-imperialism’. This term refers to unprincipled exploitation by some foreign firms of African governments that establish government-controlled, directly productive enterprises in an effort to accelerate economic development. The pattern referred to is ‘crude’ in that it involves outright dishonesty or hoodwinkery. It is ‘private’ in that the exploitative practices are carried on by private companies rather than by governments (although the latter have frequently given tacit and even explicit support). It is imperialism or ‘neo-imperialism’ in that the practices constitute not simply a series of similar incidents but a general phenomenon attributable to substantial contemporary causes.

To the political scientist concerned with the relationship between social and economic modernisation, on the one hand, and political change and integration, on the other, the Ibo experience has long held particular interest. In his pioneering study of Nigerian nationalism, James Coleman observed that Ibos had played a singular role in the post-war political era: ‘Ibos overwhelmingly predominated in both the leadership and the mass membership of the N.C.N.C., the Zikist Movement, and the National Church. Postwar radical and militant nationalism, which emphasized the national unity of Nigeria as a transcendent imperative, was largely, but not exclusively, an Ibo endeavor’1 But radical and militant pan-Nigerian nationalism was only one part of the Ibo political posture. No less noteworthy was the parallel development of a highly cohesive and organisationally sophisticated pan-Ibo movement, the very success of which ultimately undermined the pan- Nigerian aspirations of the Ibo-led N.C.N.C. and, subsequently, was one of several factors operating to impair the national legitimacy of an Ibo-led military régime. It is this paradoxical blending of ‘civic’ and ‘primordial’ sentiments which, perhaps, best defines the modern Ibo political experience2.

There has been a high level of debate over critical features of politics in Ghana during the Nkrumah period, for example, on the role of ethnicity, the mass party, authoritarian rule, and strategies of economic development. This review of studies of Ghanaian politics focuses on the treatment devoted to only a few areas of political inquiry: (1) the nature of the socio-economic, political, and territorial framework within which political action occurred; (2) the kinds of political structures which developed in Ghana, with primary attention to parties and the party—state relationship but also to certain state structures—for example, the civil service and national assembly; and (3) the types of political demands which were made upon the system, how they entered the system, the capability of the system in terms of these demands, and the degrees of legitimacy and institutionalisation of political roles, structures, or processes involved.

The phenomenon of trade unionism in tropical Africa has only recently become the subject of serious social inquiry. In the main, academic attention has been focused on labour as a commodity rather than as a social movement. Through the activities of the National Institute for Personnel Research in Johannesburg and the Commission for Technical Co-operation in Africa South of the Sahara, labour research interests have been primarily concentrated on productivity, efficiency, labour turnover, selection, control, and training. The volume of such work has been small compared with similar work in western industrialised countries, but it has been large in comparison with that concerning the collective action of African labour.

‘The time has come’, writes James S. Coleman, ‘to recognize the professional respectability as well as the practical essentiality of the ancient and honorable hybrid discipline of political economy.’1 Such an approach to the study of developing countries is as timely as it is prudent. This article attempts to apply the approach of political economy to the question of elite recruitment, the process by which individuals are selected and assigned to strategic, political, and administrative roles.2 It seeks to examine recruitment as a conflict of interests facing decision- makers in Kenya. Such a task seems most meaningfully handled by enlarging the boundaries under examination to include recruitment of the élite who are to manage Kenya's economy as well as its political structure. This method of analysis leads almost inevitably, under Kenyan circumstances, to a discussion of the crucial issue of resource allocation, for the priorities established in expenditure patterns are of direct relevance to the opportunity for members of various ethnic groups to compete in the market place for political and economic positions.

Within the past few years military coups have ended civil rule in ten African nations. These events, and similar earlier upheavals in the Sudan and East Africa, indicate the intense strain which their politics are enduring. Should social scientists remain mute while this process continues throughout the continent? Are there no general principles of political science and comparative political history which can be utilised to assist the new states to adjust, to control their social environments, and to avoid the abyss of authoritarianism? A potential alliance of military and bureaucratic élites in guiding the political destiny of much of Africa must now be viewed as probable.

During colonial times, Italian studies on Africa were always concentrated within narrow academic limits. Even after the increasing Italian expansion in Northern Africa (Libya) and Eastern Africa (Eritrea and Somalia), when Italian interests in Africa increased considerably, only small groups of scholars focused their studies on the African continent. Today, by contrast, since the independence of the former Italian colonies (and of almost all the European colonies), there is in Italy, as throughout the world, a strong tendency to extend and encourage research work on Africa, and particularly to develop university teaching programmes on Africa.

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.’

The Institute of African Studies of the University of Ife is an interdisciplinary research institute now primarily concerned with research into traditional and modern African culture. Originally, at its foundation in 1962, under the direction of Dr S. O. Biobaku, now vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos, it was concerned with all aspects of African studies in the field of the humanities. However, in the past two years its role has been redefined and the policy now is that research in the Institute should be concerned with those areas of African Studies not catered for by the teaching departments of the University.

Ever since the francophone African states, including the Malagasy Republic, were established, their governments have been conscious of the need to organise their development in the best possible conditions, and have been concerned with economic planning in order to achieve satisfactory results as soon as possible. Since they initially lacked competent national staff, they resorted to technical aid from France in this particularly sensitive field.

Africanists of all disciplines will never cease to be indebted to the late Professor Melville J. Herskovits for his pioneering work in the development of African Studies in the United States. As Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern University, he created and directed the Program of African Studies from 1948 until his death in 1963. To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the founding of this Program, a conference was held at Evanston under the general chairmanship of the present director of the Program, Professor Gwendolen M. Carter.

This Institute was established in October 1965 for the purpose of initiating and directing research on socio-economic and cultural problems relating to the over-all development of Kenya in particular and East Africa in general. Related functions are: to promote and co-ordinate interdisciplinary research programmes; to provide research opportunities and experience for East African students interested in academic careers; to develop instructional materials for university and other teaching purposes; to undertake contract research for, and to co-operate in study projects with, agencies of the Kenya Government; and to provide a centre with which research workers from other countries of Africa and from overseas may be associated.

In the past two years there has been an upsurge in interest in African studies in the State, particularly through the activities of the faculties of the Universities of Colorado and Denver, and Colorado State University. Beginning in the 1967–68 academic year, the University of Colorado offered a Bachelor of Arts degree in African and Middle Eastern Studies, and is expanding its graduate courses with a multi-disciplinary approach. In the spring of 1969 the Center on International Race Relations at the Graduate School of International Studies of the University of Denver began operation with primary emphasis on Africa and Asia. Of equal importance, however, is the high level of co-operation in African studies among the institutions of higher learning throughout the State. This effort involves the maximisation of Africanist talent via the exchange of staff and students, and regional meetings and conferences.

The membership of the African Studies Association now numbers 1,731— 734 fellows, 618 associates, and 379 student associates. Some 700 of these participated in the eleventh annual meeting of the Association. Although attendance was considerably below the 1,300 registered at the New York Hilton in 1967 and the nearly 1,000 who made their way to the University of Indiana in 1966, there is no indication that this reflects a declining interest in African studies in the United States. Rather, the A.S.A. custom of bringing its annual meetings in turn to scholars in the north-east, on the Pacific coast, and in the Middle West results in predictable fluctations in registration.

Delegates from U.N.E.S.C.O.'s 122 member states (including 39 African countries) attended this session of the General Conference, at which three additional states—Barbados, Mauritius, and the Yemen—were admitted. W. A. Eteki-Mboumoua—Minister of Education, Arts, and Letters in Cameroun, 1961–8—was elected president of the session, the first African to hold such office. In his presidential address, Mr Eteki-Mboumoua called for the preservation of oral traditions in Africa and for more—as well as more effective—aid from the developed to the developing countries.

At the beginning of 1963 the German Institute for African Research (D.I.A.F.) was founded in Hamburg, in order to further the systematic study of regional aspects and practical problems of contemporary Africa. The approach of the Institute is interdisciplinary: research is carried out into the economic, legal, social, and historical problems of Africa. Regular colloquia organised at the Institute enable research workers and those in the field to exchange experiences.