THE LABOUR PARTY WAS DECISIVELY DEFEATED AT THE 1979 general election. The Conservatives not only won 70 more seats than Labour but its lead of 6.9% was considerably bigger than that of Harold Macmdlan in 1959, while the swing away from Labour to Tory was the largest since 1945. What is even more depressing is that the Labour share of the poll was its lowest since 1931.

THE TRANSITION FROM DICTATORSHIP TO DEMOCRACY IN Spain has been a fascinating experience ever since the Autumn of 1976, when the Ley de Reforma Politica (Law on Political Reform) was passed through the Francoist Cortes and later through a national Referendum. Setting aside the political virtuosity of the different players involved in this dramatic experiment, three aspects of the transition have been particularly important from the point of view of a sociological analysis of Spanish politics: first of all, the ideological moderation of the electorate, which would fulfil an essential prerequisite of democratic stability; secondly, the continuities with past political cleavages between Left and Right, in spite of a parenthesis of four decades of dictatorship; finally, the threat to the new democracy coming from the political violence of Basque separatists and from the activities of Francoist groups which are also active within the army. These three dimensions can be re-examined in the light of the results of the General Election of 1 March 1979, the first constitutional general election in Spain since 1936 and the second election since the death of Franco.

THE MEDIA ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING - THAT IS FOR certain - but of what? They appear at frrst to be nothing in themselves, merely a facility of communication. They facilitate communication among a people, especially among a large people, and thus make that people more of a people, a whole that is conscious of itself and that, being so, can move together. We call a people of this sort a democratic people, or simply a democracy, implying that the communication among a people which makes possible a whole people is, or substitutes for, a form of government. As the media facilitate communication especially among a large people, they especially facilitate modern democracy, which, as opposed to ancient democracy, is the democracy of a large people.

IN THIS AND SUBSEQUENT ISSUES IT IS PROPOSED TO PURSUE A common theme under a general title: Dependent Africa?. The question mark is needed to qualify the assumption. The assumption is based on a loose array of arguments which are often rehearsed and which run, very roughly, as follows.

No sooner, it seems, has an end to colonialism been proclaimed than it appears in other forms. Imperium expellas furca tamen usque recurret? So many now argue in relation particularly to Africa, the most colonial of continents. The ghosts of the Berlin Conference, it is said, must surely be returning to watch the re-enactment of their play. Is Africa not being repartitioned - parcelled out once again by forces external to the continent? Even the old colonial dominance once exercised by European powers now looks as if it has been given a new framework, in a post-independence setting, through treaty arrangements.

EVENTS CONSTANTLY DRAW ATTENTION TO APPARENT IDEOlogical differences among the African states. Yet the precise nature of these differences is not always easy to discern, and still less obvious is the degree to which particular policies, internal or external, are grounded in some underlying articles of political faith. There are, however, occasions when the connexion is explicitly made, notably when there is a change of regime or a constitutional consolidation. A number of African countries have recently provided themselves with new constitutions. Unless one takes the view that this is pure ‘window-dressing’, the activity merits the attention not merely of the constitutional lawyer for whom constitutions are his daily bread but also of the political scientist who has other fish to fry. I propose therefore to look at four of the African countries: Madagascar and Algeria, where new constitutions have been in operation from 1976, and Nigeria and Ghana, where new constitutions are due to come into force in the second half of 1979. In the case of Ghana, I shall be referring to a draft still under consideration but also to an earlier Constitution, that of 1969. Although it was abrogated in 1972, when the military reintervened, many of its provisions and its underlying philosophy are being reasserted in the 1979 draft. My comments are concentrated on three matters: i) the basic character of the constitution; ii) the provisions relating to parties; iii) control over those in authority.

IT SEEMS TO ME THAT THE AFRICAN CONTINENT HAS ALWAYS occupied an ambiguous and in the last analysis unhealthy place in the Western mind. To some its vast empty spaces have promised the riches of a new El Dorado together with the piratical thrills associated with their plunder, to others the challenge of a last frontier along which to stake out and defend their interests; while for many Africa was either the dark continent, a corrupt and corruptin place, or the last stronghold of barbarism waiting upon the enlightenment, or a refuge of worldly innocence where a breed of New Men might at last transcend their own past (and ours) and build a society based not on exploitation and conflict but on social justice.