There are nations and there are states. There is, for example, an Armenian nation but no state, and it is the aim of some Armenian nationalists to set up a state. This example follows a liberal European paradigm; that a sense of nationhood creates unity of purpose that allows the state to come into existence, and creates a consensus of popular acceptance that enables it to function. The state may be carved out of something larger, as in the Greek case, or out of smaller units, as in the German case. There is plenty of evidence, ancient and modern, that without a consensus of acceptance, it is very difficult for a state to prosper economically or to be free of repression and crippling internal conflict.

By the time most African countries achieved independence in the early 1960s, education had become a sacred cow for both the governments and the people. For the former, education represented a major tool for nation-building and development which, in those days, meant essentially rapid industrialisation; for the latter, education–especially at the post-primary levels–was the main vehicle for social mobility, primarily because it made possible the acquisition of a well-paid job in the modern sector. For a few years it looked as if there was no contradiction between the aspirations of the people and the goals of the governments, on the one hand, and the socio-economic realities, on the other. Soon the bubble burst, however: industrialisation turned out to be no panacea; the limits of Africanisation were rapidly reached in the civil service, but proved to be a protracted affair in the economy. As the ugly scourge of youth unemployment started to spread in Africa by the mid-1960s, attention was focused on educational systems which began to be perceived as ‘dysfunctional’–i.e. as incompatible with the social and economic realities which were largely agricultural and rural. But more ominously, schools came also under attack as serving mainly the interests of the emerging bourgeoisies.

One of the more popular topics in the social science literature of the late 1960s was coups d'état in Africa. Authors developed sophisticated social, political, and economic measurements that were meant to be of explanatory, if not predictive, value. Military coups often succeed because of conditions that are universal to African countries: poor institutionalisation, over-dampening of demands, economic shortfalls, failure of political leadership, competition among élites including army officers, as well as dissatisfaction specific to the military. With no long-standing indigenous and successful tradition of legitimate civilian national government, African countries are particularly vulnerable to abrupt successions of leadership.

Of the four current schemes for international economic integration in West Africa, the operation of the Communauté économique de l'Afrique de l'Ouest has been recently reviewed, the Economic Community of West African States continues to be widely discussed, while the agreement of the Presidents of Senegal and Gambia in Dakar on 17 December 1981 to establish a Senegambian Confederation, and to develop an economic and monetary union between the two countries, is as yet in its formative stages. This article examines the structure, progress, and potential of the Mano River Union (M.R.U.) about which little has been published.

Democratic politics embraces, inevitably and inescapably, an uneasy tension between conflict and consensus. If liberal democracy is defined as the institutionalisation of regular competition for political offices and policies, then clearly, there cannot be democracy without conflict. On the other hand, precisely because constitutional democracy is the institutionalisation of conflict, it is vulnerable to the decay of political order – and of the very political liberties that distinguish it from other governmental forms – that may result when conflict becomes to intense. The containment of political conflict within certain boundaries of behavioural restraint has, therefore, long figured prominently in the writing of theorists on the conditions for stable democracy.

The erudition of the late W. E. B. DuBois was never more prophetic than in 1903 when he issued his famous dictum that ‘The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line – the relation of the darker to the lighter race of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea.’ The United States of America, for its remarkable technological achievement and democratic example, despite decades of difficulty in race relations; and the Republic of South Africa, for its unique violation of human rights: each represents in its own special way both the best and the worst in human history, and are fitting testaments to DuBois's clairvoyance.

Peaceful resolution of the international conflict over Namibia has been a significant preoccupation of the United States and its four partners in the western contact group since April 1977, but neither the efforts led by the Administration of Jimmy Carter nor the very different approach taken by Ronald Reagan has succeeded. To the contrary, prospects for peaceful change in Namibia are ebbing. The present stalemate in negotiations is unlikely to be resolved before the end of Reagan's first term in January 1985. In the meantime, the territory's political, economic, and social circumstances will continue to stagnate, and the low-level and intermittent fighting in the northern operational areas will probably expand in scope and costs.

In summary, six striking parallels have been found between the artist archetypes in Liberia and the United States, each of which appears to be rooted in some structural similarity between the two societies at the material and social levels. The structural factors which have been suggested as pivotal in determining the nature of the artist archetype have included: (1) the atypicality of the carver/artist/s labour process via-à-vis that of other workers; (2) the development of an alternate value profile congruent with that atypical process; (3) the need for itinerancy/migration to ensure a large enough market for self-support; (4) dependence on the élite class for patronage; (5) relative economic insecurity; and (6) a definition of the product which necessitates solitary labour. These factors combine to create in the general public the image of the artist described earlier.

Some carvers and artists may appear to exhibit the traits imputed to them, and even ‘play into’ their expected image; but this phenomenon can be explained without invoking some innate ‘artistic temperament’ or transcultural ‘artist's rôle’. Rather, we can conclude that carvers and artists, like other human beings, are subject to specific material and social constraints that shape their own consciousness and that of their public. Though individuals make art, it is as true of art as of history, that ‘they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given, and transmitted from the past’.