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 .

Accessed: 16/06/2014 00:25

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Council on Foreign Relations is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to ForeignAffairs.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.43 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:25:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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]

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.43 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:25:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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

This content downloaded from 195.34.78.43 on Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:25:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions