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Africa and Latin America secured independence from European colonial rule a century and half apart: most of Latin America by the 1820s and most of Africa by 1960. Despite the distance in time and space, they share important similarities. In each case independence was followed by political instability, violent conflict, and economic stagnation lasting for about a half-century. The parallels suggest that Africa might be exiting from a period of postimperial collapse and entering one of relative political stability and economic growth, as did Latin America almost two centuries ago. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts for different articles published in the vol. 51 of the periodical "Diogenes." The first abstract is for Dismas A. Masolo's article "Reason and Culture: Debating the Foundations of Morals in Pluraist World." Ngugi wa Thionǵo and Eunice Njeri Sahle's "Hegel in African Literature: Achebe's Answer," focuses on African literature. Jean-Godefroy Bidima's "Rationalities and Legal Processes in Africa," focuses on legal system in Africa. Other article are also on various issues pertaining to the Social Science.

Both rapid leadership turnover and remarkably durable leaders can be found side by side in African systems of personal rule. In order to explain differences in time in power among African leaders we employ life tables analysis and hazard models, a multivariate technique. We find that the risk of losing power is a decreasing function of time that is little affected by country or leader particularities. The best predictor of whether a leader will lose power in any given period is the length of rule up to that point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article offers a guide to the 2005 edition of the book "Africa Bibliography." Publications covered in this bibliography are of interest to students in the social and environmental sciences, development studies, humanities and arts. The main sources of data for this volume are noted. The types of entry contained in this bibliography are periodical articles, books and pamphlets and chapters.

With the disenchantment with independence in Africa, economic failure, the crimes of the elites from the independence years, the paralysis of symbolism, and finally the states' loss of dynamism, the 1990s ushered in a so-called phase of democratization. This was about rethinking citizenship and the relationship to politics. This democratization was a response to the notion of diversity. This paper claims that the answer to this diversity issue fell far short of expectations and proceeds different examples taken from social, cultural and political life, including the struggle for recognition and the appearance of terrorist violence in sub-Saharan Africa. Multiparty systems designed to respond to the diversity question produced only many versions of the same by ignoring that true diversity is the encroachment on the same of the strange, the different and the unexpected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]