This special double ISSUE is brought to readers via generous grants from the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation, and the support of Haverford College. The African authors in this double ISSUE were recruited in summer 1992 with the help of many friends of the African Studies Association in USA and Africa. All of them (with the exception of N’Diaye) participated in two panels sponsored by ISSUE at the annual meeting of ASA in Seattle in November 1992. Those not resident at the time in the USA spent almost two weeks traveling and speaking to various groups around the USA in the period surrounding the ASA meetings. This period in November and December 1992 also provided an opportunity to exchange ideas within the group and prepare the final drafts. Consequently, the articles reflect views and events no later than the end of 1992. A year in the making, this ISSUE is an attempt to bring to bear an African perspective on the emerging new African political order of the 1990s. In the past few years we have become familiar—at least on the surface—with the vast political changes sweeping across the Continent. ISSUE’s effort tries to project African voices into the center of the commentary and debate on democratization and new patterns of international relations in Africa.

Since 1989, the “winds of change” have swept throughout Africa, signaling the dawn of a new era, variously referred to as the “second independence,” or the “Springtime of Africa.” After three decades of authoritarian one- (or no) party rule characterized by political repression, human rights abuses, economic mismanagement, nepotism and corruption, democracy is spreading like bushfire throughout Africa. In 1992 an evaluation of the Carter Center’s African Governance Program, noted that 9 African countries may be described as “democratic,” 4 are under a “directed democracy” regime, and 31 are in transition to democracy, with various degrees of commitment. Popular struggles for democracy in Africa are not new, they have been here since independence. But recent changes in the structure of the international system (notably successful popular struggles for democracy in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union) have created a generally favorable and supportive environment for their development and maturation.

After the fall of Ethiopia’s tyrannical military regime in May 1991, there is more than ever a commitment to create institutions that embody ideals of popular sovereignty, political equality and pluralism. A democratic constitution is in the making. A constitutional commission has undertaken to draw up a draft. Upon the approval of the draft constitution by the council of representatives of the transitional government, it will be presented to a popularly elected constituent assembly for ratification in 1993.

Sudan is a typical case of many postcolonial nation-states in Africa characterized by multiethnic, multicultural and multi-religious societies. It is an example of a pluralistic society formed by people who have differences in their sense of belonging and national identity. As in other African countries, the Sudanese situation is caused to a large extent by inequalities in power sharing and access to wealth and unequal development opportunities. In Sudan, the outcome has been a constant crisis of governance, civil war, ethnic genocide, famine and other man-made disasters which have crippled the country since independence. Differing visions for the future of the country have been contested. At one extreme is the vision of separation (formation of two states), at the other, the preservation of the status quo by any means, including violent ones (the military solution), which in a way means the continuation of inequalities within a united country. Proposals such as decentralization of the power of the state through a federal system, autonomy for the South and other disenfranchised regions of the country, or the right of self-determination, have at times been propagated by one political group or another.

The complex process of democratization in Kenya continues with the competitive but flawed national elections of December 1992 and their disputed aftermath. This article examines the crisis of governance and legitimacy in Kenya in the context of the rise of opposition parties and the reemergence of multiparty competitive politics before the December 1992 elections.

Lamenting the proliferation of factionalism in the Zimbabwe liberation movement during the 1970s, an observer once commented, “If you were to put two Zimbabweans on the moon and visited them the next day, you would find that they have formed three parties.” This observation was a criticism of splits and divisions that tended, some believed, to weaken the liberation movement.

For several years now, Africa has been forced to reexamine its image as a continent that is dominated by single-party regimes, which have characterized it for the past three decades. For the most past, the demands have centered around multiparty systems. These have either been peaceful, when the leaders have accepted to undertake the political changes involved, or violent.

Since the 1960s, Southern Africa’s regional alliance patterns have been primarily determined by South Africa’s military and economic dominance of the region. Not surprisingly, divisive and conflict-ridden relations between South Africa and the less powerful majority-ruled states characterized interstate relations in the region throughout this period. In the 1970s, the latter’s collective and individual opposition to an apartheid-dominated regional order gave rise to two competing regional blocs: the South African-led Pax Pretoriana and the Frontline States (FLS) informal diplomatic alliance, which became the nucleus of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC).

The birth of a more democratic South Africa will touch the sociopolitical sinews of Southern Africa deeply. Change in the faulty economic engine room of the region, the transition to accountable rule and the country’s readmission to Africa, unfold against a wider global canvas. For Southern Africa the corrosive imperatives of a New World Order may well usher in an era of further peripheralization, heightened competition and conflict between the capitalist industrial North and competing fractions of international capital over global markets and access to the economies of the developing South. The big losers may well be the developing countries of the South.

The West African force known as the ECOWAS Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) was sent to Liberia by ECOWAS (Economic Community of West African States). A closer look at the Force shows that it is an adaptation of the peacekeeping system used by the United Nations. What started as a system of collective security based on the regional security mechanism of ECOWAS turned into a standard peacekeeping operation as a result of “the Yamoussoukro process.”

This is a Liberian perspective on the unique initiative by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to resolve the Liberian conflict by organizing and deploying a Peace Monitoring Group in Liberia. It considers whether ECOWAS’ initiative can become a self-reliant security system that can end a civil war and institutionalize deterrence to subregional inter-state and internal conflicts. Can this self-generated, West African initiative set the stage for democratization? Is the initiative the start of an inter-African cooperative security system? Is the model of Nigerian leadership a harbinger of a regional hegemony in the making? Is the modest role of the USA constructive in resolving the conflict, in light of the fact that Liberia is a country with which the USA has had an historic relationship?

For the first time in the history of Africa, a regional conflict, such as that in Liberia, has succeeded in producing an indigenous regional mechanism for conflict management. The conflict may not yet be resolved, but its management demands an in-depth understanding. This attempts an interpretation of the Liberian crisis from Nigeria’s perspective.