The activities of multi-national companies provide primary sources of economic contact between African countries and the industrialised world. The companies' operations in both resource and product markets are often influenced by impositions made, or not made, by host governments in Africa. Such impositions result from bargaining between governments and companies in which each negotiating agent is intent upon obtaining the most preferred conditions—and these are affected by variables that occupy the central focus of our analysis. First, we outline what we believe are crucial variables that affect bargaining outcomes: i.e. particular patterns of benefits and costs arising from the ways that companies manage their businesses in developing lands. Second, we note particular instances where the critical variables appear to be influential, and explore how closer concentration on these might lead to more preferential outcomes from the viewpoint of African governments.

Lenin set the tone for most successful revolutions in the twentieth century when he altered traditional Marxism to suit the conditions of Russia. Mao Tse-tung followed Lenin's example when he too adjusted Marxism (and Leninism) to a Chinese environment. It seems to follow, therefore, that attempts at revolution everywhere should not be mere imitations of previously successful upheavals but should, instead, be tailored to fit specific circumstances. Thus, African revolutions should be made on the basis of African conditions. But such conditions are not, in general, always easy to discern, nor are separate analyses of those conditions certain to be similar. This is especially true of the theories of revolution of two of the most important and influential figures in recent African history: Frantz Fanon (1925–61) and Amilcar Cabral (1925–73).

Nation-Building implies integration on a variety of levels, but the converse is not true. Integration may result in a dependency, but does not imply the mental awareness of unity. Because of the ethnic interaction that has taken place over the centuries before and during the era of colonialism, there exist greater and lesser degrees of functional integration in Africa. Because of this interaction, Ronald Cohen and John Middleton have stated that ‘ethnic units as clear-cut entities are sociological abstractions ’1 However, one would be hard pressed to find anything approaching the breadth and depth of integration so necessary for us to ignore ethnic identity and diversity within any modern African state. Nation-building indicates a movement from simple interaction, through varying degrees of systems integration, to an ultimate awareness of membership in a common polity.

Zambia inherited a system of government and administration in 1964 which was ill-suited to the tasks of political development to which her new leaders were dedicated. What little national unity and mobilisation had been achieved in the independence struggle declined with the removal of the common enemy. The Government rested on a fragile base, without the support of agreed rules and practices to limit and contain conflict, and without adequate instruments available for the implementation of its policies. So the search began for a more suitable political system, which could cope with the new needs of independence, and provide for the stability of the state and the survival of the Government.

This article is concerned chiefly with the connection between Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe's thought and that part of Nigeria's intellectual history which was the product of its nineteenth-century heritage. This relationship is important because, until comparatively recently, the intellectual life of what is now Nigeria was really an extension of that of the Negro. What we generally speak of as the beginnings of modern Nigerian social and political thought are really parochial manifestations of the more general history of the black man.

The past five years have seen a dramatic increase in the attention paid to the African military by scholars, journalists, and policy-makers. This trend is the direct result of the orgy of coup d'états, beginning in 1965, which have toppled governments of all political hues in every major region except white-dominated Southern Africa. As this article is written, well over one-third of the O.A.U.'s membership is under military rule, and there is little reason to believe that army officers will lose interest or effectiveness in the political arena.

The creation of an international secretariat is ‘the innovation that transforms a series of conferences into an organization’1 The signing of the Charter of the Organisation of African Unity by representatives of 30 independent states in the early hours of 26 May 1963 at Addis Ababa was certainly intended to transform a multiple series of international conferences—including rival meetings of the ‘Monrovia’ and ‘Casablanca’ states in particular—into a permanent regional organisation whose membership embraced all independent African states. To this end the O.A.U. Charter provided for a General Secretariat, to be directed by an Administrative Secretary-General and one or more Assistant Secretaries-General.

Post-World War II French colonial reforms, most notably those of the 1956 loi-cadre, began the process of decentralising political authority to the territorial components of the Fédération d'Afrique occidentale française (A.O.F.),1 and the Fédération d'Afrique equatoriale française (A.E.F.).2 By 1958 most of these French colonies had become autonomous Republics within the Communauté franco-africaine. Although only Guinea had opted for complete political independence in the Gaullist referendum held that year, pressures were clearly mounting in that direction for other members of the now defunct Federations.