This article examines the challenges to building a civil society based on strong voluntary associations in Ethiopia, a country like most others in sub-Saharan Africa where neither the social structures nor the institutional setting is congenial to the growth and sustenance of a civic tradition....

Goran Hyden takes a critical look at African development in relation to today's global world. He offers some insights into why Africa has gone backwards rather than forwards. He questions both African governments and the international community and suggests that through a new approach to global...

This paper critically examines key concepts that have been dominant in the internationaldevelopment community in the past twenty years. Starting with an analysis of the state in Africa,it shows how the international donors have ignored many of the underlying conditions that makeit weak and soft....