Defined primarily in terms of the exodus of the highly talented from the Southern countries to the North, the phenomenon known as “brain drain” has gained in importance during recent decades and years. Changing global conditions, unprecedented developments in information and electronic technology, globalization, and widening of the gap between the South and the North have focused attention on the brain drain. We begin this article by discussing the nature of the brain drain, briefly noting that it occurs in three settings: internal, regional, and global. Our argument here is that brain drain occurs in almost all societies, initially from poorer and impoverished rural areas to relatively rich and developing urban centers within national boundaries and later (or sometimes concurrently) to more developed and wealthy regions and neighboring countries.

In recent years, development theorists, planners, and practitioners have placed much greater stress on the crucial importance of popular participation in promoting rural development. Twenty years ago it was fashionable to talk about national planning; today it is fashionable to talk about participatory development. As in the past, the wealthy, the well-educated, and the professionals define the contents of participatory development and how it should be applied to and by the rural masses. Socialist theorists attack the bourgeois state and pontificate on the transition to socialism; the capitalists denounce state intervention and invoke the magic of the market; the peasants look toward the sky and pray for rain; and the cows amble in search of grass unaware of their crucial role in the participatory development process.

America’s understanding, or perhaps more appropriately its misunderstanding, of Africa is based on a long history of explorer, traveler, and missionary experience recounted in travelogue and the popular press. For the most part, images of Africa expressed in these accounts portray a world of barbarous, uncivilized peoples living in the unbearable climes of torrid deserts and tropical swelter. Today, there is little evidence to suggest any fundamental change in these earlier perceptions. As Michael McCarthy comments, “[the] ‘dark continent’ image of Africa as a mixture of desert and jungle, savage beasts and beastly savages, has persisted to such an extent that it has become over time the essential way in which most Americans have come to understand African realities.”

This article looks at the characteristic shirts of the donso, or initiated Mande hunters. Often described in the literature as visual displays of the wearer’s power, in the context of contemporary Burkina Faso these shirts are instead an example of how hunters deal with representations of power through an aesthetics of concealment (Ferme 2001). An excess of display is conversely connected with the politics of state-recognized hunters’ associations. Issues of ecological change, local conceptions of power, and contemporary struggles with state authority intersect in the practices and discourses on hunters’ shirts.

This article explores the relationship between France and Cameroon under the French administration from 1946 to 1956. Such a relationship has to be seen not as a conventional one, but as a relationship between two unequal entities: a European imperial state and an African society. The period being considered in this study, 1946 to 1956, is significant. Politically, it corresponds to the years during which the political changes that led to the process of decolonization occurred. Economically, it was the period during which the French implemented a long term program for the development and modernization of their overseas territories. This program led to large investments in Cameroon by France and therefore to development of an important financial and economic relationship between the two countries.

Although both political and economic aspects are important, the latter will be our main concern. Economic and financial factors will be emphasized here because in the few existing studies on the relationship between Cameroon and France, the main focus is on the political factor. It has been demonstrated that international relations are also influenced by economic and financial interests, what Pierre Renouvin has called forces profondes (underlying forces). As this French scholar wrote, “to understand the diplomatic action it is necessary to perceive the factors that directed its progress. Geographical conditions, movements of the populations, economic and financial interests, trends of the collective mentality, broad national feelings, are some of the underlying forces which shaped the framework of the relationship between human groups and which determined their character. The statesman, when making his plans and taking his decisions, cannot neglect these factors. He is subject to their influence and has to realize the limits they impose on his action” (Renouvin and Duroselle 1991, 2).

Challenging the scholarship on the relationship between natural resources and civil society, this article advances a framework that differentiates the various types of protests surrounding mineral extraction in sub-Saharan Africa and explains how this extraction encourages contentious activity. On the basis of protest event data from thirty-nine countries in SSA for the 1990–2006 period, as well as available survey data, the article provides confirming evidence that mineral wealth increases protest activity.

Formerly marginal areas are increasingly the focus of extractive mega-projects, which are framed as necessary for economic growth and a modern industrial economy. Yet there are concerns that such projects are unjustly displacing local populations, facilitated through the alliances of local elites with foreign investors. This article asks, who are the winners and losers from oil exploration in the Turkana region of Kenya? Using longitudinal ethnographic research on the dynamics of local government, oil exploration, and pastoralist livelihoods in Turkana, Mkutu and Mdee highlight how current processes may exacerbate inequality and marginalization, with the potential for increasingly violent consequences.

This article discusses Africa’s deepening marginalization in the globalization of production, finance, and labor. It underscores critical development issues that result from, and are exacerbated by, globalization in the context of unequal global distribution of economic and political power: illicit financial flows and tax evasion, the brain drain, an increasing incidence of noncommunicable diseases, and the disproportionate burden of environmental degradation that is shouldered by the African continent. It also offers some policy suggestions to address these issues at national and regional levels.

Rehabilitating the legacy of deceased leaders is a phenomenon particularly salient in Southern Africa, insofar as memories of liberation wars provoke considerable debate. After a protracted civil war, Angolans remain divided about the contributions of their historical leaders. Jonas Savimbi sits at the center of this division, a binary representation of both heroism and villainy. Martins demonstrates how Savimbi’s memory is invoked both as a moral source of hope for an alternative Angola—one imagined and disseminated by Savimbi and UNITA and appropriated by social protest—and as a technology of fear and control employed by the MPLA to assert political dominance.

“The study of foreign policy is under-developed” (Brecher, 1972: 1). This observation is particularly accurate for Africa, where analysis has concentrated on the role of presidents and on the ideology of states in the international system. As a small contribution toward the development of foreign policy analysis in Africa, this article focuses on the variety of actors in the foreign policy system of Zambia. It is an attempt to present an exhaustive typology of actors in the system as well as an analysis of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; it is not concerned either with the ideology of Zambia's foreign policy (Shaw, 1976a) or with the structural constraints within which decisionmakers operate in Zambia (Shaw, 1976b). Rather, the limited intent of this essay is to provide a comprehensive list of actors in the Zambian foreign policy system and to begin to analyze the bureaucratic politics which affect the policy output. The focus is on the relevant part of the operational environment which affects foreign policymaking in Zambia, especially on the structures of government and industry, domestic and foreign interests, and on communication between these actors (Brecher, 1972: 3-4; Brecher, Steinberg and Stein, 1969). Because of problems of research access, information on structures is more readily available than information on the processes of decisionmaking.

Over the past fifteen years, the practice of Islam in the Gambia has undergone a perceptible change, from a tolerant and accommodating type of Qaddriyya-inspired Islam to a more radical form. This transformation has coincided with the rulership of President Yahya Jammeh, a master of manipulation of Islamic symbols. Breaking with his predecessor Sir Dawda Jawara, Jammeh has frequently blurred the line between mosque and state to reinforce his political advantage. Examples include building a mosque on state grounds and cultivating particular imams. At the same time, Jammeh has not hesitated to break with his local Wahhabi allies when he has judged it expedient to do so. Thus, in the wake of severe economic deterioration and a resulting rapprochement with the United States, the Jammeh regime has challenged the nation's prime Wahhabi leader over girls' wearing of headscarves to school. Gambia's recent experience illustrates the reciprocal relationship between religion and politics, and politicians' use of Islam for personal gain.

Several recent studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of traditional African medical systems (e.g., Peterson, in press; Ulin and Segali, 1980; Imperato, 1977). Concurrently, medical sociologists (e.g., Conrad and Schneider, 1980; Conrad, 1976) have examined the role of the American medical establishment in the exercise of social control. Their definition of social control as “the means by which society secures adherence to social norms” implies the power to impose a particular definition of the world on its members. This definition is central to the purpose of this paper, which is to describe and analyze in a West African context the use of prayers, amulets, and charms in the distribution of health services, and, at the societal level, their role in social control. In Dyula medicine social control operates primarily as a collection of beliefs, morals, and internalized norms all subsumed under the rubric of self-controls; and relational controls which include such every day interactions as gossip, ridicule, and group support.

The worksite for this study was Bondoukou, a city in eastern Ivory Coast that was, until the colonial reorganization, the largest city in Gyaman. The kingdom of Gyaman was founded toward the end of the seventeenth century by the Abron fleeing the nascent confederation of Asante states. From their settlement some ten kilometers south of the present city of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the autochthonous peoples and the Dyula at Bondoukou who were all Muslims and mostly traders. The Dyula were recent settlers, having emigrated from the collapsing market city of Begho during the preceding half century.

The literature on the on-going transitions in Africa has largely ignored trade unions and workers, women, even the prodemocracy movements. Of course, they are mentioned in passing or used in examples. But there has been a dearth of detailed case studies of the role of these popular constituencies in Africa's transition and non-transition. There is enthusiastic interest in constitutional engineering, political parties, politicians and of course, elections and election monitoring. The role of workers has been particularly ignored even when the new and traditional political parties, human rights and prodemocracy movements have had to rely on this particular constituency in their contestations for power. Yet, we cannot afford to ignore the popular communities and constituencies which determine the dynamics of politics and shape the overall character of the transition from forms of authoritarianism to multiparty systems. Ironically, in spite of the initial enthusiasm for the “third wave” or “second liberation” the on-going struggle for democracy in Africa is beginning to attract a lot of pessimism leading to more nuanced and cautious evaluations of the nature, processes, institutions, actors, limitations, and prospects for democracy, democratization and the sustenance of plural politics (Lemarchand 1993; Muigai 1993; Zeleza 1994; Ihonvbere 1995a). While Harvey Glickman (1993, 3) notes that “Liberalization of politics may mean pluralization of interest articulation, but not democratic government,” Michael Bratton, Nicolas van de Walle, Samuel Decalo, Stephen Ellis and René Lemarchand have all expressed deep reservations about on-going liberalization in the continent (Glickman 1993; Bratton and van de Walle 1992; Decalo 1992; Lemarchand 1992; Ellis 1993).

Twenty years ago, most African countries seemed permanently mired in malgovernance and repression. The end of the Cold War triggered two contrasting developments: governance improvement associated with the end of superpower competition, and deterioration caused by the resurgence of suppressed ethnic conflicts. Based on a variety of evidence, three subperiods can be identified: fragile governance progress from 1989 to 1995; backsliding associated largely with civil conflict between 1996 and 2002; and resumption of progress in recent years. These broad trends mask major intercountry differences—with Ghana the best-known case of improvement and Zimbabwe the worst case of reversal. Overall, African governance is now somewhat better than it was two decades ago. However, the progress is fragile, and improvements in administrative and economic governance have lagged behind those on the political front. Consolidating democracy will thus require institutional capacity building through a combination of appropriate civil society efforts and constructive external pressure to strengthen accountability.

The process of narrating and interpreting the African past has long been an intellectual struggle against European assumptions and prejudices about the nature of time and history in Africa. As the historian David William Cohen states, “The major issue in the reconstruction of the African past is the question of how far voices exterior to Africa shape the presentation of Africa's past and present” (1985:198). Many historians, especially those without any background or training in African historiography, have assumed, incorrectly, that prior to European contact with Africa, indigenous “traditions” were ancient, permanent, and reproduced from generation to generation without change. This is the false image of cultural isolation and temporal stagnation that has been assiduously disseminated in many parts of the world.

To the many tragedies in Africa since the end of the Cold War one may now add the civil war that devastated the Congo Republic from June to October 1997. This war not only ended Congo’s fragile experiment with democracy but also left some 10,000 Congolese citizens dead and countless more homeless, bereaved, or embittered. Artillery bombardment followed by looting destroyed much of Brazzaville’s inner city. Since seizing power in mid-October 1997, former (and again) president Dennis Sassou-Nguesso has only slowly restored public order. As of March 1998, only a few parts of town had partial phone service, water, and electricity. Congo’s long-delayed development is once again on hold as the new government grapples to restore basic services.

Since the 1960s scholars have criticized the notion of development, arguing that the rhetoric and practice of international development serve imperialistic interests, destroying local orders and colonizing consciousnesses. Through the analysis of the “will to be modern” of a group of young boys living in Bubaque in the Bijagó Islands (Guinea-Bissau), this article shows how the very notion of development can be reworked and employed in an African context, becoming a means for exerting social demands against traditional authorities, and an idiom to express aspirations, needs, and rights.

The article focuses on the growing prevalence of radio call-in shows in the Republic of Benin that discuss topics such as sexuality and intimacy that are taboo in other settings. The popularity of this emerging format exemplifies current processes of appropriation of electronic media in West Africa, including its impact on contemporary public communication. The article argues that the current public prominence of these programs corresponds to considerable shifts in the media landscape that are enabled by a variety of factors, including an increasing expertise among presenters and technicians and the influence of mobile phones.