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...

Review Article: Ian Scoones, Nelson Marongwe, Blasio Mavedzenge, Jacob Mahenehene, Felix Murimbarimba and Crispen Sukume (2010), Zimbabwe’s Land Reform: Myths and Realities, London: James Currey, ISBN 978-1-84701-024-7; Harare: Weaver Press, ISBN 978-1-77922-110-0; Johannesburg: Jacana Media,...

Constribution to the Debate on the Political Culture in (Southern) African States in Africa Spectrum.

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...

South Africans voted in their country.s fourth democratic general election on 22 April 2009. The African National Congress (ANC) again secured a substantial victory. It might seem that the 2009 Elections proved to be .business as usual.. Yet such a conclusion is unjustified, for events had...

The persistence of the debate about whether the African National Congress (ANC) can or should be characterized as a "dominant party" was illustrated by exchanges between the country's leading political parties during the 2004 general election. The ANC, which views its hegemony as expressing its...

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...