Journal of Social Development in Africa (1989) 4,1, 85-110 
BOOK REVIEWS 
The State and the Working People of Tanzania, Issa G Shivji (ed), CODESRIA, 
Dakar, Senegal, 1986 (194pp, price not stated). 
Tanzania seems to be less in the limelight of late as a model in development debates, 
whether as a model of the ideal African socialist, self-sufficient, one-Party participatory 
democracy, or, on the other hand, as a terrible object lesson on the damage 
bureaucratic doctrinaire socialism can do to an otherwise healthy economy. This 
collection of essays should give proponents of each of these views reason to rethink 
their positions. 
The contributions cover many aspects of Tanzanian life over the years since 
Independence: Parliament and the electoral process; the State and the Party; labour 
legislation; the State and the peasantry; agricultural marketing; and die State and 
student struggles. Each contributor argues to die same position, best summed up by 
taking the more negative of the two images above and answering: 'bureaucratic, yes; 
socialist, no.' The overall picture is one of growing Party and State bureaucracies 
extending their power into every level of national life, and into the remotest parts 
of the country. In this process they are alienating the majority even as they restrict 
the people's power to organise their own lives, their control over die fruits of dieir 
labour, and even their freedom to discuss political issues. 
The case is, on the whole, cogently argued. Some of the facts presented are so 
readily available elsewhere, and speak so direcdy, that it is amazing that previous 
commentators, whether supporters of what they believed to be happening in 
Tanzania or not, did not advert to them. For example, there has never been an 
election which chose all the members of parliament by 'one person, one vote': the 
pre-independence parliament was chosen on a franchise which was qualified on 
grounds of property, race and education, while subsequent parliaments have 
contained a high proportion of indirecdy elected or appointed MPs, who were, in fact, 
in the majority from 1970 to 1985. This devalued parliament was declared in 1962 
to be subordinate to the Party, a position which was written into the 1965, and 
subsequent amendments, Constitudon, and is included in die new 1977 Constitution. 
Whatever view one might hold on the classical Leninist 'leading role of the Party' 
ideal, it is clear enough, as Shivji argues in his introductory chapter, that wherever a 
vanguard Party containing hardly any socialists is going to lead its country, it will not 
be along the road to socialism. 
The introduction of a strong executive presidency shows, it is argued, that the 
leadership of independent Tanganyika, and later of Tanzania, preferred die style of 
government they had grown up under, with the President taking the place of the 
colonial governor, and parliament taking the place of his biddable and largely 
appointed legislative council. The main difference is diat in an independent country 
the bureaucracy is larger, and thus not so easily controlled by the new president as it 
was by the colonial governor. It must be very difficult for the philosopher kings of 
modern Africa to resist the temptation to become king, even if that is against their
86 Book Reviews 
philosophy; but now they run more risk of being little more than figureheads. 
The history of workers' and students' movements is traced through legislation and 
salient events. This history is one that moves from something fairly free, maybe 
becoming more radical and eventually facing banning to, in the end, the 
establishment of a tame and docile national organisation, easily manipulated by the 
government administrative machine. This process is outlined, sometimes by 
participants in the key events, and backed with convincing arguments. 
An area in which conclusive proof is, in the nature of things, more difficult to offer 
is that, it is argued, in which growing bureaucratic control of producer prices, selling 
conditions, choice of crops to plant, supply of inputs and even how the crop is 
cultivated, is a direct cause of the decline in Tanzania's agricultural production. 
Figures are massed in support of the argument, which is plausible enough, and they 
undoubtedly show a more or less steady decline from 1966 to 1981 in agricultural 
production per head of population for both food and cash crops. Growing 
bureaucratic control, first by eliminating the middlemen in favour of co-operative 
unions, then by dismantling the co-operative movement, and now by a return to 
State-controlled co-operatives, has accompanied the decline in production. The 
tables showing the simultaneous decline in the price paid to the peasant producer 
and the total marketed amount of cotton and cashew nuts would be more cogent 
evidence if they were extended beyond the 5-6 year periods (different periods for 
each crop) given by Mapolu. It might then be easier to identify particular changes in 
amounts grown and marketed with particular changes in producer prices or with the 
introduction of further government control over the whole process of peasant 
production. 
In addition to arguing their cases effectively as regards developments in Tanzania 
over the past 30 years, the authors have given us an analysis of a case that is not too 
different from most countries in this part of Africa. The book, therefore, needs to be 
widely read. 
This reviewer prefers to avoid nitpicking about typographical errors, but it needs to 
be pointed out that one of the lines enumerating 'total non-agricultural use' in table 
III, ch 5, should be 'total agricultural use'; on page 164, paragraph 2, 14th line would 
make more sense in the overall context if the word 'liberal' were changed to 'illiberal'; 
and the second sentence of the second paragraph on page 39 makes no sense; 
presumably a line is missing. 
Reviewed by Brian MacGarry, Silviera House, Harare. 
The State and Agriculture in Africa, Thandika Mkandawire and Naceur Bourenane 
(eds), CODESRIA (Dakar), London, 1987 (385pp, price unknown). 
Hazarding a philosophical synopsis of independent Africa's transition to sovereign 
nationhood, one journalist once stated, "While it may have taken 100 years to put 
colonialism on a sound footing in Africa, it will probably take twice that time to 
eradicate its effects on the continent". Indeed, most independent African governments 
soon discover, to their frustration, that the profound processes and 
mechanisms used to entrench colonialism are not so easily dismantled or replaced 
by those purporting to promote the lofty ideals of freedom and independence that 
characterise nationalist campaigns for popular support.
Book Reviews 87 
This collection of articles, by some of Africa's eminent scholars, highlights the 
many policy imponderables that African politicians, government bureaucrats and 
technocrats find themselves confronted with as they try to redress the economic 
imbalances of their colonial past. Significandy, in all the 17 countries covered under 
this study, a common feature is the universal acceptance of the fact that agriculture 
and food production are critical to their economic survival. In addition agriculture 
and food production are important in their attempts to divest themselves of the more 
fundamental elements of post-independence neo-colonialism, or, more positively, 
towards attaining what is now popularly known as 'economic independence'. 
Four distinct scenarios emerge from these studies: 
First, that Africa's food crisis is deepening and not reducing, so diat agriculture and 
food production must, of necessity, take top priority in die development strategies 
of these countries; 
Second, that African governments need to adopt pragmatic and realistic policies 
mat will address this critical area of their economic activities; 
Third, that government officials and other state functionaries find tiiemselves 
strait-jacketed by poEtical, social and other extraneous considerations in the 
process of policy formulation. This often leads to ill-conceived or inappropriate 
policies being adopted in their efforts to tackle the issue of agriculture and food 
production; 
Last, that colonial economic superstructures inherited at independence have 
proved more resistant to change dian was apparendy expected, forcing most 
governments to maintain the status quo. 
In examining these complex issues, die authors have isolated die particular 
circumstances of each country, taking into account different ecological conditions, 
types of colonialism or subsequent decolonisation, social and cultural aspects, the 
nature of the states, and the strategies and economic policies that they have pursued 
at any given time. As Mkandawire points out in his introduction, it becomes clear 
from these studies that the state is, in varying degrees, involved in a wide range of 
roles in die economic activities of these countries. Almost widiout exception, 
governments evolve policies diat they consider appropriate for dieir particular 
economic circumstances and dien create or facilitate die creation of administration 
structures and institutions for die implementation of such policies. 
In diese articles, die authors examine the various forces interacting wimin a given 
state which influence or cause die failure of policies and programmes for agriculture 
and food production. Individual case studies highlight me widely divergent perceptions 
diat Africans have of the continent's agrarian crisis and die difficult choices diat 
policy makers face in dieir approaches to die problem. Notably, it becomes clear 
from these studies that the so called success stories in African agriculture are diose 
countries diat have maintained the status quo. These are countries diat have retained 
die capitalist mode of production, which consigns indigenous peasants to the 
peripheral role of suppliers of labour, while die neo-colonial state or its agents retain 
die means of production. 
A random choice of Malawi typifies this category of states. In his paper entided 
"Agricultural and Food Policy in Malawi" Guy Mhone oudines reasons for Malawi's 
much acclaimed success, drawing stark comparison between die roles of the 
marginalised peasant sector and die 'Achikumbe' estate type of farming which is
88 Book Reviews 
heavily subsidised by the government. Swaziland and Mauritius are other examples 
of countries which have maintained agricultural production systems inherited from 
their colonial past. In these and many other African countries, the pre-independence 
rhetoric about improving the living standards of the masses has not been matched 
with concrete actions to meet these goals. 
On the other hand, Zambia typifies the confusion which assailed many newly 
independent countries in their efforts to bring about an equitable development 
pattern in rural areas, particularly with regard to agriculture and food production. 
The study shows that in many instances, political considerations tended to influence 
policy formulation to an unrealistic extent. In the case of Mali, Kary Dembele points 
out the discrepancies in policy rhetoric and implementation in that country's First 
Five Year National Development Plan. The study on Burkina Faso shows that the 
countries agricultural development programme failed due to ambiguous policies 
that were not supported by a coherent implementation strategy. 
From these articles, it becomes evident that colonial attitudes and strategies which 
accorded priority to the production of so called industrial crops, such as cotton, 
tobacco, etc, at the expense of food crops (ie maize, sorghum) still remain widely 
prevalent in a majority of African states. The large scale commercial producer still 
enjoys preferential treatment in government support, while his peasant counterpart 
continues to eke out a precarious existence from the arid regions of his motherland. 
Indeed, while the manipulation of commodity prices and marketing structures are 
perceived by some African governments to be major incentives for commercial 
agricultural production, other elements such as credit facilities, input subsidies and 
infrastructural developments are seen as playing an increasingly important role by 
others. 
Also worth noting is the fact that although the papers allude to an almost pervasive 
obsession by African countries to produce for export, at the expense of domestic 
food crops, it is not clear whether this is merely a colonial legacy or whether perpetuation 
of this practice is deliberate to an extent where it can be linked with the 
orchestrated ineptitude of emergent African states. 
This is an extremely useful book for politicians, government officials and those 
whose responsibilities include the implementation of government policy in their 
countries. 
Reviewed by Desmond Kumbuka, Agricultural and Rural Development Authority, 
Harare. 
Peasant Economics: Farm households and agrarian development, Frank Ellis, 
Wye Studies in Agricultural and Rural Development, Cambridge University Press, 
Cambridge, 1988 (257pp, £11,95 pbk, £35 hbk). 
This is an undergraduate's text on the economic analysis of peasant household 
agricultural production, although it could also be used as a graduate text in rural 
development and relevant social sciences. It would also be useful to natural scientists 
interested in developing commodities and technologies appropriate to the small farm 
sector. It gives a good basic understanding of the economic principles which govern 
decision-making in peasant households. There is, however, one serious flaw in the 
interpretation of comparative advantage which spoils an otherwise excellent book.
Book Reviews 89 
The book is divided into four parts, with the first giving die foundations of an 
economic definition of peasant farmers. This essentially establishes them as farm 
households with access to land using family labour characterised by partial engagement 
in imperfect markets. The first part also lays the foundations of the economic 
principles to be applied throughout the book, including a chapter on basic neoclassical 
economics of farm production and one giving a simple introduction to the 
Marxist approach to peasant political economy. The second part of the book 
considers microeconomic theories of peasant household behaviour: the efficient 
(profit-maximising) peasant; the risk-averse; the drudgery averse (Chayanov); farm 
household; and sharecropping. Part III is a detailed chapter on the role of women in 
the peasant household with respect to their economic activities. It examines the 
limitations of the single family utility function (which rules out the importance of 
interpersonal relationships within the home) as the basis for understanding allocative 
decisions. The final section, which does not follow direcdy on from the rest of 
the book, considers the impact of farm size and technical change on peasant 
agriculture and development. Having included some agricultural development, it 
would have been useful to have incorporated a chapter on the importance of 
increased and secure market access with fewer imperfections to encourage 
specialisation and surplus production. 
The book which would be useful to practitioners, policy-makers and the students 
it is designed to serve, is clearly laid out. The principles and concepts of different 
approaches to understanding and predicting peasant production are simply 
described, and each chapter gives policy implications and is well summarised with a 
useful and current list of further readings. It is well-written and uses practical 
examples from empirical studies to illustrate the theoretical principles. The text fills 
a major gap in the current textbooks available and will probably become a standard 
text. Although there are inevitably some minor differences in interpretation, diis is a 
book to be strongly recommended — except diat the interpretation of die principle 
of comparative advantage is incomplete. 
This does not have serious consequences for the interpretations given in the rest of 
the book, but it is this misunderstanding of the meaning of comparative advantage 
which has led to irrational pricing policies and misdirected research priorities in a 
number of countries including Zimbabwe. Ellis states that comparative advantage 
refers to the physical resources best suited to the production of different crops or 
livestock which exist in different locations, and goes on in the summary to state that 
"alternative farm activities should take place in those locations where the climate, 
soils, terrain, labour availability etc favour their lowest cost production compared to 
other locations" (p42). It says nothing about price or demand. The definition of 
comparative advantage which has led agriculturalists to recommend low prices for 
commodities such as maize in dry regions and/or to refuse to engage in research on 
maize production in dry regions. This interpretation forgets that if people in mose 
areas have a demand for maize then it does not make sense to pay farmers in the area 
less than it costs to bring the maize in to the area. Furthermore technologies which 
increase the ability to produce preferred (higher-priced) commodities in resourcepoor 
zones should not be ignored in favour of technologies for resource-rich zones. 
Equally, there is no point in paying farmers in dry areas higher prices for 'suitable' 
commodities such as millets if there is no demand for those commodities.
90 Book Reviews 
Comparative advantage is an economic term which is used to determine which 
commodity or commodities a country, region or individual farm should specialise in. 
The concept includes the impact of conditions which affect both supply and demand 
and is based on the premise that the efficient allocation of resources is determined 
where the prices are the same throughout the largest possible market area, the 
differences reflecting only transport costs. Thus die price to both the producers and 
consumers will be higher in deficit areas than the price for producers and consumers 
in surplus areas but the price ratios between commodities will be the same. 
According to the theory of comparative advantage it will pay to specialise in and 
exchange that commodity in which there is the least relative disadvantage up to the 
point where price differentials reflect only transport costs. The theory proves mat 
it will pay both the well and poorly endowed area to specialise and exchange, even 
where the one has an absolute advantage in all commodities, provided that there is a 
difference in die relative prices. 
Although it is not of major significance to this text, die omission is a serious one 
and the publishers should be requested to send out a correction to pages 36, 37 and 
42. The book is nonetheless a very useful text and the audior is to be congratulated for 
his original approach and simple explanations. I would still recommend it as a most 
useful text for agricultural economists, anthropologists, geographers, rural planners, 
crop and animal scientists working with small farmers, and all those associated with 
development generally, including environmentalists and extension agents. 
Reviewed by Kay Muir-Leresche, University of Zimbabwe. 
Review of the African Poor: a History, by John Illife, African Studies Series 58, 
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1987 (387pp, price not stated). 
This is a very sophisticated, and maybe even compelling, apologia for market forces 
(alias capitalism) applied to very inappropriate contexts, from Christian Ethiopia to 
'the transformation of poverty in Soudiern Africa'. From the monasteries of 
Ethiopia in die diirteenth century to resettlement sites in colonial South Africa, the 
author has martialled an impressive array of so-called empirical data from a diverse 
range of primary and secondary sources. 
The methodological section, ie Chapter 1, which grapples with some of the nettles 
besetting 'comparative history', does not manage to convince the reader that social 
science categories that have been applied to die history of the poor in Europe in the 
middle ages can be mechanically transferred to the African continent in the 20di 
century. At another level the book is an attempt to offer a sentimental but historicised 
justification of 'aid' and other Band-Aid solutions to die pressing problems of 
poverty. 
There is also a remarkable failure to blend social and economic historiography into 
die very graphic descriptions of poor Africans cited in the book — from "palsied, 
leprous and scrofolous" beggars in Ediiopia in 1520 to recollections by a widow in 
die Ciskei bantustan, that her husband had been "a good, brave man . . . he never 
gave in . . . (But) Here in Elukhanyweni he just gave in and stayed in bed die whole 
time and then he died. . . . I can understand why my husband died. He died of 
shame and sorrow". 
A prominent diesis that runs diroughout the book is that the growth of die 'town'
Book Reviews 91 
or city has somehow alleviated poverty. There is no attempt to examine the patterns 
of economic organisation introduced by European colonialism, and the levels of 
economic performance in the traditional societies of Africa, Christian or otherwise, 
before they were enmeshed in the international economy created by, first, merchant 
and later industrial capitalism, and now, the invisible hands of finance capital. 
The strenuous efforts in this book to distinguish between 'structural' and 
'conjunctuaT poverty amount to empty scholastic phrasemongering. This is directed 
at mystifying the real, as opposed to the relative, basic causes for mass poverty in 
colonial and post-colonial Africa. 'Structural poverty' is supposed to be the long term 
poverty of individuals due to their personal or social circumstances, and conjunctural 
poverty is supposed to be temporary poverty which ordinarily self-sufficient people 
may be thrown into by crisis. 
Though the author has no knowledge of Ethiopian languages, the chapter on 
Christian Ethiopia informs "the broad character of the poor and their means of 
survival over some 700 years as a basis for comparison and change in sub-Saharan 
Africa as a whole". That Ethiopia is unique in never having been colonised is 
conveniently brushed aside. The impact of market forces on family cohesion and 
segmentation is not considered. The following edinic bound explanation for mass 
poverty and insecurity, which is supposed to apply mutatis mutandis for the 19th 
century and 20th century, is only one example of the faulty analytical reasoning in the 
book (pl5): 
"Insecurity helps to explain why the very poor were numerous in Ethiopia, but it 
does not explain why they were more visible than in other African societies which 
also suffered insecurity. For this there were perhaps two reasons. One lay in the 
family structure of the dominant Amharapeople.They were a bilateral people who 
reckoned descent and inheritance from both father and mother. Instead of being 
bound into a corporate descent group, each individual dierefore had a range of 
social identities and rights from which he could choose the most advantageous. 
Bilateral societies are characteristically individualistic and mobile, both socially 
and geographically." 
We are at loss to see how the bilateral family could have led to insecurity. 
The author could have done a better job had he not restricted himself to 'official 
documents' and secondary academic ephemera on poverty, and integrated some 
literary sources for the experience of poverty. As the book stands it lacks an overall 
synthesis of the problem. A good starting point might have been the consideration of 
the antonym of poverty — development. That would have provided a better basis for 
a comparative perspective between Europe and Africa. Raymond Williams 
(1975:340-341) has noted, concerning the entire concept of'aid', which is supposed 
to lead to development that 
"it is ideologically overlaid by the abstract idea of'development': a poor country is 
'on its way' to being a rich one, just as in industrial Britain, in the nineteenth 
century, a poor man could be seen as someone who given the right ideas and effort 
was 'on his way' to being a rich man, but was for the time being at a lower stage of 
this development". 
Reviewed by T D Mashanda-Shopo, Division of History and Politics, Zimbabwe. 
Institute of Development Studies (ZIDS), Harare.
92 Book Reviews 
References 
Williams R 1975 The Country and the City, Paladin, London. 
National and Class Conflict in the Horn of Africa, John Markakis, African Studies 
Series 55, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987 (314pp, price not stated). 
This may become the standard work on die Horn of Africa. It demonstrates painstaking 
scholarship and mature thought. John Markakis surveys the nations and classes 
of Ethiopia, the Sudan, Somalia and surrounding areas. He shows how colonialism 
radically tipped the rural-urban balance in favour of the towns. Imperial rule gave 
way to nationalist control of the state; radical soldiers took over from the nationalists; 
the soldiers turned to socialism; rural and other dissident nationalists rebelled 
unsuccessfully. War and famine were the result of national and class struggle in 
unforgiving terrain. 
Chapter one surveys the material base and the institutions humans built upon it. 
The natural endowment was parsimonious. "Conflict was the inevitable comcomitant 
of scarcity and mobility, with land and water as its primary objects" (p24). Chapter 
two treats the brief but shattering colonial period. Agriculture was transformed, and 
the towns became supreme over the countryside. Pastoralism was economically, 
socially and politically marginalised. Subsistence cultivation was irreversibly 
debased. Nevertheless, there was some indigenous rural support for the resulting 
post-colonial state. 
Chapter three argues that anticolonial nationalism was not a mass crusade. It 
mobilised the group's spawned by the new economy and state. Colonial denial of 
access to the state was the mainspring of nationalism. The victorious nationalists 
therefore preserved the colonial economic and state structures once they had 
achieved access. Chapter four treats in fine detail the attacks on the state in postcolonial 
times. Uneven development exacerbated material and social disparities. 
Disadvantaged groups fought for access; the nationalist rulers fell back on the armies; 
eventually the military took control. 
The fifth chapter is the longest.and chronicles 'the Eritrean revolution'. Temporal 
considerations lay beneath religious mobilisation. Some muslims, lacking access 
under the ancien regime, opposed Ethiopian rule of Eritrea. Other Muslim notables 
hoped to regain lost fortunes, and supported Ethiopian rule. Initial Christian 
support in Eritrea for Ethiopian rule dwindled when federation gave way to a 
provincial system with control held in Addis Ababa. Christian support for Eritrean 
nationalism grew; but that nationalism was riven by fractional splits. Each fraction 
wanted preferential access to the nascent Eritrean state. Some fractions sought Arab 
support; others did not. Eritrean identity became primarily a site of struggle between 
fractions. 
By contrast, as chapter six explains, dissidence in the southern Sudan seemed less 
nationalist. The goal seemed merely regional recognition. Nevertheless, Markakis 
argues, the dissidents wanted control of the state in the southern Sudan, and were 
thus the same as any other nationalist movement in the Horn. Again, the dissident 
movement was highly fractionalised. 
Somalia at independence lacked three regions which it coveted: the Ogaden, the 
northern Kenyan frontier, and Djibouti. Uprisings in these regions sought Somali
Book Reviews 93 
support, but the Somali state was ill-prepared to help. In chapter seven Markakis 
describes three futile rebellions, one in the Ogaden in 1963, one in the northern 
Kenyan frontier from 1964 to 1967, and one in Bale and Sidamo in Ethiopia from 
1963 to 1968. Pastoralists and subsistence farmers could not resist the modern state, 
but the conditions that led them to rebel did not disappear. 
Chapter eight depicts the seizing of power by radical military regimes in the Sudan 
(May 1969) and Somalia (October 1969); it leads on to the rash war with Ethiopia. By 
1980 in Somalia, "the promise of the October Revolution had turned into a 
nightmare" (p234). 
In Markakis's view, a "striking aspect of radical military rule is the espousal of 
socialism, an ideology the soldiers try to blend with nationalism in order to shore up 
the foundations of the new state" (ibid). Markakis believes socialism in professional 
soldiers is the outcome of "idealism, naivety and opportunism" (p235). After a 
century of capitalist imperialism the only credible alternative is socialism, and the 
soldiers are 'seduced' by the promise of socialist transformation. Socialism rallies the 
discontented and gives sole legitimacy to the state as the champion of the masses. The 
labour movement comes into conflict with the soldiers, who strive for productivity in 
the state sector. The labour movement promptly loses autonomy, "allegedly because 
in a socialist society there is no need for autonomous organisations to defend class or 
corporate interests" if bid). 
The radical soldiers claim that ethnic and regional splits have no basis once class 
contradictions are resolved. When such splits persist, wars of suppression result. 
The soldiers end up in a struggle for survival like that of their predecessors, and are 
capable of complete political somersaults. These, and the changing of foreign 
patrons, mark, not autonomy, but the nadir of the state's fortunes, according to 
Markakis. 
Haile Selassie's fall in 1974, chapter nine tells us, was rather different. The 
Dergue's "members shared a mutinous disposition and the desire to hobble the 
ruling clique of aristocrats and imperial retainers, but had no idea of how to replace 
them" (p237). They proclaimed a specifically Ethiopian socialism, whiph "was hardly 
Marxism-Leninism, but was a start". The economy was nationalised, displacing 
foreign managers by the Ethiopian intelligentsia; and land ownership was radically 
reformed without compensation. This creative phase of the revolution, in Markakis's 
opinion, served the social classes which stood to gain from it. However, opposition 
from the left pulled the regime in a more radical direction still. The Dergue purged 
the opposition and instituted two internal purges of its own. Colonel Mengistu took 
power and conducted an official campaign of'Red Terror' (p243). At this Somalia 
invaded the Ogaden; the United States cut off assistance; and the Soviet Union 
prompty helped the Ethiopians. War disadvantaged the opposition. The people 
supported the state in expelling the Somali invaders. 
The Ethiopian government then turned to the problem of dissidence in Eritrea, 
and after sustained conflict managed to splinter the Eritrean movement into rival 
fractions. The Ethiopian state had then also to contend with young radicals in Tigrai 
and Oromo. Nevertheless, the Ethiopian government entrenched its rule, and 
sustained a vast military effort, despite the famine of the nineteen-eighties. 
In 1974 Haile Selasse had been criticised because "drought is natural, famine is 
man-made". In 1984 "the Dergue blamed the famine entirely on the drought"
94 Book Reviews 
(p269). The tenth anniversary of the revolution was celebrated. "Foreign guests 
flocked to Addis Ababa to be feted in grand style, and to applaud the self-praising 
rhetoric of the country's rulers who barely mentioned the famine. This, while the 
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rode through the countryside" (p269). 
Both the opponents and the supporters of die Ethiopian state embraced socialism, 
Markakis tells us, but socialism "defends the state by denying legitimacy to those who 
seek its reform" (p270). Moreover, because of its thoroughgoing land reform, the 
Ethiopian state was able "to raise peasant armies and fight multiple wars for a 
decade" (p27O). 
Markakis's concluding chapter is a powerful synthesis. States in Africa have created 
nations, rather dian vice-versa. State- and dissident-nationalisms have the common 
factor of exclusion from (or access to) power and its perquisites (p273). When they 
dash, die one has die power and the other does not. The roots of power in the 
post-colonial state lie in die towns, not the countryside. The state is "an institution for 
which the traditional pastoralist mode of production has no need. In the Horn, 
pastoralists were fighting primarily against the existing states, radier than for die 
states of the future envisaged by the dissident nationalists" (p275). 
Socialism, in Markakis's view, was used to prop up the state when nationalism 
proved too weak by itself. "The choice of socialism was not made arbitrarily by the few 
who wielded power. It was dictated by desperate need and popular expectation. 
Indeed, no other option was considered credible at the time: a telling verdict on the 
failure of conventional development strategies" (p275). In this, Markakis is patendy 
correct: conventional economics has little to say and no support to show, in the Horn 
of Africa. Yet Markakis is too cynical about socialism in general and Marxism in 
particular, in die Horn. There was and remains a substantial popular support for 
socialism, which goes well beyond any supposed desperation or lack of alternatives. 
Markakis understandably seeks to champion die starving peasants and pastoralists. 
Collapse of production in this sector has no impact elsewhere, because it has long 
since ceased to feed die urban people. "Awareness of famine reaches die towns only 
widi die arrival of starving humanity from the countryside" (p275). The lack of 
impact on die towns "explains the indifference of die townspeople and the 
callousness of rulers" (ibid). The Sudan directed lorries from famine relief, to supply 
Khartoum widi sugar for die Ramadan celebrations. 
Markakis concludes diat modern military and administrative resources give no 
recourse to die peasantry; moreover, die peasant ranks are always ethnically 
fragmented. On the other hand, he claims, peasants and pastoralists join dissident 
movements diat sometimes transcend edinic divisions (p276). This conclusion is 
romantic: there was and remains substantial rural support-for Addis Ababa, as die 
peasant armies demonstrate. 
Markakis begins by showing diat force was the only means of securing claims to 
pasture and water, and was a constant factor in nomad life (p 16). The root of war is die 
parsimony of die material base. If the towns now have an alternative base it is not 
surprising diat diey are callous and aggressive towards die starving. Amartya Sen's 
law holds: diere is food adjacent to every famine, but the starving do not have die 
economic or political power to eat it (p xv). 
The problem remains: die pastoralist and peasant economic base is long since
Book Reviews 95 
destroyed. Their mode of production is invalid. The future has to lie both in 
urbanisation,and in rural revival, built on very different productive forms. The Horn 
of Africa is in no hurry to discover these new forms. It may well be that in socialism 
some of the answers will be found, despite Markakis's doubts. The vast intellectual 
and economic powerhouse of the west will undoubtedly play a part too. The solution 
will still be African. Until then, Markakis's description will hold true: the "starving, 
homeless multitude were now counted in millions" (p xv). 
Reviewed by Renfrew Christie, University of Cape Town. 
Imposing Aid: Emergency Assistance to Refugees, B E Harrell-Bond, OUP, 
Oxford, 1986 (440pp, price not given). 
This book is an appraisal of assistance programmes to Ugandan refugees who crossed 
into Southern Sudan in 1982. The publication of the book was very timely in view of 
the currency of refugee issues in Africa, and the rapid increase in the incidence of 
forced migration. The vast majority of refugees and displaced persons in Africa are in 
rural areas and had, until recently, escaped the scrutiny of researchers and academics. 
This book is one of those rare instances of such scrutiny. 
Although many voluntary humanitarian aid agencies have rallied to help in 
instances of tragic involuntary mass movements of people, the assistance offered in 
such cases has rarely been questioned. Usually, questioning such seemingly necessary 
aid could be regarded as inhuman, since one would be asked whether one would 
rather see death due to hunger than humanitarian aid. What is being questioned in 
this book is definitely not the advent of aid itself, but how it is delivered and the extent 
to which the recipients are involved in decisions that affect their lives. 
The title of this book is most telling and makes no pretence to neutrality. The 
stance taken, right from the start, provokes even the 'converted' to further question 
the benefits of aid. The perspective adopted is clear and the frankness is humbling. 
The book is divided into two parts. The introduction (27 pages) gives a dear and 
succinct background to the study and clearly exposes some of the assumptions that 
have hitherto dominated discussion on the behaviour of refugees and responses to 
need by aid agencies. The introduction, therefore, puts the reader in a frame of mind 
to absorb the remainder of the detail. 
Part of the book describes the 'patterns of flight' by Ugandans, the characteristics 
of their settlements and the demographic features of the refugee population. Part two 
of the book looks at the reaction of aid agencies and the impact of the delivery 
systems. In this book, the author destroys the major assumptions on refugee 
behaviour and exposes the subtleties of human need in contrast to the intentions of 
aid agencies. The revelations from the study could be quite disturbing to those who 
believe strongly in the intentions of humanitarianism and those who have given 
selflessly to this cause. 
The book is of practical value not only to researchers (who could find inspiration 
in the innovative methodology) but also to practitioners and implementers of aid 
agency policies. For the latter group the book may be threatening in that it questions 
their selflessness. The writer, however, maintains that this was not the major 
intention of the book. It is stressed in several parts of the book that if cutting back of
96 Book Reviews 
aid results from the reporting of the research findings, then the book would have 
failed in its endeavour to alter the modes of delivery. 
The involvement of refugees themselves in gathering data, and the focus on participatory 
methods, is an innovation which is both new and progressive. Dr 
Harrell-Bond is, however, very frank about the methodological weaknesses inherent 
in some of the methods of research used. This awareness of limitations of research 
brings credibility to the major findings of her study. 
The appendices contained at the end of the main text (74 pages) are as informative 
as the text itself, especially the inclusion of the message of ICARA II which gives 
added value to the book and places it in proper perspective. 
Although this book contains a lot of valuable research experience and findings, its 
length could reduce readership among the less academically oriented relief workers, 
most of whom would benefit immensely from the findings of Dr Harrell-Bond's 
study. Some of the detail makes inspiring reading to social scientists, but may put off 
those that seek clear indications of ways to improve their service delivery. Parts of the 
book express very personalised experiences of the author and these may not appeal 
very much to those that do not share similar frames of reference. 
The above comments are, however, not intended to discourage readership but 
instead to indicate how intrigued the present writer was at reading through the book. 
It was a rewarding experience and the book is recommended to anyone who cares 
about the participation of recipients of aid in decisions about the delivery of assistance. 
Reviewed by Stella Tendai Makanya, School of Social Work, Harare. 
Conservation in Africa — People, Policies and Practice, David Anderson and 
Richard Grove (eds), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1987 (355pp, £35, 
US$54,50 hbk). 
This book's stated aim is to take an inter-disciplinary look at the practice and policies 
of conservation in Africa. By so doing it hopes to shed some light on the important 
social context of conservation. The book provides a solid case for the interrelatedness 
of conservation and human development and searches for a model that is 
complementary rather than competitive in approach. 
Contributions from sixteen writers are split into four sections each with an 
introductory chapter. The chapters in Part One deal with past and present conservation 
ideologies in Africa; from the introduction of conservation legislation in the 
Cape Colony in the mid-nineteenth century to the present debates about the need for 
new forms of conservation policy. Part Two of the book considers conservation in the 
context of wildlife and game parks, and in relation to African pastoralists who make 
use of those same rangelands. Part Three looks at conservation priorities for rural 
communities, with chapters dealing with indigenous and imposed resource management 
systems. Finally in Part Four, conservation is considered in its present 
relationship to development and a plea is made for more local democratic participation 
in the management of the resources which are held 'in common ' (soil, water, 
grass, trees, wildlife). 
Environmental crisis and demographic collapse are scarcely new to Africa, despite 
the western media image of an Africa that has changed from 'Tarzan's Garden of 
Eden', a century ago, to the brink of a population and resource crisis today. The
Book Reviews 97 
common laws observed by communities in the past, were routinely subject to 
complex 'rights of access' and institutional arrangements which could, occasionally, 
be threatened by natural and internecine human disasters. Following the plunder of 
wildlife by the nineteenth century imperial adventurer, the colonial states' established 
conservation policies based on statutory law. Local indigenous resources 
became administratively fossilised whilst vast capital investments v\cic made 111 
imported exotic resources. The inherent dialectic between the need to preserve and 
the need to utilise natural indigenous resources was rudely interrupted and forced 
underground into a very active informal utilisation system ('poaching'). Formal 
utilisation was the preserve of the colonialists. Africa today still largely awaits the 
time when the 'independent' nation state liberates its rural folk by allowing sustainable 
utilisation of the resource base by the local user. 
Throughout the book the importance of a historical perspective in understanding 
the origins and evolution of present attitudes and approaches towards conservation 
in Africa is given prominance and its social context is stressed. Thus the book serves 
to introduce natural scientists to the social context and the social scientists to the 
ecological context. The new breed 'social ecologist' recognises the sterility of 
separating communities from state forests, game reserves and Recreational areas 
when it is these same people who should be preserving these areas dirough access to 
their useage. At present we witness conservationists trying to stem the tide of overexploitation 
of renewable and non-renewable natural resources and on the other 
hand we have people direcdy alienated from their own natural resource base. This 
critical contradiction would be laughable if it were not so breathtakingly audacious 
and serious. 
The chapter entided 'The Hunting Ethos in Central Africa' should be compulsory 
reading for all those ethnocentric western conservationists who emotively regard such 
places as the Zambezi Valley as their special Garden of Eden; not to be despoiled by 
the developmental needs of local populations living in contiguous areas. Wildlife 
resources can clearly be seen to have subsidised colonial penetration during its initial 
phase before mining and agriculture could pick up. In 1876 over 40 000 pounds of 
ivory representing 850 elephants were traded in the Zambezi area alone. Naturally 
such a bumper harvest could not be sustained for long. 
Out of die colonial decimation of the renewable wildlife resources gjjew the need 
for a conservation policy and also the institution of'the Hunt' or 'African Safari'. 
"The need for a white [Colonial] subsidy being past, die need to feed Africans not yet 
recognised, the link between conservation and the Hunt lay in the demarcation of die 
privilege and power of the new rulers of Africa" (MacKenzie:58). Hence, today we 
have the irony that a great part of the economic value of wildlife in Africa is drawn 
from the international marketing of the Hunt or photosafari by governments through 
safari and tourist operators. In contrast a local employee of die Mutare Mission in 
1922 is quoted as saying: "Europeans took all the guns from Africans and refused to 
let diem shoot game. But Europeans shoot game. Africans have to eat relish only with 
vegetables. If an African shoots an animal with a gun, the African is arrested and the 
gun is confiscated" (quoted by MacKenzie:57). 
Richard Bell's chapter on 'Conservation widi a Human Face' lays out a table of die 
costs and benefits, direct and indirect, in relation to the wildlife resource. These costs 
and the benefits vary considerably between different sectors of society. 1 he costs
98 Book Reviews 
related to alienated land, restrictions on resource use, damage to life and property are 
mainly carried by rural populations. The political and financial costs of administering 
conservation programmes are mainly carried by national governments. The 
benefits of aesthetic and recreational experiences and scientific opportunities are 
enjoyed mainly by foreigners and the urban elite. The benefit of national prestige and 
foreign currency generated are enjoyed by national governments. The benefit of 
most of the revenues are enjoyed by national governments and safari and tourist 
operators. 
Those living at the interface between settlement and wildlife carry most of the costs 
and receive few of the benefits. Hence in Zimbabwe today we have the irony, in a 
district like Nyaminyami, of an undernourished community sitting on a natural 
resource goldmine experiencing the depredations of wildlife and precious few of the 
benefits; whilst the state and private entrepreneur thrive on their resources. There 
should be little surprise that such people look forward to possessing cattle to enhance 
their means of production, rather than wildlife, once the tsetse fly is eradicated. 
Several examples of the alienation of rural populations from their natural resource 
base are given. A critical hard edge develops at the interface between state parks and 
common land. This edge is particularly contentious when it separates pastoralists like 
the Masai from valuable rangelands, especially during drought. 
Zimbabwe's legislative base for wildlife management is held up as an example for 
the rest of Africa as it gives landowners a high level of control and use rights to 
wildlife on their land. Despite this, no communal land, at this point in time, has been 
granted the right to manage and administer the wildlife resource in their own area. 
We can witness the growth of wildlife management in the commercial farm sector on 
'alienated' private land whilst the communal sector on 'unalienated' land is stagnant, 
with revenues flowing out of the districts. It is a sad fact that some of the countries' 
poorest districts are rich in renewable fauna and flora resource that are not 
appreciated by the local people because they have no right to utilise them. 
One leaves this book with a sense of injustice at the alienation of many local 
communities from their local natural resource base, and also frustration at the lost 
potential that could be reached through integrating development with conservation. 
A vision of waste could be replaced with one where local communities (stretching 
from Okavango, through the Zambezi and Luangwa Valleys right up to the Serengeti 
Plains and on through Kenya up to the Simien Highlands of Ethiopia) become the 
'Careful Predators'. 
Such an exalted vision requires, as the book points out, that the alienation of local 
people from their resources and means of production is ended, and future debate 
revolves around the classic traditional issues of organisation of food supply, the exact 
conditions of the soil in divergent regions, and productive methods necessary for 
sustained exploitation. 
This book is good and essential reading, opening up in a positive way the issue of 
how people can procure a sustainable existence from their natural resource base. 
The question of who pays the costs and who reaps the benefits would appear to be the 
pertinent starting point. 
Reviewed by Simon Metcalf, General Manager of the Nyaminyami Wildlife 
Management Trust, Zimbabwe.
Book Reviews 99 
Refugees and Development in Africa, Peter Nobel (ed), Seminar Proceedings No 
19, The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1987 (121pp, SEK11Q-). 
This volume is die twelfth book on refugees published by the Scandinavian Institute 
of African Studies. It marks the end of a research project under the tide of Refugees 
and Development in Africa, funded by the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation 
with Developing Countries (SAREC), during the period 1982 to 1985. 
This project aimed to produce studies on die legal, economic and social aspects of die 
situation of refugees in Africa, and these were presented at an international seminar 
on die subject in Uppsala in 1985 and are the subject matter of this work. This edited 
book includes die work of diree main authors, Peter Nobel, Mekuriar Bulcha and 
Gaim Kibreab, all of whom have written widely on the subject of refugees in Africa. 
There is also a further section on the right to development, witii contributions from 
the editor and from Adama Dieng. 
Of particular interest in this book is the fact diat it introduces a discussion of the 
concept of people's rights, reflecting on the adoption, on the part of the Organisation 
of African Unity (OAU), of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights, in 
June 1981. This Charter, often referred to as the Banjul Charter, following a meeting 
by Heads of State in the capital of Gambia, was later endorsed by the UN General 
Assembly. It emphasises people's rights to development as well as other civil and 
political rights. In the Charter the term 'people' is used in a loose and flexible way 
and is not seen as synonymous widi die concept of a sovereign state. Nobel points 
out, in his well-discussed chapter on the subject, that this is in harmony with Africa's 
historical tradition, where multi-ethnic and multi-cultural 'states' are the norm. The 
implication is that people should not be denied their rights simply because diey do 
not represent the entire population of a single state, and that states dierefore have a 
responsibility for all those who find themselves within dieir borders. The Banjul 
Charter is reproduced in full in an appendix to diis volume. 
In further chapters Bulcha and Kibreab offer studies on selected refugee issues 
which relate to Ethiopia and Sudan respectively. Bulcha presents an analysis of die 
causes of refugee flows in Africa, which he traces, firsdy, to die ending of die colonial 
era widi its process of 'nation-building', its enormous conflicts and changes; and 
dien, secondly, to the conflict between die super-powers for areas of influence in die 
Third World. However he does not only blame Africa's refugee problem on outside 
factors, but points out diat Africa has also contributed to its creation. He is extremely 
critical of unnamed African leaders whom he identifies as some of the chief culprits in 
die creation of the refugee problem, particularly regarding the cult of 'boundary 
fetishism' (p 21) and an intolerance towards dissident opinion. Ediiopia is presented 
as an example of these causative factors, where regional conflicts related to conquest 
and colonisation (eg Tigray and Eritrea), political persecution, war, poverty, military 
conscription, forced labour and involuntary resetdement, all contributed to the 
creation of a vast refugee problem in die region. Bulcha, in a later chapter, studies the 
degree to which Ediiopian refugees have become integrated in the Sudan. His radier 
pessimistic conclusions indicate that there is in fact very little interaction between the 
refugees and local people due to a variety of factors, including language, religious 
differences, inter-personal and inter-group cqnflicts. 
Kibreab offers a study of the dynamics of flight, using as a case study rural Eritrean
100 Book Reviews 
refugees in the Sudan. His interest lies in the refugees' stated reasons for flight, as he 
poiftts out that fleeing a country is likely to be only one alternative among many 
available to them. His study identifies, firstly, that flight is a decreasing function of 
geographic distance — ie those nearer a possible country of asylum are more likely to 
leave; secondly, the more sedentary peasants are and the more attached they are to 
their villages and land, the less likely they are to break their ties and leave; thirdly, 
populations with relatively adequate economic, social and political opportunities are 
characterised by a stronger inertia which countervails mass exodus. While these 
conclusions may seem obvious to the reader, Kibreab's conclusions indicate that 
substantive and 'reinforcing' factors (p39) are probably more likely to influence the 
decision to flee, rather than certain dramatic or single factor events. In a further study 
on the ambitious settlement programme adopted by Sudan for its vast refugee 
population, Kibreab welcomes the initiative, but points to several serious problems 
inhibiting its successful realisation. These include the dire straits of Sudan's 
economy, the perception that refugees are transitory, and a lack of effective participation 
by refugees in their own development. 
Dieng, in his contribution, discusses the role of law and lawyers in development. 
He recommends that initiatives be undertaken for individual legal experts and 
human rights activists to work closely with local populations, perhaps through the 
assistance of NGO's. He quotes an initiative in Senegal, as an example of this 
solidarity, where lawyers and NGO personnel set up a legal service for the benefit of 
peasants. Dieng also examines the debate surrounding the 'right to development', 
and although endorsing the principle, sounds a warning with the following quotation: 
"Development, how many crimes have been committed and are being 
committed in thy name?" (p57). 
A useful and imaginative addition to this volume are the seminar discussions, 
placed at the end of each chapter grouping. I found this very useful as the chapters 
raise many important questions, which in many cases are left unanswered by the 
authors. The seminar discussions allow for some reflection on the topics discussed, 
and provide continuity between each segment of the book. On a critical note, the 
book should have been more carefully proof-read before publication, as there are 
many spelling and typographical errors throughout. 
The final section, entitled 'Views in Common', allows the three main authors to 
summarise key points and respond to various refugee issues, including voluntary 
repatriation, the pressure on the host country and problems of dependency. It is 
worthwhile, in my view, to reproduce the three pre-conditions which they identify as 
needing to be fulfilled in order to guarantee that the repatriation of refugees is 
voluntary, and that it succeeds in offering a 'durable solution'. These are: 
A. The political conditions — a secure political settlement is required in order to 
end insecurity for refugees on their return home and to ensure their physical 
safety. 
B. The legal conditions — refugees should be guaranteed freedom from arbitrary 
arrest or persecution through clearly defined legal decree or ordinances, which 
precisely define the status of refugees on their return home. An amnesty is an 
example of such a decree permitting free return. 
C. The socio-economic conditions — assistance is required to enable refugees to 
have a realistic chance to resettle and earn a livelihood once more.
Book Reviews 101 
The authors also recommend that much more respect should be paid to the rights, 
safety and dignity of all Africans and that refugees should be accorded much the same 
treatment as nationals wherever possible. On a practical level they recommend the 
production of handbooks detailing basic information regarding refugee' rights and 
obligations, which at limited cost could add stability and confidence to their lives. 
A final point that is stressed throughout the book is that, in the interests of equity 
in development, the local population must be involved in the development initiative, 
as indeed refugees themselves should. Development is seen as consisting of three 
essential factors: direct, practical assistance, the participation of people at every stage, 
and finally guarantees for their safety and dignity. In general, we are informed that a 
genuine respect for human, or people's, rights is essential if 'development' is o> be 
worthwhile, either for local people or refugees. It is difficult to be at odds with such 
worthy sentiments. 
Although a short volume (123 pp including appendices), I consider that this book 
is a very useful addition to the literature on the African refugee problem. Its contribution 
is also timely in reminding us diat there is indeed an African Charter on 
Human and People's Rights which deserves more careful scrutiny than perhaps we 
have given it to date. 
Reviewed by N Hall, School of Social Work, Harare. 
State, Resistance and Change in South Africa, Philip Frankel, Noam Pines and 
Mark Swilling (eds), Croom Helm, London, 1988 (325pp, £30 hbk) 
In recent years, the dialectics of popular protest and state repression in South Africa 
have spawned a plethora of conventional literature seeking to analyse the cause(s) 
and to predict possible outcomes of the apartheid quagmire. For the most part the 
resulting literature has remained within the confines of liberal skepticism, failing to 
foresee possibilities for paradigmatic political change in South Africa. 
The authors of State, Resistance and Change in South Africa are liberal skeptics 
in that, while seemingly recognising the magnitude of the apartheid problem, they 
nevertheless see no meaningful political development beyond the apartheid state. 
The authors postulate a dual thesis which sees South Africa in the grips of a 
Gramsci type of an interregnum consisting of a social stalemate where 'the old'is 
dying and the new cannot be born'. The old is dying because the apartheid state 
does not have die requisite ideological and political resources required to reestablish 
its racial dominance without recourse to more and more coercion. On the 
other hand, the new cannot be born because the various organisations and movements 
that represent the interests of the oppressed majority do not possess the 
organisational capacity and political power or coercive strengdi to overthrow the 
state and bring about meaningful political change. 
According to one of the authors, Mark Swilling (p 16), the capacity of black resistance 
organisations to oppose state policy directly affects the relationship between 
the reformist and repressive apparatus: the more opposition there is, the more 
repression is used, which in turn destabilises conditions for reform; whereas when 
opposition diminishes, repression becomes increasingly functional to reform, and 
so the resulting greater unity of purpose within the state reinforces the chance of 
success of reformist strategies; although the former possibility is more probable.
102 Book Reviews 
The authors develop their dual thesis by focusing on the asymmetrical interplay 
between repressive state action and popular opposition, which leaves the business 
community vacillating between the two extremes. In this interplay, state action is 
seen through the changing, and sometimes conflicting, roles of the South African 
Defence Forces (SDF) and the South African Police (SAP); while popular opposition 
is seen through the increasing political mobilisation in the black townships of the 
Transvaal, which has triggered a breakdown of state inspired local government; the 
politicisation of the black trade union movement; the 'civil war' between Inkatha 
and the United Democratic Front; and the changing strategy of the African National 
Congress (ANC), among many more loosely defined black forces. Within this 
scheme, the authors present a somewhat detailed journalistic treatment of such 
issues as the current history of reform strategies in South Africa, the role of business 
in reform, the crisis of local government; the role of the SDF in intensifying civil 
war; Inkatha as a wild card in contemporary black politics, the black trade union 
movement, the mobilisation of black townships and some historical review of 
the ANC. 
One of the co-authors, Philip Frankel, concludes the book by examining some 
pathways for transition beyond apartheid. These include: state reform negotiation, 
closure and revolution. Because of the Gramsci type of interregnum, which the 
authors say characterises contemporary South Africa, all of these pathways are 
found wanting in terms of their immediate viability in encapsulating what die 
authors see as the dynamic reality of contemporary South Africa. 
While this conclusion smacks of understandable liberal skepticism, State Resistance 
and Change in South Africa fails to grapple analytically with die consequences 
of the increasing ungovernability of the apartheid state. Excessive repression does 
not diminish opposition, radier it serves as a dynamic catalyst for ungovernability, 
as happened in the Shah's Iran, Marcos' Philippines and recendy in Pinochet's Chile. 
A credible work is yet to be produced on the revolutionary possibilities of 
ungovernability is South Africa. 
Reviewed by Jonathan N Moyo, Department of Political and Administrative Studies, 
University of Zimbabwe, Harare. 
Doing a Feasibility Study, S Kindervatter (ed), OEF, Washington DC, 1987 (US$15, 
171pp). 
Marketing Strategy, S Kindervatter with M Range (eds), OEF, Washington DC, 1986 
(US$12,50, 96pp). 
These two books, particularly the second, in a series on appropriate business skills for 
Third World women, cover topics of relevance to anyone involved in small economic 
projects. Both books begin with notes'on how to use die materials and participatory 
training. 
The first book covers the following: 
— what a feasibility study is, and its importance 
— choosing a product or service to sell 
— finding out if people will buy the product 
— determining how the business will operate
Book Reiteui IC 
— calculating business expenses 
— estimating sales income 
— deciding if the business is a good idea. 
The second book introduces the idea of marketing through a game. Then it Covers 
— what is effective marketing 
— a problem-posing marketing story 
— ideas for visiting local businesses 
— creating marketing messages 
— ideas for improving practice and solving problems 
— ideas for expanding business 
— developing marketing plans 
— ideas for follow-up. 
The books are lively and participatory in style, well laid out and visual. Th( 
methods and ideas are accessible to both literate and illiterate women. 
However, to assist us to evaluate the usefulness of these books for Zimbabwe, am 
other parts of Africa, we need to look more widely at criteria for evaluating develop 
ment textbooks. I would suggest the following criteria: 
1. A book should be accessible to newly literate readers in terms of language level am 
presentation. 
2. The book should be rooted in the collective experience of the people for whom, o 
with whom, it is designed. 
3. It should be participatory in style, and generative. 
i. Whatever the topic, its economic, political and cultural aspects ^hould be deal 
with, as well as its practical aspects. (This last criteria gives reader-participants ; 
deeper understanding of the topic and a wider range of practical and analytica 
skiEs). 
To what extent do the two books being reviewed meet the criteria? Unlike many loca 
textbooks, they meet the first three criteria well. They are accessible, and rooted in th 
experience of women from several Asian, Latin American and African countries 
They were widely tested. The style is participatory and generative, the books draw oi 
women's experience and build their confidence to improve, and extend, the idea 
that are covered. 
The only weakness of these books is that they fail to meet our fourth criteria, th 
practical training is not situated within a political, economic and cultural context 
Whether this is because the books are too international to have a specific context, o 
whether USAID which funded the books would not accept such an approach, i 
unclear. 
However, all of us involved in small economic projects should realise that a 
present a very wide range of agencies from, left to right, are promoting sma 
enterprises. The Right see them as a necessary part of'development as a tranquiliser 
making the situation of women from low income groups a little better so that they ar 
not provoked to challenge the deeper inequalities in the economy.. Those of us wh 
believe in development leading to transformation, think that to empower wome 
from low income groups, training should involve economic, political and cultur; 
information and analysis, as well as practical skills. So it is not enough to look at th 
practical skills needed for one enterprise, rather women need to examine nation; 
strategies to promote their economic rights as well.
104 Book Reviews 
Bearing in mind this one reservation, these books are recommended to 
Zimbabweans, and others involved in small economic projects. 
Reviewed by Kathy Bond-Stewart, Harare. 
Women in the Third World. A Directory of Resources, Thomas P Fenton and Mary 
J Heffron (eds), Orbis Books, Maryknoll, New York, 1987 (US$9,95, Hipp). 
This directory of resources relating to women in the Third World includes lists of 
organisations, books, periodicals, pamphlets and articles, and audiovisual and other 
resources which in one way or another relate to, serve, work for, or bring together 
women in the Third World. The Third World in this case includes people and 
countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Latin America and the Carribean, and the 
Middle East — but not 'third world' elements in the industrialised nations of the First 
World. This publication updates the chapter on women from an earlier publication 
Third World Resource Directory (Orbis: 1984). It is one of a number of resource 
books published by Orbis Books, for Maryknoll, which have been compiled by 
Thomas Fenton and Mary Heffron of the Third World Resources project of the Data 
Centre, a public-interest information library. 
Marilee Karl, ISIS International Coordinator, writes very positively about this 
publication in the Foreword (vii): 
"Leafing through the pages of this directory gives a feeling for the breadth, depth, 
and dynamism of women's consciousness-raising and organisational efforts in the 
Third World. Here are the voices of Central American women, suffering in strifetorn 
situations, of women from rural villages in Asia drawn by poverty into the 
sex-tourism industry in the capital cities or around US military bases, of Mexican 
women working in US owned border industries, or Third World women explaining 
just what the world economic crisis means to the survival chances of millions of 
families like their own." 
In addition to indicating how much material of value there is in this publication, 
Marilee Karl's comments point also to the statement of political orientation made by 
the editors, who indicate that the resource directories are partisan and biased in 
favour of a radical analysis of Third World affairs. This political orientation is 
reflected in the objectives of the Data Centre for its series of publications on Third 
World issues, as stated in the Preface (xf): 
1. to strengthen the ties among organisations diat oppose the injustices in foreign 
military and economic intervention in the Third World by helping to dismantle the 
institutional, issue-related, and regional barriers that now divide these groups. 
2. to legitimise and give equal time to alternative points of view on Third World 
affairs in general and on the involvement of the United States and other major powers 
in the Third World in particular. 
3. to promote the education/action resources of Third World-related organisations 
in a sustained, focused, and professional manner. 
4. to put in the hands of researchers and organisers in the Third World 
comprehensive guides to Third World-related organisations and educational 
resources in other parts of the world. 
5. to direct concerned citizens in First World countries to the books, periodicals, 
audiovisuals, and other resources they need to study in order to take informed and
Book Reviews 105 
effective action to correct injustices in the ways their governments and business treat 
Thirld World nations and peoples. 
An enormous amount of work has obviously gone into the development of this 
directory. Particularly useful are the large number of annotated entries, many 
presented in some detail, and the format and presentation of the information. Where 
possible addresses, contact information, costs, and so on are also given. The indexing 
and contents pages in this publication, as is necessary in a resource directory, are very 
thorough. The information is indexed by organisations, individuals, titles, 
geographical areas and subjects, and the geographical spread of information is fairly 
impressive. As a directory this publication appears to serve its purpose very well, and 
is to be recommended. 
However, a directory of resources such as this one can rarely be exhaustive, as is 
recognised by the editors in their introduction. But, even more importantly, it is also 
likely to reflect the most available resources. In this sense a reader could expect to 
find a large proportion of the resources listed actually originating from outside the 
Third World, from the First World, or from the more accessible and 'fluent' Third 
World countries. This of course is a reflection of the current world information order 
and the lack of publishing resources in the Thirld World. Even when Third World 
writers are published this tends to be through publishers in the First World. And, 
indeed, alarge proportion of the resources in this directory, especially those on which 
some detailed information is given, are based in First World countries. While the 
production of this resource directory on Women in the Third World is laudatory, it 
seems a great pity that we in the Third World can't take responsibility for this kind of 
data collection and presentation ourselves. 
In this respect I wonder if the presentation of information could be altered to 
focus first on the resources originating from organisations based in the Third World, 
and then move onto the First World support groups and publications. This emphasis 
would I think show up more sharply the need to deliberately seek information 
'owned' by the Third World, highlight the relative paucity of published information 
of this kind, and be in keeping with the stated political bias of this series of Third 
World Resource books. 
This directory of resources is a valuable catalogue of existing resources and 
publications relating to women in the Third World and should prove to be a useful 
resource for organisations in both the first and third worlds who are interested in 
issues relating to women, and to justice. 
Reviewed by Brigid Willmore, Harare, Zimbabwe. 
The Woman's Question and The Modes of Human Reproduction. An Analysis o: 
a Tanzanian Village, by Ulla Vuorela, The Finnish Society for Development Studiei 
and the Finnish Anthropological Society in cooperation with the Scandinaviar 
Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1987 (2S4pp, SEK 120). 
The author puts forward a theory of modes ofhuman reproduction, in an attempt tc 
illuminate and explain the role of gender in materialist analyses of modes o 
production. She points out that the relations of mating and those of filiation ar< 
important for ordering power relations in all activities in which different generation: 
are involved. Vuorela holds that the modes of human reproduction are constitutet 
by relations and forces of human reproduction.
106 Book Reviews 
Vuorela holds that productive and reproductive relationships both appropriate 
labour within a given social formation. Although the two types of relationships are 
interdependent, they may be in opposition when one undercuts the other. For 
example, the mode of production may use and subordinate the mode of human 
reproduction in marriage in a way that generates conflicts between the two modes. 
Msoga village in Tanzania is used to illustrate and validate the author's theory. The 
fact that the Kwere people in Msoga are matrilineal is interesting because it enables 
her to elaborate her theory. She points out that matrilineal and patrilineal systems 
both exist within patrilineal modes of human reproduction. 
The theory is interesting and fairly well presented. Vuorela indicates that the 
discovery of the male role in paternity does not necessarily lead to the supercession of 
matrilineality by patrilineality. Her approach enables us to analyse human 
reproduction without accepting the contours imposed by androcentric assumptions. 
What could be better explained is the process by which fraternal interest groups 
make the mode of production into a patriarchal one. It is important to note that the 
strategies that are used by Kwere women have also been noted amongst women in 
patrilineal societies. Factually, it should be pointed out that it is the sperm that 
fertilise ova and not the semen. These observations do not detract from the merit of 
the theory presented by the author in her attempt to elaborate a materialist theory of 
modes of human reproduction. 
Reviewed by Rudo Gaidzanwa, Dept of Sociology, University of Zimbabwe. 
Financing Education in Developing Countries — An Exploration of Policy 
Options, World Bank, Washington DC 1986. Higher Education in Sub-Saharan 
Africa, Keith Hinchliffe, Croom Helm Ltd, 1987 (189pp, £19,95 hbk). 
These two books were written at more or less the same time, during the height of 
Thatcherite and Reaganite economics, with their emphasis on cutting public 
expenditure in the social services, including education, and on the deregulation and 
privatisation of state run institutions, especially those engaged in production. This 
kind of thinking is being exported to developing countries by Thatcherite and 
Reaganite intellectuals and the official aid agencies of these countries. It is this 
philosophy which informs the World Bank Report and to some extent Keith's report, 
although he takes a more balanced view and questions some of the assumptions 
that underlie die recommendations made by the World Bank Report. 
These two books have also come out during a period of extreme economic 
hardship in most African countries. During this period both the World Bank and the 
IMF were pressurising beleagured African governments into restructuring their 
economies by cutting down on public expenditure and increasing the privatisation of 
paras tatals. 
Basically the two books are saying that: 
(a) Education, especially university education, has become very expensive. The latter 
in some cases consumes as much as 20 per cent of the total Education budget, 
while only benefiting a small elite. 
(b) The Public cost of higher education should be recovered through making the 
student pay an economic fee, by reducing subsidies given to students in the form 
of grants, and by cutting down on non-teaching staff expenditure.
Book Reviews to: 
(c) A credit market for education, together with selective scholarships for the poor, 
should be established. 
(e) Money saved by removing subsidies on higher education should be channelled to 
the primary and secondary sectors for expansion. 
(f) There is a close relationship between levels of education, especially in terms of 
efficiency and quality graduates. The quality of education at the secondary level 
affects students' ability to study at the university level. An example is given from 
Nigeria, where in one year 72 per cent of all those who sat for the West African 
Certificate failed, especially in Science and Mathematics, necessitating the 
introduction of pre-degree science courses. 
(g) Universities in Africa have failed to deliver the goods especially in terms oi 
producing technical professionals, and science and mathematics teachers 
Furthermore the high dependency on expatriates in most African countrie; 
continues, even in those countries that have been independent for twenty years 
The product of these universities does not justify their high cost. 
The World Bank Report puts emphasis on the privatisation of schools in order tc 
increase competition within the system. This is supposed to ensure higher efficiency 
through greater managerial accountability. The report has incredible faith in the 
ability of market forces, on their own, to solve the problem of the misallocation o 
resources among the different levels in education and that they can promote equin 
through channelling more funds to the primary school level. The Report claims tha 
primary education has the highest rate of return since the largest number of student 
in developing countries are in this group. This last argument seems to be based oi 
the figures from the early 1960s when it was still relatively easy for Std 6 graduate 
to get jobs. 
Keith's book looks at primary and secondary schooling in Africa in the first rwi 
chapters, and tries to relate the output from both levels to the number of j o b 
available. The author concludes that for the primary school leaver in the 1980s ther 
are virtually no job opportunities in the formal sector. In addition, the land shortag 
is serious in most African countries, and this closes up the only other channel ope: 
to them, ie agriculture. As a result, most primary school graduates are doomed to b 
petty traders or producers in the informal sector, which is already overburdened b 
unemployed adults and where rewards are very low. 
The future is not so bright either for secondary school graduates, and even universii 
graduates, especially those in the humanities. According to the author there ai 
a number of weaknesses in the arguments put forward by institutions like the Worl 
Bank. He maintains that efficiency arguments are not backed by statistics. Fc 
example, it is alleged that there is a relationship between private fiuancing and low< 
repetition and drop out rates and that students will behave more as investors an 
less as consumers in terms of subject choice, ie they will choose those subjects th; 
have the higher rate of return (science and maths). There is also no guarantee that t\ 
monies saved from higher education will automatically be channelled to primary- an 
secondary education. It should be remembered that the decision makers in mai 
countries are able to send their children to elite private schools and there is, ther 
fore, no compulsion for them to transfer large sums of money to improve prima 
and secondary education. Privatisation in most cases has tended to work again 
equity, because wealthy communities are always a minority in any country and th'
108 Book Reviews 
resent the transfer of funds to boost schools in peasant or working class areas. 
It is interesting to note that in a country like Zimbabwe the most expensive and 
exclusive schools are in wealthy suburbs or wealthy commercial farming areas. 
Keith also makes an important observation with regard to making students pay an 
economic fee for both tuition and boarding. Many students resent paying more for 
university education, and governments are wary of giving large loans to students as 
this would inevitably commit them to giving the students employment once they 
graduate. He maintains that most of the public sector has very few vacancies for 
humanities students, but has plenty of vacancies for the technically qualified 
graduates. He mentions the case of Sudan and Somalia where there is a severe brain 
drain in terms of science graduates who are emigrating to the Gulf States where jobs 
are well paid. 
Finally, the author makes some suggestions on how to cut costs. These suggestions 
include, cutting down the number of non-teaching staff in universities, getting 
universities engaged in viable commercial activities like consulting services, or 
producing goods like furniture, vegetables, poultry, and beef. They should also 
abolish free tickets for sabbaticals — and made more resources available for research 
and teaching. 
Feeding and accommodation subsidies should also be reduced, though this is 
recognised as a political hot potato. Very few governments would survive without 
resorting to brute force, including closing the universities, should such a decision be 
taken. 
What is missing from both books is a reference to the weaknesses of the African 
economies. Particularly their inability to develop viable industries for processing the 
raw materials which are in great abundance on die continent. It is only by adding 
value to raw materials diat more jobs can be created, and so absorb the deluge of 
graduates from all levels of the educational system. 
The North-South relationship has a lot to do with the present crisis in education, 
diough it is true to say that even the capitalist countries of the West are also 
experiencing the unemployment crisis. Keith tries to relate education to the labour 
market, but does not relate the labour market to the nature and structure of African 
economies. 
The two books have been produced at an opportune moment, especially for 
Zimbabwe which has recendy established a Commission of Inquiry into the 
possibility of establishing a Second University Campus. Those involved in the 
exercise and university administration would benefit from reading the two books. 
Some of the problems and issues outlined apply equally to Zimbabwe. The two case 
studies of Nigerian and Ghananian universities contain a wealth of information 
which is relevant to Zimbabwean and orfier African universities. Strategies need to 
be developed to deal with the problem of maintaining present standards while also 
coping with increasing enrollments. 
Reviewed by Taka Mudariki, Harare. 
Social Structures: A Network Approach, Barry Wellman and S D Berkowitz (eds), 
Cambridge University Press, 1988 (513pp, £15,00) 
This edited book seems to distinguish and put forward a 'new' structural approach, 'a
Book Reviews 109 
network approach', from a variety of structural approaches common in conventional 
social anthropology and sociology. It disposes of methodological individualism, at 
one time central to social anthropology, and die reductionism inherent in social 
psychological analyses. In the process, the editors and fellow contributors to the book 
provide the reader with an invaluable contribution in respect of a review of the 
literature. 
The book is divided into five parts. Part I, 'Thinking Structurally', outlines the 
main tenets and concepts of this new structural network approach. It seeks to 
demonstrate the case for a new brand of structural analysis by giving "examples 
showing how classical problems in social inquiry can be rethought — and new 
insights developed — once the phenomena involved are seen as the systematic result 
of structural forces" (p7). More revealing of what lies behind the 'new' structural 
network approach, however, is die section by Barry Wellman that attempts to 
demonstrate how network analysis, sociometry and political economy "are 
coalescing into a common structural analytic approach" (p7). 
The other parts on 'Communities', 'Markets', 'Social Change' and 'Social 
Mobility' have all one object: to re-interpret existing studies/literature using die 'new' 
structural network analysis and related concepts. These parts seek to refute, in 
particular, normative approaches in social anthropology and sociology. For 
example, in Part IV, 'Social Change', the editors note diat there has been a longstanding 
debate with modernisation theorists "who contend that changes in an 
individual's norms and values provide the motive force for change" (p327). They 
suggest, instead, that such individualistic normative explanations ignore the ways 
the structuralists in this book associate social change with fundamental alterations in 
patterns of relationships between individuals, groups and organisations. The 
underlying assumption of their analyses is that norms and values are by-products of 
structural changes, and not their source (plO). 
To come to grips with this 'structural network approach', and hence the book 
itself, it is necessary diat we examine closely how legitimate and useful it is to have this 
amalgam composed of, as the editors say, political economy, sociometry and 
network analysis (p7). 
One thing is clear, the authors are making an attempt to bridge the gap between, 
and deal with die weaknesses in, the macro and micro approaches in die social 
sciences by capturing the best of both worlds. Wholistic approaches often lack detail 
or are not able to effectively capture small-scale processes, while micro approaches 
are generally weak in grasping structural issues. Political economy, for instance, 
bears the merits of macro approaches — of not atomising social reality (see Frank 
1967, Wallerstein 1974,1979). On the odier hand, network studies (see for example 
Bott) and sociometry give detailed and rich empirical data on particular cases. 
This is an ambitious and yet worthwhile publication. What is most uncertain 
about it is whether this synthesis, however desirable, can be achieved through the 
authors' conceptualisation of 'structural network approach', or viewing social 
structure as "ordered arrangements of relations that are contingent upon exchange 
amongmembers of social systems"(p3). The nature or basis of these relations are not 
explicated. Supposedly, these are interactive relations. Thus the concept of social 
relations is the key operative concept which is used interchangeably with social ties. 
It is not clear what underpins these ties or relations which, in any social situation, of
110 Book Reviews 
necessity, tend to benefit some more than others. To limit oneself to social relations 
per se, as the authors do in this book, serves to accentuate a particular world-view, 
that of the market or exchange. That is, relations between groups or nations are 
basically seen in market terms. Such an approach risks the very weaknesses for which 
Frank's brand of political economy has been criticised. That is, viewing relationships 
among nations in terms of exchange. Exchange relations, which are themselves 
unequal, are a consequence of other underlying relations — relations of production. 
Any approach that emphasises exchange relations clearly puts the cart before the 
horse. 
Within die bounds of conventional (British and American) sociology and social 
andiropology, which have tended to emphasise normatively structured behaviour, 
the book offers an invaluable critique. Further, in die way the authors re-conceptualise 
structural analysis, the book affords a refinement of the varieties of structuralism, 
ranging from Durkheim to Levi-Strauss. However, when compared with conceptual 
advances which have been made in 'political economy', the structural network 
approach presented in the book is inadequate in as far as it operates at the level of 
social relations whose underlying premises are as yet unclear. Further, the emphasis 
lies more on the consequences for individual behaviour in the 'network of social 
relations'. Litde attention has been given to the underlying causes or to what gives 
rise to such relations. Mention is made of scarce resources or die unequal distribution 
of resources. In particular, the issue of power, in all its manifestations — 
economic, political, social, etc — has not received attention; yet it is an issue which is 
central to political economy. For this reason, at least, the 'new structural network 
approach' is still very much in its infancy. 
Reviewed by Fanual M Nangati, School of Social Work, Harare. 
References 
Frank A G (1967) Underdevelopment in Latin America, Monthly Review 
Press 
Wallerstein I (1979) The Capitalist World Economy, Cambridge University 
Press. 
Wallerstein I (1974) The Modern World System, New York Academic Press.