the new is not yet born: conflict resolution in southern africaby thomas ohlson; stephen john...
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The New Is Not Yet Born: Conflict Resolution in Southern Africa by Thomas Ohlson; StephenJohn Stedman; Robert DaviesReview by: Gail GerhartForeign Affairs, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Jul. - Aug., 1995), pp. 157-158Published by: Council on Foreign RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20047280 .
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Recent Books
the challenges Central Asia holds for the United States.
The Ferdinand volume is a solid col
lection of essays on the five new Central
Asian republics sponsored by the Royal Institute of International Affairs at
Chatham House in London. The book
by Haghayeghi focuses on the Islamic revival in Central Asia, which it con
cludes is moderate and not anti-West
ern. But it warns that both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan could yet experience political turmoil with religious dimen sions because of the governments' harsh
treatment of Islamic forces.
Africa GAIL GERHART
Economic Change and Political
Liberalization in Sub-Saharan Africa. EDITED BY JENNIFER A. WIDNER.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994,307 pp. $45.00
(paper, $16.95). This collection of papers from a 1992 Harvard conference poses one central
question: how has political liberalization
in Africa been affected by economic decline and externally imposed eco
nomic reform? Most would agree that
the collapse of single-party systems in
the space of a few years has been the
most important phenomenon in Africa
since the end of colonialism, and that economic pressures have been instru
mental in this process. Here the consen
sus ends, however, and the analytical minefield begins. The bad news is that
nobody has a persuasive explanation for
the political economy of this continent
wide change; the good news is that
nobody claims to.
Hence this is a modest book, full of
tentative but fertile hypotheses and the kind of intellectual groping that marks what Ernest Wilson in a concluding piece
on research agendas calls the "par
adigmatic interregnum" of current polit ical science. Robert Bates takes a
promising tack with a "human capital"
analysis, arguing that constituencies for
change form around "embattled profes sionals" who have invested in the acqui sition of skills that they cannot transfer
to foreign countries through emigration. Other authors examine the political
consequences of the decline of rent
seeking opportunities for public officials
caught in the squeeze of structural
adjustment. Country studies of Benin,
Cameroon, Zambia, Ghana, Tanzania,
Kenya, and the Ivory Coast bring home the hazards of generalizing about Africa
and suggest the importance of collecting much more comparative data before
imposing theories that purport to
explain cause-and-effect relationships between economics and politics.
The New Is Not Yet Born: Conflict Resolution in Southern Africa,
by
THOMAS OHLSON, STEPHEN JOHN
STEDMAN, AND ROBERT DAVIES.
Washington: Brookings Institution,
1994,322 pp. $34.95 (paper, $14.95). This book presents no new research but
ably draws together a wealth of recent
information on politics, war, and devel
opment in Southern Africa. The authors
To order any book reviewed or advertised in Foreign Affairs, call 1-800-255-2665.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS July/August 199s [157]
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Recent Books
offer a clear and concise analysis of the
factors obstructing and abetting peace and regional cooperation, and they assess (at mid-1993) the ways in which
South Africa's transition will continue
to affect its neighbors. They argue that
the resolution of future intra- and inter
state conflicts will depend on how well
the governments of the region build per manent institutions for dialogue.
The Heritage of Islam: Women, Religion, and Politics in West Africa. BY BARBARA CALLAWAY AND LUCY
creevey. Boulder: Lynne Rienner,
1994, 221 pp. $40.00 (paper, $19.95). Does religion shape society less or more
than society shapes it? Less, according to this solidly researched study of the
comparative status of Muslim women in
northern Nigeria and Senegal. Histori
cally and geographically less exposed to
Western influences than Senegal, north
ern Nigeria today secludes women and
bars them from public life, whereas
Senegalese social and religious norms
are less discriminatory. In Senegal, Muslim women have achieved at least a
toehold in the modern sector, and a
feminist agenda is supported by a
nascent women's movement. By
con
trast, in northern Nigeria (where women were denied the vote until 1976 and today less than one percent attend
universities today), patriarchy and social
conservatism are so pervasive that
women's only hope of advancement, the
authors argue, lies in promoting gender
equality as a matter of reform within
Islamic law, or sharia. Muslim funda
mentalists, who use different interpreta tions of sharia to justify their opposition
to equality, are striving in both countries
to roll back even the minor gains of
Muslim women; But here again, the
authors predict, the greater openness of
Senegal to modern economic and social
influences (as well as the buffer against fundamentalism provided by Muslim
brotherhoods) make Senegal less likely than northern Nigeria to be swept by fundamentalist reaction.
?fricas Wars and Prospects for Peace.
by Raymond w. copsoN. Armonk:
M. E. Sharpe, 1994, 211 pp. $50.00
(paper, $19.95).
Anyone who needs to sort quickly
through Africa's catalog of contempo
rary conflicts, from Western Sahara to
Mozambique to the Horn, will welcome
this concise yet comprehensive update
(to late 1993). Organized to supplement basic international relations texts, there
are chapters on the domestic and exter
nal causes of African wars, costs and
consequences, changing contexts in the
post-Cold War world, and the prospects for positive international intervention.
The commentary is well informed, and
there are helpful maps and tables.
South Africa: Twelve Perspectives on the
Transition, edited by helen a.
KITCHEN AND J. COLEMAN
kitchen. Westport: Praeger, 1994,
203 pp. $55.00 (paper, $18.95). Most of the pieces in this volume are by
acknowledged experts, and all originally
appeared as issues of CSIS Africa Notes
published by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International
Studies. Dating from January 1988 to
January 1994, they address a range of
[158] FOREIGN AFFAIRS-Volume74N0.4
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