REMEMBERING DU: AN EPISODE IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MALAWIAN POLITICAL CULTURE

In September of 1962, Dunduzu Kaluli Chisiza, Secretary Generalof the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), ‘prison graduate’and prospective Minister of Finance for Nyasaland, died in acar crash. Immediately, rumours began to circulate that thiswas no accident but a case of political murder. For the firsttime, ‘car accident’ became a metaphor for politicalviolence in colonial Malawi. This article examines the availableevidence pertaining to the accident and concludes that althoughit appears not to indicate foul play, much of it was not madepublic and this, coupled with a troubled political climate,bred suspicion. It is argued that the rumours about DunduzuChisiza's death demonstrate a popular awareness that the imageof political consensus advanced by the MCP during the late 1950sand early 1960s was false. Further, the rumours reveal a profoundambivalence about the growing personalization of rule underDr H. Kamuzu Banda. While the Cabinet Crisis of 1964 was thefirst public demonstration of leadership rupture, it was a culminationof tensions rooted in an earlier period, tensions which werealready felt by many and expressed through rumour in 1962 andafter.     

INTRODUCING RACE AS A VARIABLE INTO THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF KENYA DEBATE: AN INCENDIARY IDEA

The debate on the nature and development potential of ‘indigenous’capitalism in Kenya seemed to have petered off indecisivelyin the 1980s. At that time some form of socialism was stillan option for some of the debaters. Following the seemingly-globalacceptance of free-enterprise as the developmental model ofchoice, however, the Kenya debate has been resurrected but ina different intellectual guise. In line with the revival (especiallyin the United States) of culture and ethnicity as determinantsof economic prosperity, some non-Kenyan authors have faultedthe 1980s literature for leaving out Kenyan-Asian capitalists,the principal protagonists of local entrepreneurship, who, itis argued accounted for Kenya's outstanding development performancein the high-growth years before independence in 1963, and theonset of economic regress under the Moi government in the early1980s, by dint of their industry and cultural heritage. Withoutgiving in to the undeserved Asian-bashing which this thesishas provoked in some Kenya-African political circles, this articleprovides evidence that credit for Kenya's economic achievementsis more widespread and more race neutral. So is credit for thecorruption and crass mismanagement that has characterized theMoi years. Considering the low intellectual pay-off and thehigh political dangers inherent in careless introduction ofrace and culture as operating variables to explain growth, thearticle advocates greater attention to analytical concepts thatshow more promise in accounting for inter-ethnic differencesin material prosperity. These include law-based governance,a stable macroeconomic environment, and the strengthening of‘social capital’ at community level.     

THE SPREAD OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE IN CONGO-BRAZZAVILLE

The Republic of Congo has witnessed two recent waves of majorviolence, in 1993–4 and in 1997. Party militias foughtone another in the streets of Brazzaville, causing massive lossof life and widespread damage. This article briefly recountsthe history of this violence and analyses the activities andsocial origins of the militiamen. The process of democratictransition of the early 1990s had a marked effect in disseminatingthe use of political violence throughout a large section ofsociety, notably among young people frustrated in their expectationsof social and economic advancement.     

THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF LIBERTY IN THE ARAB AND ISLAMIC MIDDLE EAST

The following papers were the basis for a panel at the annual meeting of the Association of Arab American University Graduates (AAUG) in Washington, D.C., October 23, 1993. See below for the participants' affiliations     

BRITAIN AND YEMEN: THE END OF BRITISH RULE IN SOUTH ARABIA THROUGH THE EYES OF A YOUNG POLITICAL OFFICER

This article publishes for the first time selections of the private correspondence (placing them in their historical context) of John G. T. Shipman (1939–2016), who took up his position as assistant adviser in the Eastern Aden Protectorate at the end of 1962 just as the first signs of political and social change were appearing in South Arabia. He served from this position in different parts of the Eastern Aden Protectorate until 1967. Shipman's correspondence allows for an unmediated appreciation of how people on the ground experienced the historical events at the time, including the British withdrawal in 1967, and highlights the extent of their own grasp of the goings-on when contrasted with the historical record. In this sense, the scope of this article is to allow the voice of one of the many British colonial officials to directly narrate their encounters during the last five years of British colonial rule over southern Arabia. The perceptive eye of a young political officer coupled with the ephemeral character of his handwritten correspondence, which providentially survived for more than five decades although it was never intended for publication, offers a fresh insight into the political and social life of the Eastern Aden Protectorate.     

CONSOLIDATING SOUTH AFRICAN DEMOCRACY: THE POLITICAL ARITHMETIC OF BUDGETARY REDISTRIBUTION

An absence of legitimacy of an economic dispensation cannotbe overcome by democratization alone. In unequal societies,new regimes also seek to increase economic legitimacy and thereforetheir own political legitimacy through redistribution. Socialspending is the most promising redistributive device availableto South Africa's new democracy to reduce racial inequalities,but there are constraints on increasing social spending or evenredistributing existing spending. To maximize political impact,spending will thus probably be concentrated on the most visibleprogrammes and concentrated in die cities. The impact on blackmaterial living standards of complete redistribution of socialspending is shown to be fairly large, but still may not satisfythe newly enfranchised. Coloureds, Indians and poorer whiteswould lose most from budgetary redistribution. As demands exceedresources, resource allocation then becomes a question of politicalarithmetic. This may assist in consolidating democracy amongsturban black ‘insiders’, but would effectively leavethe unorganized rural poor fiscally disenfranchised.     

THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN IRAQI KURDISTAN: PARTY RIVALRIES AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

The Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) possesses many of the traditional hallmarks of political authority and society, such as state institutions (an Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary), political parties, civil society, elections, and local government. Nevertheless, for the past twenty-five years, it has failed to create a unified political system that adheres to a mutually accepted form of government. Political division, in particular, a rivalry between the main parties, has proved to be a real impediment to the political development and stability of the Region.

This article argues that there is a relationship between the nature and structure of the political parties, which reflects interests' political views of party leaders, and the political systems that have been proposed as solutions to a lack of political stability in Iraqi Kurdistan. Specifically, it argues that the individual character of the main parties, the PUK and the KDP above all, explains why they favour one system of government over the one advanced by their rival and is the core political dispute in Iraqi Kurdistan currently. Finally, the article concludes by identifying prospective systems of government available the KRI and the potential consequences of each.     

FORCED MIGRATION, LAND-USE CHANGE AND POLITICAL ECONOMY IN THE FOREST REGION OF GUINEA

This paper examines the impact of forced migration on land usechange in Yomou prefecture in the forest region of Guinea froma broadly ‘political economy’ perspective. Focusingon the period since 1989, when over 500,000 refugees from Liberiaand Sierra Leone have been present in the region, it considersthe extent and mechanisms through which refugees have gainedaccess to land in three study villages, and seeks explanationsfor the pattern of land use change that has occurred. This isseen as reflecting both the evolution of the agricultural economyof the region, and socio-political change in local communities.Implications for both environmental change, and the livelihoodsof refugees and local communities are considered.