Academics and aid officials are increasingly turning their attention to two aspects of rural development: the structure of the local society, and the social impact of agricultural programmes. In part this reflects a pessimistic and moralistic reassessment of earlier attempts to promote development in the Third World. However, this analytical focus also represents the continuing evolution of research by those who are engaged in refining their theoretical perspectives on rural society.

In the last few years, there has been a sharp upsurge in the popularity of Marxism among intellectuals in African countries. The earlier African ideologies - ujamaa, humanism, négritude – with their softer, reconciliatory attitudes, and their stress on brotherhood rather than class struggle, have lost some of their appeal for progressive or radical African intellectuals. The reasons for this decline are fairly obvious. The early progressive ideologies are all now associated with governments in power, thus with the status quo, and cannot become the motivating force for those desiring change.

Conventional WisdomOne of the most widely accepted assumptions in the literature on rural development during the past two decades has been the belief that ‘favouring the progressive farmer’ is prudent policy. The safest way of investing rural development funds, it has been argued repeatedly, is to allocate them to those who have already succeeded in farming or business, or who have had relevant training or education. They are the people who are the most likely to achieve increased levels ofb production and income.

The theme of this article is the decline of customary law in Upper Volta where, like most countries in Africa, customary courts operate side by side with the modern, ex-colonial legal system.1 My study of Le Tribunal de Premier Instance in Bobodioulasso suggests that customary courts may not in fact apply customary law. An examination of the criteria and the process by which decisions are reached here may help us to gain an insight into the function the Court serves for the community.

The ultimate reality in culture change… hinges on the fact that corresponding institutions in two cultures satisfy analogous needs in different ways and with different techniques; but in the process they have to use the same human and natural resources: land, capital, labor, politically organized force, the impulses of human reproduction, and also the standardized emotions, values and loyalties specific to each culture. – Bronislaw Malinowski, Dynamics of Culture Change (New Haven, 1945), p. 71.

Following the useful distinction made by Marc J. Swartz this is a study in ‘local-level’ rather than ‘local’ politics, because of the fundamental fact that ‘actors and groups outside the range of the local multiplex relationships are vitally and directly involved in the political processes of the local group’.1 The political process is therefore not discrete. My focus is on the interrelationships existing between political forces within and outside the Kgatleng District of Botswana, and my analysis deals with the situation as it existed during the early 1970s; changes in certain key variables – most crucially the attitude of the Chief to the Government – could radically alter the configuration of alliances, as may be seen from my postscript.

Among the rights promised to individuals and groups, the ‘right of association’ frequently appears. It is enshrined in national constitutions, in international declarations and conventions, and in standard references to the liberties and privileges that citizens enjoy. Yet, as this article will illustrate, restrictions on this right have been justified in the name of higher objectives. The right of association, it would appear, is a conditional or second-order right, subordinated on occasion to more pressing rights. The strains of recent independence, regionalism, and labour unrest have brought about limits to the creation of association, whether political or non-political in nature.

For two hectic months in 1972 an I.L.O./U.N.D.P. mission gathered in Nairobi to deliberate on the employment problems facing Kenya. The report which was published before the end of the year received a good deal of publicity,1 much of it complimentary, and served as a blue print for subsequent I.L.O. employment missions to other developing countries.2 Six years later it seems opportune to review briefly those of its recommendations which were specifically aimed at the agricultural sector, and to assess the extent to which they have influenced the policies of the Government.

IN his thorough sociological study of Afrikaner ideology, Dunbar Moodie has shown that the civil theology most adequate to the exigencies of the 1930s was an interpretation ‘which was tight enough to unite Afrikaners and yet loose enough to allow considerable difference of opinion on practical matters’.2 While the same functional needs for a proper ideology remain for the 1970S and 80s, ‘civil theology’ can no longer fulfil this task. This is mainly due to increased secularisation and value changes in an urbanised life, which has diluted traditional culture with the corruptive spoils of affluence. Moodie aptly concludes that the exigencies of Afrikaner power have changed the debate from one between rival metaphysical interpretations of Christian-Nationalism (Kuyperianism, neo-Fichteanism, Volkskerk) to that of ‘the very continuance of ideology itself’.3 Such considered findings are confirmed by similar observations of ‘outsiders’ who have returned after a lengthy exile. In the assessment of Ezekiel Mphahlele:

Company dividend policy involves the periodic determination of the proportion and stability of a firm's distributable earnings payable to its equity shareholders. The variables which influence the decision, especially in developed economies, have been highlighted by the pioneering work of J. Lintner,2 and by the research findings of other scholars.3

It is widely believed that old soldiers are a problem. At least since the beginning of this century, western governments have been concerned with the issue of ‘helping’ veterans to readjust to civilian life upon their return from campaigning. It is assumed that these men would, if left to their own devices, find it difficult or impossible to ‘pick up from where they had left off’, and might, therefore, become a subversive element in the general population. Hence, one of the largest bureaucracies in the United States is the Veterans Administration which is charged with fitting ex-soldiers back into society. To a certain extent the concerns over whether they would be satisfied after their demobilisation have proved to be justified. The dislocations experienced by returned American servicemen after World War II were illustrated by popular films like ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’. More recently, the American press paid considerable attention to the rôle of the black veterans of Vietnam in the violence which destroyed much of Newark, Detroit, and Watts in the late 1960s.

This short article analyses the demand for and the use of educational indicators with reference to Swaziland. The data requirements are considered as well as the policy implications of establishing a fixed series, and an educational input-output table is constructed in an attempt to derive an all-embracing set of indicators. The Markov model presented here was initially created in order to help forecast what might happen to the Swaziland education system rather than to describe it. As the discussion of the data requirements below suggests, however, this can be considered a fortunate birth.

Rumour and gossip have been noted in a wide range of sociological studies as performing significant functions: for the informant and the recipient, and for the relationship between them, as well as for the society in which they live.1 Although many items often appear to be insignificant, they may be part of a complex web of information and speculation which is a vital element in a particular community. Social scientists might be described as ‘scandal mongers’ par excellence since they live professionally off the minutiae of gossip which they manage to gather: they read political memoirs or listen to uninformed discussion and random recollection, because this material may contain important information about social behaviour.

Is food aid an effective means of assisting the needy, or a cynical response to inefficient agricultural policies in the rich countries? The second view is increasingly being heard, particularly in the main donor countries;2 yet the World Food Council, on which the developing countries are strongly represented, has called for even greater efforts so that at least 10 million tons of grain are available for food aid each year. This brief article outlines the scope and major conclusions of an O.D.I. research project that has studied the impact of food aid in four African countries in order to answer the question posed in the title.3

Political scientists during the last 20 years have been bombarded by a bewildering array of approaches and methods to the study of their discipline, including structural-functionalism, systems and partial systems, decision-making, costs and benefits, patron-client relationships, micro-politics, politimetrics, mobilisation systems, survey research, aggregate data and content analysis, Q methodology, and experimentalism. With so many different approaches and techniques available to students of politics, it is not surprising that the discipline is in a twilight period characterised by confusion and disillusionment.