The relationship between religious movements and political authorities in Africa has been a growing problem in political and social development. So long as these institutions of cultural life were less differentiated, and the head of the political unit was automatically the leader of organised religion, the difficulties appeared less acute. Because regal and sacerdotal roles were performed by a single person, conflicts of authority and allegiance hardly arose.1 Traditional African religion was also accommodating to foreign deities, a situation congruent with polytheism, and there was no assumption of religious exclusiveness.2 But, with the advent of different brands of Christianity and Islam, the relations between religious and political authorities changed; the former increasingly became church missionaries and the latter the agents of the colony, and eventually of the state. Perhaps the most extreme religious rejection of secular authority is found in the Watch Tower movement, whose early relations with the state of Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) are the main subject of this article.

In a recent article in this Journal, J. F. Rweyemamu argues that existing trade relations between the developed and less developed countries are a major cause of the latter's poverty. In fact, he asserts that ‘the U.N. General Assembly emphasis on trade under the existing international division of labour is not only misplaced but may be regarded as a calculated strategy by the capitalist countries to mislead the developing countries’. Since trade is supposed to impoverish the developing world, Rweyemamu recommends measures leading to less reliance on the external sector and, more specifically, a programme of heavy industrialisation, in which ‘it can hardly be over-emphasised that import substitution and export promotion are not relevant as basic selection techniques’. I feel not only that Rweyemamu's policy proposals are detrimental to the interests of the developing world, but that the statistical findings and theoretical discussion from which they are derived contain both errors and omissions.

Rural development in tropical Africa is taking place on two broad fronts. First, there are the major schemes of improvement inspired by the economic planners of government or international agencies. These range in size from a few massive resettlement projects, such as those associated with major dams (the Kariba or the Volta), to the medium-scale exercises in improved agriculture, co-operative farming and village regrouping which are common in most of the newly independent African states. There is a second type of rural development, however, which is much less obvious and goes largely unrecorded. This involves the apparently piecemeal diffusion of minor services—shops, clinics, schools, agricultural demonstration units, transport and marketing facilities—little of which is planned. Even the co-ordination between public and private sectors, and between the government departments involved in the extension of these services, is limited and frequently ineffectual.

As the result of recent demographic research, we now have a reasonable basis for estimating rates of birth, death, and population growth in subSaharan Africa. These findings suggest that fertility is higher, and mortality lower, than had previously been assumed. This combination of high fertility and declining mortality implies a high rate of population growth. The compatibility of such a growth rate with existing plans for social and economic development is doubtful. This article examines the findings and issues, and seeks to determine the feasibility of population control in sub-Saharan Africa.

This article is an attempt to explore the frames of reference of two disciplines—political science and social anthropology—as they affect the study of relations between the national ‘centre’ and the local ‘periphery’ in African countries. It is exploratory, in that it reviews the assumptions and concepts characteristic of the disciplines, instead of trying to crystallise a new model. In the light of this comparison it then considers the status of what Clifford Geertz has called ‘the clichés of commonsense sociology’.1 It examines particularly one item in this collection of clichés, the notion of ‘tribalism’.

The Scandinavian Institute of African Studies in Uppsala acted as host for this conference and, together with the Swedish Federation of Co-operatives (K.F.), sponsored and financially supported it.

There is a reluctance on the part of many historians to use theoretical models for research, especially for ethnohistorical work, which is both unfortunate and unjustified. Much of the recent work in social anthropology and political science has been of great historical value precisely because the use of theory has rendered studies with an otherwise narrow scope more general in application. It is the intention of this article to examine some techniques for historical research into the process of political change among certain West African kingdoms and chiefdoms in the nineteenth century. While examining some of these techniques and the problems associated with them, it is also my intention to suggest ways in which they might be combined for use in the field.

In 1962, shortly after independence, the Government of Mali established the Institute of ‘Human Sciences’, thereby replacing the former Institutfrançais d'Afrique noire in Soudan, known as ‘Centre IFAN’ pour le Soudan. The National Archives, the National Library, and the National Museum, with collections inherited from I.F.A.N., were reorganised, and at the same time three research Divisions were created: for History and Civilisation, Linguistics and Literature, and Socio-Economics.

On 24 September 1969, three years after Botswana achieved independence, the President of the Republic, Sir Seretse Khama, addressed the 24th session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. The following extracts from his speech may be of interest to readers:

… My country is … a comparative newcomer to the United Nations, and this my first opportunity to address this General Assembly. Botswana is a small country in terms of population if not in area. As a small and poor country we set a particularly high value on our membership of the United Nations and those of its specialised agencies which our budgetary restrictions have permitted us to join. I should like to emphasise the particular importance of the United Nations for states like Botswana which, because of development priorities, are obliged to restrict their conventional bilateral contacts and keep their overseas missions to a bare minimum. Here in New York we can make contacts which would otherwise be difficult to achieve… The United Nations enables us to keep in touch with international opinion, and to put our views before the world.

Following the establishment at Makerere University College of a postgraduate statistical training course which will lay heavy emphasis on survey techniques, the Social Science Division of the Institute for Development Studies, Nairobi, is not, for the time being, pursuing its intention to establish a survey research centre. For this and other reasons the Centre last year decided against the acquisition of the Marco Survey data archives, reported in this Journal, VII, 2, 1969.

This three-day national conference was organised by the Extension Services Department of the Institute of Administration at Ahmadu Bello University, at the suggestion of the Nigerian Society for Public Administration. It was attended by chairmen, general managers, and secretaries of the major public corporations, delegates from government ministries responsible for public corporations, trade union representatives, and university teachers.

Over a year ago, ‘Africana’ included Dr D. J. Murray's detailed account of the ‘ The Reorganisation of Nigeria's Administration’, in each of the Regions, during 1967–68; see The Journal of Modern African Studies, VI, 4, December 1968. Against that background, a former Northern Nigerian civil servant, who has been involved in the process, highlights some of the practical problems of settling up six of Nigeria's 12 new states.

Before commenting on the situation in separate countries, it is useful to look briefly at the over-all state of natural resources science in Africa. This was reviewed in detail six years ago at a U.N.E.S.C.O. conference in Lagos and there has been no major change in the picture of fragmentation of effort, with as yet no effective machinery for co-operation. Some rather slow pro. gress was made by the C.C.T.A. among the countries south of the Sahara towards the co-ordination and sharing of scarce scientific resources, but this initiative has not yet been effectively regained by its successor organisation, the Scientific and Technical Research Committee of the Organisation of African Unity.

This two-day conference, co-sponsored by Georgetown's Summer School and Center for Strategic and International Studies, was attended by 150 people interested in this important subject. Directed by Dr William H. Lewis and Dr James D. Farrell, the conference brought together authorities on African political and military affairs for an open discussion of the present and possible future roles of the military in African politics.

Between 1960 and 1970 decolonisation under the auspices of the U.N. has produced issues which were not foreseen by the drafters of the Charter in 1945. If decolonisation from 1945 to 1960 was governed by the general provisions of Chapters XI, XII, and XIII of the Charter relating to non-selfgoverning and trust territories, the last decade's efforts in the same area have been governed by principles enunciated in the Declaration on Independence adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1960 and by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948. The latter period also witnessed action by the United Nations, for the first time in its history, under Chapter VII of the Charter, which deals with enforcement measures.

This seminar was intended for government servants, primarily from Eastern Africa, who wished to discuss some problems, concerning the establishment and functioning of institutions of regional economic co-operation, with which they were directly involved. The East African Community (E.A.C.) was a timely choice as the main subject for detailed study and discussion, having been established as recently as December 1967; it had for the first time introduced into existing co-operation the concept of a legally regulated common market as an integral part of the Community.

Throughout the developing world today the accent is upon economic growth. No reasonable man can question this emphasis while inequalities among nations, and inequalities within nations, remain so glaring. Inevitable and healthy as this may be, it raises one fundamental question, Growth for what? Growth for growth's sake? Growth for those astute enough to profit from it? Or growth as an essential concomitant of political stability and social justice for the whole community? There are other searching questions. Is democracy compatible with economic growth? Are human rights and civil liberties, free enterprise and free trade unionism, compatible with growth? Where they conflict, which comes first? or what reasonable compromise can be made?