At the turn of the century, Sayid Maxamad Cabdille Xasan led a 21-year battle against foreign colonialists in the Somali lands. Then British aircraft mercilessly bombarded his main fort at Talex in 1920, and he died a few months later, his military forces in utter disarray. The Sayid, as he is known, is none the less considered the father of modern Somali nationalism. Military defeat did not spoil the lustre of this hero's feats.

This article uses survey data from Tunisia to examine some of the ways that individual attitudes change in a developing society. At the same time, it is addressed to some inadequacies of modernisation theory, attempting both to understand better the impact of social change on attitudes, and to delineate the nature and consequences of different kinds of modernisation experiences. Modernisation studies usually treat lifestyle variations produced by social change as uni-dimensional so far as their effect on attitudes is concerned. The present study argues that lifestyles do not always change in an integrated fashion, and in particular that acculturation and socio-economic status, two basic dimensions of individual life circumstances in developing societies, often and increasingly vary independently of one another. It then demonstrates with data from Tunisia that measures of acculturation and socio-economic status bear independent and dissimilar relationships to many attitudes known to be associated with social change, and thereafter discusses the implications of these relationships for modernisation and political development. The focus of the analysis is on general theoretical issues.

There has been a fairly standard flirtation in Africa between new states and an apparently attractive type of local government. District councils have usually been hastily instituted during the last stages of colonial rule; important functions are transferred to them after independence, and there is great faith in their ability to act as autonomous links between the centre and the periphery. This initial period of optimism, however, quickly dissipates and is replaced by growing disappointment with the ability of the councils to handle various problems. A recentralisation of authority in the capital city then becomes almost inevitable.1

The orthodox tradition in studies and explanations of lab our migration has been to adopt the perspective of those who move. Such a framework of analysis has then addressed itself to (i) the reasons why individuals and groups decide to migrate, and (ii) the consequences. As regards the first issue, it has generally been accepted that the phenomenon of migration is in response to economic forces that push and/or pull people out of their own communities into others – the ‘invisible hand of the market’. As for the second issue, emphasis is placed on the problematics of adjustment or assimilation into the host community, and also on the new values, as well as the other stimulants – good or bad – that the returning migrants bring home.

It is March 1970 and a quiet warm Sunday afternoon in the town of Yungay. Most of the children are attending a performance by the visiting circus in the stadium, while their parents are relaxing in anticipation of the busy week ahead. The market is crowded with peasants who are selling and tourists who are buying. This picturesque town of 4,500 inhabitants is festive, and from many a house the radio can be heard broadcasting the World Cup soccer match from Mexico City.

In the 1950s the South African Government developed a broad strategy aimed at maintaining the supply of forced labour, named apartheid or ‘separate development’. Much more than a system of segregation, the programme involved moving large numbers of Africans from the urban centres into the underdeveloped Reserves, comprising 14 per cent of the least arable land in South Africa. Industry would then be shifted to the borders of these Bantustans. This last element of the scheme, the policy of industrial decentralisation, has been the main instrument for providing income to Africans in the rural areas. By examining this element in South African state planning, within the context of the apartheid system as a whole, I have tried to isolate some of the crucial dynamics of forced labour.

The article by Michael F. Lofchie on ‘Agrarian Crisis and Economic Liberalisation in Tanzania’, published in this Journal, Vol. XVI, No. 3, September 1978, pp. 451–75, has already aroused considerable comment and raises a number of points of substantial general interest. It is, however, to my mind, somewhat misleading in several respects. Few, I think, would now dissent from the very general proposition that agricultural policies in the period up to 1974–5 contributed both to a generally slow rate of growth of production and to the major shortfall in output of that year, and that this in turn contributed to changes in policy since then.

This short article is based on the rather unusual research methodology of enforced participant observation. The participatory element was not simply a device to facilitate observation, but was enforced by the need to get petrol.1 The analysis presented here of Nigerian petrol queues has obvious parallels with earlier works by such writers as Max Gluckman and J. Clyde Mitchell.2 There are, however, some important differences, in terms of both the type of ‘situation’ analysed and the scope of the projections thereafter.3

It can be suggested that the ‘economic development’ of most Third-World nations today will be reflected in two distinct but interrelated processes: (1) a rise in economic productivity and in real incomes, and (2) a reduction in fertility and a corresponding slowing down in the rate of population growth.1 Historically, an increase in both the number of cities in a country and the number and proportion of the population living there, has been closely associated with both these processes. Accordingly, as urbanisation proceeds in Africa it might logically be assumed that economic growth and demographic modernisation are also taking place. It is our purpose in this brief article to offer a partial explanation for the fact that this historical association has not characterised recent trends in the continent.

Since 1967, the year of the Arusha Declaration, Tanzania's rural policy has provided a major focus for scholars interested in the problems of development in the Third World.1 Jonathan Barker has noted that many writers on Tanzania's rural policy fall into one of two camps: ‘production socialists’ who make the basic assumption that communal production per se is desirable, and concentrate much of their research activity on the various social and political constraints; and ‘production liberals’ who are generally sceptical of the effectiveness of communal production, and they would prefer to see greater emphasis placed on the ‘self-improvement motive of families and individuals’.2

It is reasonable to assume that violence is a common recurring condition in all parts of the world, during all periods of history, and at all stages of social development. Yet there is not a single, compelling theory that specifies, even crudely, a comprehensive causal model of political violence.1 The reason, as C. N. Cnudde points out, is ‘that the processes which bring about change in a unit as vast as a nation are much more complex than any single theory predicts’.2 This complexity of the process has not, however, hindered the growth of scholarly literature. On the contrary, social scientists, despite certain theoretical and methodological difficulties, have subjected this relatively uncharted area to further exploration.