The return of the generals to power following the coup d'état of November 1993 has posed fundamental challenges to the survival of the nation. On the one hand, it has brought out the worst in Nigerian politics: repression, intimidation, violence, corruption, betrayals, and the manipulation of primordial loyalties. On the other hand, it has exposed the nature and extent of the Nigerian political rot, and provided the still weak and fledgling civil society with added strength and legitimacy. Could the resurgence of military rule in Nigeria have been predicted? Could anyone have foreseen that General Sani Abacha would become such an all-powerful President? Was it possible to anticipate the popular protests and bloody confrontations which culminated in the hanging of nine environmental activists in November 1995? What is the way forward for the contending political communities?1

Tanzania is one of the few African countries that has remained relatively calm since independence. However, its long history of ethnic, racial, and religious cohesion has begun to fray as the Government attempts to reform its ailing economy in accordance with World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) conditionalities. This process offers an opportunity to explore the degree to which there is a causal link between liberal economic reform and social unity. This is especially relevant as many African régimes are implementing similar policy prescriptions in the form of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), the terms of which often depend on the minimal financial leverage that African negotiators have vis-à-vis the advanced industrial countries of the North.1 York Bradshaw and Zwelakhe Tshandu have argued that ‘the burgeoning debt crisis may represent the “new dependency” for many African countries which cannot acquire capital from other sources besides the IMF and the World Bank.’

In an earlier article in this Journal, ‘Structural Adjustment in Africa: a failing grade so far’, Vol. 32, No. 4, December 1994, pp. 679–92, I scrutinised the World Bank's major attempt to demonstrate the efficacy of its set of programmes known as ‘structural adjustment’. By relying solely on data selected and arranged in Adjustment in Africa: reforms, results, and the road ahead (New York, 1994), and using the categories and ratings of reform performance in that policy research report (hereinafter referred to as AIA), I showed that they not only failed to support its conclusions but actually bolstered the contrary thesis: namely, that implementation of structural adjustment most often causes poorer performance.

This article examines the extent to which the foreign policy of South Africa has altered since the inauguration of the Government of National Unity (GNU), following the historic, non-racial multi-party elections in May 1994. Has the African National Congress (ANC)-led regime succeeded in its stated aims of ‘normalising’ relations with the outside world while simultaneously forsaking traditional assumptions and perspectives about the national interest, and how best to define, defend, and promote it? Or has the understandable preoccupation with, and demands of, internal reconstruction led to a situation where foreign policy is ‘on hold’, in the sense that little attention has so far been directed at substantive questions concerning the norms, values, and conventions implicit in the strategic culture and policy inclinations of the ‘ancien régime’? In other words, what are the elements of continuity and change?

Just as 1960 was characterised by independence and 1966 by military coups, so 1990 marked a cautious move in many states away from excessive centralisation towards a distribution of political power. Multi-party elections were held, or scheduled, in countries as diverse as Benin, Gabon, Somalia, Zaïre, and Zambia. The partial liberalisation these represented did not amount to a full transition to democracy — indeed, they did not amount to anything positive in some cases — but they did suggest that a potential rebalancing of certain aspects of political power was possible, if not probable. Since then, have any significant changes taken place in police systems and behaviour, and/or in the organisation of internal security? This article suggests some of the variables requiring discussion, and indicates areas for future research.

The phenomenon of state breakdown in the post-cold war era has significantly increased the demand for peacekeeping operations around the world. The United Nations has stepped boldly into the breach, considerably expanding its interventions in hotspots on all continents. Yet the capacity of the UN to respond is often uncertain, and this has sparked interest in the concept of regional peacekeeping as an alternative, especially since the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) deployed the Cease-fire Monitoring Group (Ecomog) to stem the ravages of civil war in Liberia.

In April 1992, after nearly 11 years of military rule in Ghana, a draft democratic constitution of the Fourth Republic was overwhelmingly approved in a national referendum.1 The ban on multi-party politics was lifted by the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) Government in the following month. An independent interim National Electoral Commission was established, and a hotly contested presidential election in 200 constituencies monitored by teams of international observers was held in November 1992. After multi-party parliamentary elections to the National Assembly, boycotted unfortunately by opposition groups, the democratically elected Government of Ghana's Fourth Republic was inaugurated in January 1993.2