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While post-development theory is very concerned with the ways in which development has impacted upon the countries of the Global South, there has been relatively little written on post-development theory from an African perspective. This paper identifies some of the ways in which post-development theory fails to adequately understand the African experience of development. In particular, I explore the difficulty that post-development theory confronts when faced with the continued desire on the part of many people in Africa for development. In his introduction to the new edition ofThe Development Dictionary, Wolfgang Sachs discusses this desire, noting that despite development’s many failures, many still associate the concept with self-affirmation and redress. He explains this continued desire for development as being indicative of the need for the decolonisation of the imagination. In this paper, I show some of the problems with this explanation and present alternative ways of understanding the persistence of the desire for development in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers an interpretation of the political culture which has emerged in South Africa since President F. W. de Klerk's reforms of February 1990. A useful way of approaching political cultures is to see them as syntheses of contradictory elements or impulses. For instance the sometimes contrary demands of liberty and equality, or of ethnicity and common citizenship might struggle for expression. Elements of continuity and change will mark a political culture in either evolutionary or revolutionary transformation. To observe that the political culture which has been evolving since February 1990 is marked by deep contradictions does not make South Africa unique, but there are aspects of these contradictions which make it singular among others with similar experiences. It is the argument of this paper that South Africa's prospects of a settled future can be seen in terms of five contradictions in search of a synthesis and that the April 1994 election will provide an important pointers as to whether and how this synthesis is likely to be achieved.

This article examines Africa's role in an evolving international system where powerful emerging markets, such as bric, together with established powers are shaping economic trajectories. The specific focus is on South Africa as an aspiring leader on the African continent, and on its potential for becoming an emerging market shaping the global order together with bric and the West. It is unclear whether a changing global economy in which the postcolonial world plays a greater role will result in improved developmental prospects for Africans as African countries gradually reorient themselves from the West to the South, or whether relations with emerging markets will resemble neo-colonial ties with the West. South Africa's structural weakness, stemming from serious domestic problems of a social, political and economic nature, threatens to undermine its standing in Africa and its emerging market status. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]