Contemporary interest in the black African middle class requires holistic attention to how this class has developed historically. In what follows, the origins of the African middle class are located in the efforts of Christian missionaries to create a literate, 'civilized' African elite. The...

World Development Report 1997: The State in a Changing World. By the World Bank. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp.viii + 265. ISBN 0 19 521115 4 and 521114 6 Agenda for Africa's Economic Renewal. Edited by Benno Ndulu and Nicolas van de Walle. New Brunswick and Oxford: Transaction...

The African National Congress (ANC) as a liberation movement drew much of its strength from its moral underpinnings as fighting for a just society. However, since its acquisition of political office in 1994, the ANC is widely perceived to have lost its moral compass. This demoralization needs to...

Jacob Zuma's defeat of Thabo Mbeki's bid to serve a third term as the president of the African National Congress (ANC) at the party's 52nd National Conference in Polokwane in December 2007 provoked a torrent of analysis. In large part, this was because Zuma himself was a highly controversial and...

The emphasis initially laid by the African National Congress (ANC) on national reconciliation after 1994 meant that its ideas about Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) were non-threatening to white interests. However, the government's recent strategy is more assertive, having the aim of creating a...

The peace dividend in southern Africa may serve to underpin NEPAD's bid for economic growth and development. However, it is by no means so clear that the region is embarked upon an unambiguous progression towards the consolidation of democracy. Indeed, there are deeply worrying indications that...

Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) has become one of the most high profile strategies of African National Congress (ANC) government. Yet BEE has also become highly controversial, critics arguing variously that it serves as a block to foreign investment, encourages a re-racialisation of the...